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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/34297-8.txt b/34297-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5391901 --- /dev/null +++ b/34297-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12966 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Angela's Business, by Henry Sydnor Harrison + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Angela's Business + +Author: Henry Sydnor Harrison + +Illustrator: Frederic R. Gruger + +Release Date: November 12, 2010 [EBook #34297] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANGELA'S BUSINESS *** + + + + +Produced by Darleen Dove, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + ANGELA'S BUSINESS + + BY HENRY SYDNOR HARRISON + + + WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY + FREDERIC R. GRUGER + + BOSTON AND NEW YORK + HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + The Riverside Press Cambridge + 1915 + + COPYRIGHT, 1914 AND 1915, BY HENRY SYDNOR HARRISON + + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + _Published March 1915_ + + To JACK + _Who does not think as I do._ + + +[Illustration: "I DECIDED I WOULD REFUSE IT"] + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"I DECIDED I WOULD REFUSE IT" + +"NO! MORALS ARE THE BULWARK OF THE NATION!" + +CHARLES HAD NO GREAT CHANCE TO SHOW HIS FEARLESSNESS OF PUBLIC OPINION + +"OH!... WHY DO YOU DO THIS?" + +"WELL, I WON'T MARRY HER! I WON'T!" + +ANGELA PEEPED OVER INTO WASHINGTON STREET + +THIS SPINSTER SUPPLIED A QUIET CHARM + +"HO!--HAD YOUR SPIES ON ME, HAVE YOU?" + + + + +ANGELA'S BUSINESS + + + + +I + + +Being an author actually at work, and not an author being photographed +at work by a lady admirer, he did not gaze large-eyed at a poppy in a +crystal vase, one hand lightly touching his forehead, the other tossing +off page after page in high godlike frenzy. On the contrary, the young +man at the table yawned, lolled, sighed, scratched his ear, read +snatches of Virginia Carter's "Letters to My Girl Friends" in the +morning's "Post," read snatches of any printed matter that happened to +be about, and even groaned. When he gazed, it was at no flower, but more +probably at his clock, a stout alarm-clock well known to the trade as +"Big Bill"; and the clock gazed back, since there was a matter between +them this evening, and seemed to say, "Well, are you going to the +Redmantle Club, or are you _not_?" But that was precisely the point +on which the young man at the table had not yet made up his mind. + +Of course, if he went to the Redmantle Club, he could not possibly spend +the whole evening here, writing, and, oddly enough, this was at once a +cogent reason for staying away from the Redmantle Club, and a seductive +argument for going to the same. No lady admirer could ever grasp this +paradox, but every true writer must admit that I know his secret +perfectly. + +From time to time, no diversion offering, the author would read over the +last sentence he had written, which very likely ran as follows:-- + + We have a society organized on the agreeable assumption that + every woman, at twenty-five or thereabouts, finds herself in + possession of a home, a husband, and three darling little + curly-headed children. + +Stimulated a trifle, he would thereupon sharpen up his pencil and charge +forward a few sentences, as now:-- + + Slipshod people never test such old assumptions against + actuality; they cling to what their grandfathers said, and call + their slipshodness conservatism. So (like ostriches) they avoid + the fact that there are three large and growing classes of + women who simply have no relation to their comfortable old + theory. I refer, of course, to the classes of Temporary + Spinsters, of Permanent Spinsters, and of Married but + Idle--childless wives living in boarding-houses, for example. + Let no Old Tory conceive that he has disposed of the Woman + Question until he can plainly answer: What are all these + various women to DO in their fifteen waking hours a day? + +Following which, he lit a cigarette in a moody manner, and sat frowning +at the back of the head of his relative and secretary, who was clacking +away all the while on a second-hand typewriter near by. + +It will be contended that some hesitancy was fitting enough to the +writer's thesis, Woman having raised perplexities in the bosoms of +philosophers from the earliest times on. But perplexity did not happen +to be the trouble with this philosopher, Charles King Garrott. These +sentences Mr. Garrott so apathetically set down were the ancient +commonplaces of his mind, the familiar bare bones of special researches +long holding a unique position in his life. The dull General Public, +with its economic eye, might yet rate him merely as a private tutor, +formerly of Blaines College; the relative and secretary there might +judge him only a young man of an unmasculine thin sedentary quality, who +mysteriously gave his youth to producing piles of strange stuff that all +had to be copied out on the typewriter. But, in the privacy of his own +soul, Charles Garrott was, through all, not alone the coming American +novelist (which rather went without saying), but, in that direct +connection, probably the only man in the world who really understood +Woman. + +Old times used this phrase unscientifically; "understanding women" has +acquired misleading connotations. The words seem to call up the picture +of a purely gallant observer, one with a polished mustache and amorous +gay eyes, sitting under a sidewalk awning and ogling out over a purplish +drink. We may go so far as to state plainly that they call up the +picture of a Frenchman. The young man at the table is scarcely imagined +as this sort of authority, viewing Woman crudely as La Femme. As he +could not put pencil to paper without revealing, Charles Garrott viewed +Woman, never as La Femme, but exclusively as a Question. Himself the New +Man obviously, he saw Woman solely as a Movement, meditated about her +strictly as an Unrest. When he considered her in the concrete--and that +he seldom did nowadays, if we need not count his friend, Mary Wing, who +was as New as he, to say the least of it--his eye reviewed and +criticized her, not as a Sex, but strictly as a human being against an +environment. Charles Garrott would scientifically diagnose a Woman to +her face, in a manner which she, poor creature, but little suspected. + + Romance [he began again] left us with the sentimental tradition + that a w---- + +"Charles!" said his relative and secretary, speaking for the first time +in ten minutes, a long silence for him--"I'll thank you for your +attention a moment." + +"Certainly, Judge," said Charles Garrott, with that alacrity with which +a true writer habitually welcomes an interruption. + +"Here, near the end of this story--passage I can't for the life of +me.... Here! Seems to go like this: 'Let a man,' cried Dionysius, +cracking walnuts with a sort of splendid sadness, 'but free his eyes +from the magic of sex, and mask my words'--no!--let's see--'_mark_ my +words, Bishop, he shall see strange truths.'" + +There was a pause. + +"Mistake somewhere!" said the gentleman at the typewriter, with a +chuckle. "Well, what's what?" + +"No, that's right, I believe. Why, what's the matter with it?" + +"Why!--there's no sense in it!" + +"Oh--it's advanced talk, you know. Modern, epigrammatic stuff, you might +call it." + +"Conceding that, here's the bit about the nuts. That's where the mistake +is, _I_ claim. Let me see--'cracking walnuts with a sort of _splendid_ +sadness.' Good gad,--that can't be right, Charles! 'Sober sadness,' +'sorrowful sadness'--something of that sort you meant, eh?" + +The secretary had swung about suddenly, revealing a face almost +startlingly handsome, fine-cut as a cameo, pink and white as a +professional beauty's, and topped with a magnificent crown of snow-white +hair. + +"'Pathetic sadness,' now, my dear fellow? Go just a little better, +wouldn't it?" + +"Well--no, Judge, not just in this particular story. Fact is, it's meant +to be a little queer, you see." + +"It _is_ queer, that's my point!" said the Judge, rather worried. +"'Cracking walnuts with a sort of splendid sadness'--if the public +understands _that_!--Well, as you like, of course." + +Having thus washed his hands of all responsibility, the relative gazed a +moment at a little red "Nothing But Business, Please" sign that hung +above his typewriter-table, hummed a bar or two in a sweet tenor voice, +and resumed his now expert clacking. + +Similarly his employer resumed his composition:-- + + Romance left us with the sentimental tradition that a woman's + sex was a complete, indeed a glorious, justification of her + existence (_v._ F. Dell: "Women as World Builders"). Because + she some day would be, or might possibly be, a mother of + children, she was set upon a pedestal and left there, exempt + from further responsibilities meanwhile. The potentiality of + motherhood became a claim to life-long support in idleness, + etc., etc.-- + + Now, we have long understood that the controlling fact in the + life of every man is the way in which he gets his living. We + have long understood that the essential immorality is to get + something for nothing. But only lately have we come to see how + these two general laws apply, have always applied, to women. + Only late-- + +But there the pencil, which had been dragging, came again to a halt. + +This writing went forward in an old exercise-book, on the label of which +a fine trembling hand had written "_French Composition_." It was seen +that firmer fingers had overwritten that inscription with another: +"NOTES ON WOMEN." Here, in brief, the authority was reducing certain +views to essay form, according to a plan he had: squeezing out the meat +of his mind into the exercise-book, as the moral basis of a great new +novel, nothing less. And the truth was that he had no sooner begun the +stock-taking process than difficulties appeared, and the present want of +ardor made itself felt. Faint doubts and questionings, indeed, knocked +at Charles Garrott's mind in these days; not touching Woman, of course, +but certainly seeming to touch his last year's formula for her. "I'm an +ultra-modern with conservative reactions," he had thought to himself, +with a sense of important discovery, but a night or two ago. And on the +whole, he felt that that had explained him scientifically into the best +company in the world. + +The reference was to the one other existing person who, it was conceded, +might possibly know as much about Woman as he, Charles, did. That one +was a lady in Sweden. And, reassuringly enough, he had long since noted +in the Swedish lady's bold modernism, also, this precise same tendency +toward judicious reconsideration. + +Suddenly the young man put away his writing, shut his table-drawer with +a click, and said:-- + +"I'm going out for awhile, Judge--to a meeting of the Redmantle Club. +Think I need a little stimulus." + +He went away to the bedroom, thinking, but not of the Redmantle Club, +for which, to say truth, he cared little. Nor were his thoughts in line +with the swingeing sentences he had just been writing in the +exercise-book. On the contrary, the young authority was openly inquiring +of himself: _Was_ economic independence the complete solution of the +Unrest? _Were_ there no Values in the world but Utilitarian Values? + +The bedroom door shut, and Judge Blenso, who had replied with a mere +busy nod to Charles's announcement, desisted from his clacking, and +produced a late copy of "The Rider and Driver" from the little drawer of +his typewriter-table. He began to look at pictures with a happy +expression upon his striking face. + +Why was Mr. Blenso called the Judge? An interesting point, on which I, +for one, unluckily can shed no light. But if he has also been called a +relative and secretary, that was for the sake of peace only. To say +outright that this fine large gentleman was Charles Garrott's nephew +(his half-nephew, to be exact) would necessitate a vast deal of +explanatory genealogy. That was a fact, as the family Bibles of the +Blensos and Minters clearly proved, but it is a fact that had better be +quietly ceded. Judge Blenso was a relative, and it is quite true that +his young half-uncle had been reared from infancy to address him as +Uncle George. Garrott, who had no other nephew in the world, had always +thought it a little unfair. + +The Judge's disaster had come upon him in the prime of a gallant +widowerhood. He had dived from an unfamiliar pier, one luckless day, in +the interests of a stout young woman, who flattered herself that she was +drowning. Diving too close to avoid her bulk, Charles's relative had +struck his head upon a submerged beam which should not have been there; +and the stout young woman, so far from drowning, had promptly proved +that she could float enough for two. She had saved her rescuer's life, +in short. + +But the beam had had the last word in the encounter, after all. When +Uncle George Blenso got well of his concussion, it was early discovered +that he was just a little "different"; also that his nominal Real Estate +and Loans business downtown was far, far from solvent. It was +accordingly proposed in the family that Uncle George should go to the +Garrott place in Prince William County; but this proposal had been +rejected at once by Uncle George, who protested indignantly that he was +a city man. The upshot was that Charles, being the only city relative +extant, had invited the Judge to share his third floor here, turning out +his young friend and room-mate, Donald Manford, for that express +purpose. That had seemed to settle the issue. But no; very soon the +lively kinsman was pointing out that he would need money, of course, for +clothes, club-dues, and so on, and accordingly it was arranged that he +should become Charles's literary assistant on a regular salaried basis. + +It happened that Charles had as yet had occasion to publish but a single +fiction ("The Truth About Jennie"; see "Favorite Magazine," for August, +1910). He had, indeed, as much need of a private chaplain as of a +secretary. The peculiarities of the case, thus, often struck and amused +him; and they did so now as, opening the door of the bedroom, hatted and +coated, he saw his secretary's still youthful head bowed pleasantly over +the magazine. + +"Ah, my dear fellow, there you are!" said the secretary, with just a +little jump. + +And putting down his reading-matter in a manner suggesting that, of +course, he had had to kill time somehow while waiting for Charles, he +went on at once in an agreeable confidential voice:-- + +"By the by, I intended to ask you--you've heard about this Miss +Trevenna? Gad, you know, Charles! Her father won't let her name be +mentioned!" + +The employer eyed him gravely, pulling on his gloves. The story alluded +to was not unknown to him: how one modern girl, claiming more Freedom +than existed, had too rashly crossed the great gulf, and how, her +enterprise proving fatally unsuccessful, she had lately come home again. +He felt very sorry for Miss Trevenna. + +"Fact!--her mother visits her in secret, in lodgings," said his +secretary, dropping his eager voice further. "A sad case--sad, yes--but, +my dear fellow, can we allow our girls to run off with other people's +husbands? No! Morals," said Judge Blenso, sternly, "are the bulwark of +the nation!--that's what _I_ say! Am I right, Charles?" + +[Illustration: "NO! MORALS ARE THE BULWARK OF THE NATION!"] + +Charles said that he was perfectly right. He then proposed that the +Judge should knock off work for the night, forthwith. But the Judge +looked rather shocked at the suggestion, and began to clack vigorously +at Dionysius. + +"There's really no hurry about this short stuff, you know. Why not go +down and cheer Mrs. Herman up a bit? She always appreciates a call from +you." + +The relative's hand irresistibly rose to his mustache. + +"A fine woman, a charmin' fine widow-woman," said he, in his rich voice. +"But!--business _before_ pleasure, Charles. That's _my_ way, my boy." + +However, the ringing motto seemed a little too good to live up to. +Hardly had the front door shut on Charles when Judge Blenso--he rather +insisted on the official title, now that he was secretary--hooded his +old typewriter for the night, turned down the light in the green-domed +lamp on the table, and descended to visit his landlady. That he had +small reverence for his half-uncle's New Thinking now became clear. The +Judge left the Studio (as he himself had christened it), chuckling +silently to himself, and on the steps began to chant aloud a sort +of gay recitative of his own composition. The chant went a beat +to every step, thus: "Cracking--piffle--walnuts--piffle--in a--sort +of--piffle--sadness!" + + + + +II + + +The Redmantle Club was more advanced than Charles, and he knew it. And +when he told his relative that he was going to it for stimulus, he must +have been secretly well aware that it was but a treacherous stimulus he +was likely to get. + +The Club had been founded by Mrs. Frederick B. Seaman, who had once had +a novel published, long ago, at a nominal expense of two hundred and +fifty dollars. The name Redmantle had some significance which eludes +memory, but there seems to be no doubt that the founder's original idea +had been merely to gather together a few congenial persons to abuse the +publishers to. The times, however, chanced to be ripe for a broader +forum, one where the most advanced women of both sexes could meet and +freely speak out the New Mind. The Redmantle had seemed to fill the +long-felt want, from the start. Now its meetings began with a Programme, +and you may be sure nobody bothered with such small fry as a publisher. +The Redmantle speakers won salvos only by completely exterminating the +Family and the Home, or proving beyond successful contradiction that +Love Is Going Out. + +By arriving late on purpose, Charles Garrott missed a speech by Mary +Wing on the New Education, for which he was rather sorry. For a year or +more he had regarded Miss Wing as one of his best friends, and he always +liked to hear her demolish, in characteristically forceful sentences, +the surviving tradition that the true object of education is to +ornament gentility. He liked to see Mary Wing lay her hand upon her +breast, her Self, and cry out: "So long as I live, whatever I do or +think or am, the center of the world for me is _here_. I will not +conjugate dead languages or recite the imports of Uruguay, before I +learn the first fact about my Self--my body and my mind, my background +and my opportunity!" On the other hand, by his late arrival, Charles +missed Miss Frothingham's advanced harp-solo, and Professor Clarence +Pollock's tribute to a celebrated lady anarchist. As to the elder Miss +Hodger's address on the New Ego, he was not much less opportune. Miss +Hodger was nearing her peroration as the writing tutor appeared at the +door. + +He took up a position just inside, and looked through the parlor smoke. +The smoke emanated principally from the ladies, who were, however, as +five to one. Miss Hodger towered by a baby-grand piano, one hand upon an +album, and clamored for her Rights. She demanded these Rights of hers, +whatever they were, with such iteration and passion that a kindly, +simple person, had there been any such present, must needs have cried +out, "Give that lady her Rights there!--and quick about it!" + +Miss Hodger's was a tall figure, bony but commanding; she had a flat +chest, a tangled mane of sorrel hair and a face somewhat like a horse's. +Of her argument, little need be said; you may find it in detail in the +very books where Miss Hodger found it. It was, in sum, an unanswerable +demonstration of woman's sacred duty of Developing her Ego. The exposé +of the Home proved particularly searching; it brought loud cheers. Much +Miss Hodger said, too, of the Higher Law and the Richness of +Personality, of Contributions to the Race and Enhancement of the Life +Stream. In Charles Garrott's ears one sentence seemed to ring and stick +above the rest: "Fiercely and relentlessly shall Modern Woman hack away +all that impedes her in her Self-Development--all, I care not what it +is!" + +She ended with a kind of yell, thumped the album twice, and strode away +from the baby-grand. There were bursts of clapping, a chorus of +approval, and then general buzzing and commotion. The Programme was +over. Everybody was standing: all talking, nobody left to listen. +Servants entered bearing trays of light refreshments; light, indeed, +they looked. It was the Redmantle's social hour, the hour of good, free, +courageous talk. + +Charles Garrott moved into the noisy room. All his sides, of course, +were not known to his fellow members, and yet he had a standing here. He +was recognized as one of the pioneer Rightsers; his last year's speech +before the Club, on "Work for Women," had been generally adjudged a +first-rate piece of Modern Thinking. And all the Redmantlers seemed to +like to talk to him, too; they would get round him and back him up into +corners in a way he scarcely liked. Mrs. Frederick B. Seaman looked as +if she meant to kiss him. "And now," she said, beaming, "for a good long +talk about my new book." He cleverly evaded her, but in so doing fell +right into the net of the hearthside anarchist, Professor Pollock, who +drew him in with a hand as large and soft as a beefsteak. Pollock was a +thin, bald young man, with the conventional flowing necktie, and the New +disappearing chin, and secretly Garrott had always thought him a most +terrific jackass. + +"How are we going to relieve this White Slave situation, Garrott? How? +How?" + +"It is one of the grave problems of the day," said Charles. "At the +moment I can only answer, as President Taft answered the workman at +Cooper--" + +"What, you admit that you have no remedy to lay down? None whatever?" + +"At the moment, none. It is one of the grave--" + +The younger and even freer Miss Hodger, who had been hovering near, +exploded a mouthful of cigarette smoke, and exclaimed excitedly:-- + +"Oh sister, only think! Mr. Garrott has no remedy for the White Slave +situation!" + +They thought it most reprehensible of him to have no remedy, and closed +in on him, bursting with theirs. "Have you not considered the +necessities of the living wage!" demanded the elder Miss Hodger's +joyless voice, suddenly at his elbow. "Living wage--bah!" said Professor +Pollock, hotly. "A mere sop--a mere feeble temporizing--" "You must get +into their homes!" cried the youngest Miss Hodger, who admitted homes +only as places to get into. "You must take them very, very young...." + +So they fell to quarreling among themselves, and Charles Garrott +wriggled away, wishing that he were as cocksure about anything as the +Hodgers were about everything, and resolving to try to be henceforward. +So he eluded Miss Frothingham, who was handicapped by her harp and +nearsighted besides, but ran at once against a crimson-faced woman in a +purple negligée, a stranger to him he felt sure, but she asked him at +once, in an angry sort of way, "Don't you favor a public reception +_immediately_ to splendid Flora Trevenna?" In spite of his resolution, +Charles's eyes fell before the threatening gaze. It seemed to be the +sixth time, at least, that he had caught the name of Miss Trevenna among +the Turkish fumes, but the idea of the public reception immediately was +new to him. "Don't you think she's struck a great Blow for Freedom?" +demanded the crimson one, with rising indignation. "Don't you think +she's weakened the hold of the horrible Tyranny of Marriage?" + +Thus the Modern got stimuli, of just the sort he had known he would get +if he came. Members jostled him, blew smoke in his eyes, laid +demonstrative hands upon him. All about him in the dense air, he heard +hot voices crying out incorrect statements of things they had lately +misread; at best loose bits plucked from authors whom he, Charles, had +turned inside out year before last, as like as not. And why, he +wondered, need Redmantlers _look_ so queer? Why must new ideas, if only +the least bit radical, invariably attract people who liked to wear +breakfast-gowns in the evening, people with uncombed hair and burning +pop-eyes, people who had little chin, indeed, but yet far more chin than +humor? + +And then suddenly, in the midst of the febrile Newness, the young +authority found himself talking to a sweet-faced girl from the country, +who looked at him with woman's eyes, and spoke simple little things in a +pretty voice: "Do you play bridge? Do you tango? It must be _wonderful_ +to be a writer...." + +It was really an extraordinary experience. + +The development came by way of his good friend, Mary Wing, whom Charles +reached at last with a certain sense of making port. Miss Wing, it must +be known, was the assistant principal of the great City High School, +where no woman had ever been before her, where she herself had arrived +only after eight years' incessant battling upward. She was also, this +long time, president of the State Branch of the National League for +Education Reform, with the prospect of presently mounting far higher, to +nothing less, if you please, than the General Secretaryship of that rich +and powerful body. Considering her history and her exploits, it seemed +that she should have been six feet tall, with a gaze like a Gorgon and +a jaw like Miss Hodger's. But Mary Wing was actually a slight and almost +fragile-looking creature, with quite girlish blue eyes in a colorless +face that wore an air of deceptive delicacy. + +She was two months older than her friend, Mr. Garrott, which made her +thirty in December. And she was undoubtedly the most distinguished +person in that strident room, not excepting (at the present writing) Mr. +Garrott himself. + +The assistant principal was discovered leaning against a bookcase, +eating sandwiches in large bites, two bites to a sandwich, and paying no +attention to the earnest talk of the group she seemed to belong to. "It +must be the effect of speaking," she said to Garrott. "I'm ravenous. But +goodness, there's no nourishment in these little paper things." And +almost at once she demanded, firm as a Redmantler, if he had ever been +to call on Dr. Flower; some cousin or other of hers, this was, who +(through her connections in the educational world) had lately taken an +appointment as lecturer at the Medical School. Charles had agreed to +call on this worthy, it seemed, but naturally he hadn't done so. + +She chided him for his remissness. It was a mild enough reproof, in all +conscience; yet it was at that moment that he, with his diagnostic +tendency, caught himself eyeing Mary Wing critically, as if she were any +other Redmantler. And then he seemed to become aware that, without +knowing it exactly, he must have been eyeing Mary Wing critically for +some time past now. + +"He'll need some patients, too, to eke out. I must look into that," said +she, popping the second half of a sandwich into her mouth. "I suppose +you don't know anybody who intends to be sick soon, in a costly way?" + +He shook his head. He himself, he intimated, had no idea of getting sick +merely to oblige her rural cousins. + +"What does that girl do?" he added, almost irritably. "Didn't you tell +me there was a girl, twenty-five years old? Why doesn't she work, and +eke out?" + +"She does work. She runs the house." + +"Apparently you didn't see Mrs. Waldo's statement that quarter of an +hour a day was quite enough for that so-called work." + +"Do you believe that?" + +"I know it's false. Still there are ninety-six quarters of an hour in a +day, people estimate. What sort of girl is she? Little nitwit, I +suppose?" + +"She's my cousin." + +"Lots of people have little nitwits for cousins. Why doesn't she pitch +in and earn her keep, like a free personality--as our friend Miss Hodger +would say?" + +Miss Wing was observing him with a strange air, resembling amusement. +"You must really ask her that yourself some time, Mr. Garrott." + +"I'll do it with pleasure, the first time ever I clap eyes on her." + +"Well, then," said she, with a sudden laugh, "do it _now_!" + +And thereupon, within ten seconds, the managing young woman had whisked +him around a knot of Redmantlers, whisked him around the bookcase, and +was saying in merry, efficient tones:-- + +"Angela, this is the famous Mr. Garrott you've heard so much about--my +cousin, Miss Flower! Mr. Garrott's very anxious to--" + +She paused wickedly, but after all finished without malice, "To make +your acquaintance." And so Mr. Garrott did not have to ask the country +cousin on the spot what she was thinking about not to earn her keep. + +The girl had been standing against the other corner of the bookcase all +the time, it seemed. She was talking, in a polite sort of way, to +another guest--Mr. Tilletts, the wealthy and seeking widower--and +fanning away tobacco smoke with a hand too small for the heavy odds. Mr. +Tilletts was removed at once by the thoroughly competent Miss Wing. + +Charles Garrott, recovered from the sudden little surprise, looked at +the cousin with interest, and was at no loss for easy conversation. +While he knew of Miss Flower very well, he pointed out, he had had no +idea that she was here this evening. In fact, he hadn't gathered that +Miss Flower went in for--well, for this sort of thing, exactly. + +"Why--I really don't, I'm afraid," said she in her soft voice. "I don't +suppose I understand it all very well. I just came--because Cousin Mary +invited me!" + +She hesitated, then laughed, and finally said: "And you see, it's the +first party I've been invited to since I came here to live!" + +"And you like parties?" + +"Yes, so much. Don't you?" + +The remark, at, and as to, the Redmantle, seemed delightful. + +"I did, when I was young and gay. Now, I never seem to have time to +enjoy myself any more. You've been meeting a good many people, I +suppose?" + +"Well, no,--not many yet. Really hardly any." The girl laughed, and +again showed a charming naïveté: "You're the very first man I've met +since we came here--except Mr. Tilletts!" + +"But that's a tremendous exception, Miss Flower. You appreciate that +he's one of our leading swains?" + +"Oh, _is_ he!" she said, a little disconcerted. "Why--I hope he didn't +think I was rude! I thought he was--somebody's father, you see, or +uncle...." + +Charles Garrott regarded the cousin pleasurably, with no thought of +cross-examination. He, the authority, it need scarcely be said, had +recognized this girl at sight. Manifestly, she was none other than the +Nice Girl, the Womanly Woman, whom he and all moderns were forever +holding up to scorn. Doubtless it was merely the increased conservative +reaction: but Charles, for the moment, seemed conscious of no scorn in +him toward Miss Angela Flower. + +The cousin was pretty; not beautiful, no throne-shaker; but pretty, and +attractive-looking. Wholly normal she looked, quite engagingly so, with +her fine clear skin, smooth dark hair, and large limpid eyes. In her +manner there was something soft, simple, and sweet, an ingenuous desire +to please and be pleased; Miss Flower was feminine, in short,--it could +not be denied. In a company, where the women acted like men, and the men +acted like the Third Sex, this girl seemed content to remind you, like +her mothers, that she was a woman. + +Her conversation, intrinsically speaking, was not remarkable. But--the +insidious contrast again--in a Midst where everybody else was conversing +remarkably, plain conversation itself became an episode, and a charming +one. She spoke of bridge, saying that she and Cousin Mary were hoping to +"get up a table" one night very soon; of Mitchellton, where she had +lived seven years till September; of the maxixe and the smallness of the +house Mary Wing had taken for them; a dozen such un-New simplicities. +And then, as she happened to be saying something about the strangeness +of the city, "just at first," Charles Garrott exclaimed suddenly, rather +pleased:-- + +"There's a friend of yours, at any rate, Miss Flower--Donald Manford! +The last one in the world you'd expect to meet here." + +The engineer must have just come in; over bobbing heads, through waving +arms, his fine figure and bronzed face had been suddenly glimpsed at the +doorway. This young man was another cousin of Mary Wing's; she, indeed, +had raised him by hand; and he looked hardly less alien at the Redmantle +Club than Miss Angela Flower herself. + +To Garrott's astonishment, Miss Flower did not know Donald from Adam. + +"Is _that_ Mr. Manford?" she exclaimed, surprised apparently by her +cousin's cousin's good looks. "Of course I've known _of_ him for the +longest time, but--" + +"Why, that's strange--he's like a brother to Mary Wing. But then," said +he, reconsidering, "Donald's out of the city half the time, and does +nothing but work when he's here." + +"Oh! Cousin Mary said she was going to bring him to see us some +time--but--" + +He enlarged upon the young engineer's industry (trained into him by Miss +Wing); explained how he was busier than usual just now in view of his +coming trip to Wyoming; mentioned the great Mora dam and cut-off +project, on which he expected a commission under Gebhardt himself. + +"And your cousin Mary, too," he concluded, in the justest way, "is an +awfully busy person, you see." + +"Yes, of course, I know! She does work _terribly_ hard, doesn't she?" + +After the slightest pause, the girl added: "It's such a pity she has to, +don't you think so?" + +On which Donald Manford dropped cleanly from Charles's mind, and he +inquired with authoritative interest, artfully concealed: "How do you +mean, exactly?" + +"Well--I don't know--" + +She looked at him, laughing a little, as if not certain how far she +could say what she meant; but finding his gaze so extremely encouraging, +she went on seriously:-- + +"Don't you think when a woman gets really wrapped up in business--and +all that--she's apt to miss some of the best things of life?" + +He might have laughed at the quaint deliciousness of that, to him, +Charles Garrott. But he didn't. + +"That's the great question your sex is working out, isn't it?" he said, +carefully. "I don't suppose work--just moderate, useful occupation--ever +hurt anybody much, do you?" + +"Oh, no!--of course not. That's just what I believe, too. I believe +everybody ought to have work to do. But--all the work isn't teaching or +going to an office--or being a public speaker--do you think so?" + +"Oh, never. No, indeed." + +She hesitated and said, laughing: "I know _I_ find it work enough just +keeping a house and doing the housework--and being a daughter and +sister!" + +It was at that point that Charles's purely conventional look altered, +his inmost self pricking up its ears, as it were. And a moment later the +simple girl said, in the naïvest way imaginable, what seemed immediately +to stick in his scientific Woman lore like a burr:-- + +"Of course I haven't studied and read like Cousin Mary, but truly it +seems to me that--just making a home is sometimes all the business a +woman could possibly attend to...." + +He stood looking down at her in the strangest way, engrossed with novel +reflections. She would have been astonished had she guessed how her +chance phrase had set this man's mind to working, behind the pleasant +mask. In her innocence she clearly did not understand, even after all +the speeches, how at the Redmantle Club we talked of all businesses, and +everybody's business, but never the business of making a home. + +The reactionary talk proceeded for a space. But shortly, there were +signs that the meeting was about to adjourn. And it was clear to +Charles, as a true writer of a philosophical tendency, that he should be +glad to be alone for a space now, and to think. + +He said suddenly:-- + +"Miss Flower, I want very much to introduce Donald Manford to you, +before I go. May I do it now? Won't you promise to hold fast to this +bookcase, and not budge till I come back?" + +The girl promised. She seemed pleased by his thought of her, but sorry +over his own impending departure. "Oh, do _you_ have to go now?" she +said, and her woman's eyes seemed to add quite plainly: "I'd lots rather +talk to you than meet Mr. Manford." + +The young authority smiled at her, and disappeared into the company. +Directly, he was back again, the engineer in tow. + +Donald, found conversing in a nook with another handsome guest, a Miss +Helen Carson, had rather resisted removal and been hauled off, truth to +tell, in some ill-humor. But Charles, for his part, felt warmly pleased +with himself, bringing together these two nice, normal cousins of Mary +Wing's. The girl too, looked pleased; her eyes were shining, a pretty +color tinged her young cheek. + +"I'm so glad to meet you, Mr. Manford, at last. We're really sort of +connections, aren't we--once removed!" + +"Yes, I believe so!--that's fine. Delighted to know you," said Mr. +Manford. "I hope you enjoyed the speeches this evening?" + +"Well--that's hardly a fair question!" laughed Miss Angela, looking from +one man to the other. "Are you a--regular member?" + +The query brought applauding laughter from Mr. Garrott and a weak groan +from Mr. Manford. "You mean I look like one? Oh, that's a blow! No, +honor bright," he added, "I leave all the advanced stuff to Mary." + +Then Charles took his leave, in the friendliest manner. He felt, in an +odd sort of way, that there had sprung a kind of bond between this girl +and him, all the realer in that she, of course, was so unconscious of +it. So kindly did he feel toward Mary Wing's cousin, indeed, that when +she hoped, in her charming natural way, that he would come to see them +some time soon, he, though anything but a caller, actually came very +near promising to do so. + +Miss Flower's eyes regretted his going; they were feminine eyes. Charles +smiled into them again, pressed her hand, and turned away toward the +Studio, to think. + +By the door, he ran again into Mary Wing. The educator had changed her +position, but was still eating sandwiches. She beckoned Charles nearer, +in her confident way, and said:-- + +"Do you remember my telling you how much I wanted to see Donald settled +before he went off, and sketching a few of the qualifications the girl +must have? And your saying that what I wanted was a syndicate?" + +He remembered, he said. + +"See how I treasure up your _bon mots_. Well, there she is." + +And she nodded down the room, not even in the direction of her cousin +from the country, but to none other than Miss Carson, now found +conversing with the heated Pollock. + +"Oh," said Garrott. + +"Why," exclaimed Mary, the moment her eyes had followed her nod, "I +wonder where Donald is!" + +He decided to pretend not to hear. Gazing at Miss Carson in the light of +this information, he was ready to concede that she seemed a sound enough +modern choice. Well-connected, well-to-do, and completely educated, the +young lady in question, while now taking "two years out" to please her +mother, was next year going to work, to please herself--of course, in +Social Service. Young and alluring Miss Carson looked, indeed. But +something in the mould of her smooth chin, confronting the young man who +had none, seemed to serve notice that, though she was beautiful, she +knew that Women's Egos must be free. + +"Don't you think she may be a little firm? I mean, for Donald?" + +"Firm? Not a bit!--she's human and competent. Heavens!--you don't want +Donald to marry a helpless little silly, do you? But what on earth +became of him, did you notice? I made him come here after me specially +to meet her, and I had them talking so nicely--" + +Then Charles said firmly: "I just introduced him to Miss Flower. It +seemed you'd neglected to do so. By the way, your cousin's charming." + +"Oh," said Mary, rather drawn-out. + +And, after a rebuking pause, she added in pedagogic tones: "Well, I'm +sorry you took him away from Helen. I'm serious about this match, you +see. It would almost reconcile me to giving Donald up." + +The young man's look at his old friend was certainly critical now. And +he refused to feel in the least sorry for his interference with her cool +eu-marital scheme. For, taking even the most liberal view, Modernity was +for Moderns; probably always would be. What under the sun did a fellow +like Donald want with a wife who would prove him wrong about a cosine, +and keep him up jawing about Mrs. Gilman till two o'clock in the +morning? + + * * * * * + +From the Turkish air of the Redmantle, Charles Garrott passed out into +the bracing November night. Two blocks farther along, he passed the door +of another club, a completely male one. And down the wide steps, between +the columnar lights, there came shambling a large, loose-jointed, +round-faced man in a brown felt hat, and joined him. + +"Well, Charlie." + +"Good evening, Mr. Wing." + +Having caught stride, the two men walked on in silence. This Mr. Wing +was Mary's Uncle Oliver, an interesting individual in his way, member of +the City School Board, and in the business world known sometimes as a +"capitalist," sometimes again as a loan-shark. When in the vein, Mr. +Wing could be conversational enough, and his morose air at present +indicated that he had lost not less than three dollars at the Bellevue +Club card-tables this evening. + +When they had proceeded some three blocks in total silence, Charles, +emerging from his brown study, said idly:-- + +"Mr. Wing, do you believe in the Woman's Movement?" + +Hearing no reply to his query, he glanced around, and found Mr. Wing +slowly shaking his head. It seemed to be a time-gaining sort of shake; +it undertook to hold the floor temporarily, promising good sound +argument to follow. Charles waited. But Uncle Oliver did not speak; he +only continued to shake his head, slowly and profoundly. And when the +two had traversed half a block in this provisional sort of way, the +money-lender suddenly turned up the steps of the house where he lived, +still shaking his head. + +Halfway up the steps, he looked back over his shoulder, and said:-- + +"Well, good-night, Charlie." + +"Good-night, Mr. Wing." + + + + +III + + +The first thing the author did, on opening the door of the Studio, was +to look at the clock. Big Bill pointed to but five minutes of eleven. +Good! There remained a clean hour and a half before he would have to +cease work and go to bed, to wake up a private tutor. + +All the lethargy of the earlier evening seemed to have vanished now, +under the strong reverse stimulus of the Redmantle Club. Having turned +up the light in his gas-lamp, the young man stood a moment, thinking +intently, and then sat down at his writing-table. The table was twelve +years old, and had been to college and law-school. It was worn and +stained, but still strong, and bore up, besides the lamp and clock, not +only a large array of writer's paraphernalia, but a considerable +floating miscellany, too, including a clipping or so, several unanswered +letters, a stray tobacco-pouch, a thick exercise-book, and the +particular volume on Women he happened to be reading at the moment. +Ignoring these, the proprietor drew from the back of his table drawer a +capacious brown-paper folder, and from the folder plucked three +typewritten sheets, held together with a clip. + +It was seen that the topmost of these sheets bore a heading: MARY WING. +And for some moments the author of them sat in stillness, conning over +the lines that followed: the magnanimous lines he had prepared with such +pains long ago, and then tamely put to sleep in a drawer. + +He had composed this eulogy last winter, to help Miss Wing in her +campaign for the assistant principalship of the High School. His plan, +of which she knew nothing to this day, had been cunning and complete. +First he would get this "write-up" into the "Persons in the Foreground" +department of "Willcox's," the famous and enormously circulated weekly; +then he would have the "Post" reprint it; finally he would induce all +the local papers to print glowing editorials demanding, "Is this +prophetess to be without honor in her own country?" Unquestionably a +most helpful plan; but characteristically, Mary had not waited for it. +By some "pull" she had, she had put her little matter through months +ahead of schedule, and Judge Blenso had just finished typing the +"write-up," late one winter's afternoon, when Charles was summoned to +the telephone to be greeted by the first woman assistant principal in +history. He, of course, had been delighted with her success. And +yet--had he not felt even then that the episode was typical of a +positively manly independence? + +Now he read over his forgotten words with cool judiciality:-- + + Her name was in newspaper headlines before she was out of her + teens; and many and many a time since. She wished to be a + doctor, and the Medical School would not take her in. And + shortly this slim girl, with her sweetly-cut chin and ethereal + eyes, had raised the whole State on the issue of principle thus + thrown down: Did a woman have the right to study, or not? She + stormed the courts for an injunction, she set the legislature + by the ears for a special act. The story of her personal + interview with the Governor, at the height of the disturbance, + is often told to this day; but never by any friend of the + Governor's. And then, when she was within a step of winning the + long fight, her father died suddenly and she faced the + immediate necessity of earning a living. + +Farther along, the author's eye found the particular passage that had +been in his mind from the start, the part about the National League for +Education Reform. Having recounted how the bequest of Rufus B. Zecker's +millions had "assured the permanence and ultimate triumph of the +League's programme," the generous "puff" went on:-- + + What the National League contemplates is nothing less than the + remaking of our entire educational system, on the basis of a + new perception of truth, namely: that education is, not + learning at all, but purely the process of fitting the + individual for effectual relations with his (or her) + environment. With the League's propaganda to that end, under + the brilliant leadership of Horace Gurney Ames, Miss Wing has + been closely associated for the past seven years. Her work here + has been, indeed, the dominant part of her career.... + +The dominant part of her life, he would better have written. And that +was precisely the trouble. + +The sheets dropped from the young man's hands, and he gazed unwinking at +the green translucence of his lamp. His mind skipped back to a day in +early September, when Mary and her mother had come home from their two +weeks in the metropolis--Mrs. Wing still looking rather crushed from the +overwhelming rush of New York, Mary radiant with the hope that before +long she might go back to New York, to stay there the rest of her life. +For on that journey she had abruptly learned that the League directors +had their eyes upon her with reference to their General Secretaryship, +which was to become vacant next March. Undoubtedly, the brilliant Dr. +Ames had sounded her pretty directly on this point. Undoubtedly, too, it +would be another long step up for Mary, making her, in the educational +world at least, a figure of national consequence. Once again, of course, +Charles Garrott had been delighted. And yet it was clear to him now that +his Modernity had first felt conservative reactions on that very day. + +Through the shut door of the bedroom there came a gentle snoring. After +the day's secretarial labor, Judge Blenso slept well. Charles rose and +walked his carpet, much worn with a writer's meditative pacing. + +The wisest of us generalize from the instances that lie nearest us. How +far this young man's views on Woman had been moulded by contrasting the +maturing uselessness of his pupil Grace Chorister, say, with the fine +efficience of Miss Wing, he himself could not have said. But at least he +knew that Mary Wing had long embodied the best of the whole Movement for +him. He had held her up, in season and out, as a perfect example of the +New Woman at her best. And Mary Wing was that, he declared it now; the +real thing, as different as possible from the hollow shams of the +Redmantle Club. Of course--of _course_--she had a right, just the same +right that a man had, to put away her mother, her family and friends, +and follow away the star of her work. But ... if only she showed a +little more appreciation of values apart from My Career; if only you +could imagine Mary sometimes speaking of Being a Daughter and Being a +Sister. + +Yes; those were the words that rose naturally in his mind. Beyond doubt, +Mary Wing's cousin from the backwoods had given a push to Charles +Garrott's thought; he would have been the first to admit that. Not +merely had Miss Angela happened to body forth, in the most pleasing, +unconscious way, that very type which all Redmantlers so derided; but +further, she had artlessly used a phrase which, to his authoritative +mind, had helped to scientize her case at a bound. For of course the +most scientific modern demand as to Miss Angela's class came simply down +to this, that all Temporary Spinsters should have some regular business +to occupy their hands and heads. Very well, then, laughed this little +girl: What about the _Business_ of Making Homes? + +The phrase, connoting so much more than mere "keeping house," was worthy +of a writer. And when had this other doctrine grown so strong and sure, +that the Business of Making a Career, of Developing My Ego, was +necessarily the biggest business in the world? + +In the silence of the large dim Studio, the young man stood stroking the +bridge of his nose, somewhat worriedly. It was a well-cut bridge, and +held three brown freckles. + +It occurred to him, not for the first time, that he himself was helping +to spread the egoistic doctrine referred to. He remembered his novel, in +short: his Old Novel, as he already called it, albeit it was his only +one, and he and Judge Blenso had completed it but two weeks ago, to a +day. This novel, in manuscript, was now in the hands of the great house +of Willcox Brothers Company, whom Charles, after due thought, had +selected as his publishers. Willcox's offer, and the contract, might +come by any mail now. + +To the writing, and infinite rewriting, of this first work had gone the +scant leisure of more than four years. Its title-page read: "BONDWOMEN: +A Novel of Modern Marriage." (The Judge had first typed the title +BANDWOMEN, as if it were a Novel of Female Bandsmen, which had annoyed +Charles very much.) Considering the cunning with which he had labored to +"keep the story moving," it could scarcely be doubted, that "Bondwomen" +was destined to have a large sale. And that, in fact, was just the +danger; that was precisely the reason that he, the author, felt this +sense of moral responsibility. Young married women, young impressionable +Temporary Spinsters everywhere, would soon be reading this book, and +moulding their characters upon it. He, of course, had never preached any +of the wilder, Trevenna Modernity. But all the same.... That passage +there, for instance, where _Lily Slender_, in the lonely vigil on the +terrace, reviews the status of Parasitic Woman and decides to leave her +husband, and grow her Soul: certainly the probability was that +intelligent women all over the world (he would have to grant British and +Colonial rights at once, no doubt) would shortly be devouring that keen, +advanced Thinking; and, it was to be feared, a general exodus from Homes +would follow. In his mind's eye, Charles saw armies of women rising and +packing Gladstone bags in the stilly night, and stealing forth, just as +the dawn whitened the east, to join _Lily Slender_ in lifting marriage +to the Higher Plane, by means of Commerce. + +He had put much of Mary Wing into _Lily_; he knew that. But then he +hadn't taken it in, in those days, how serious Mary was as to--what was +the word of that mad ass Hodger?--fiercely hacking away whatever impeded +her in her Self-Development. + +Had not the moment rather come when some one, some all-seeing and +completely modern authority, should resolutely sound the Note of +Warning? Was it so sure that careering Egoism had anything more valuable +to give the world than the old virtues which it flouted? Beauty, charm, +and cheer, tenderness, selfless sympathy, all that mothering meant: was +it not ridiculous to ignore these enormous contributions to the work of +the world, because, forsooth, they could not show an immediate cash +return? + +Now all the clocks of the city--all, that is, that were right, and had +bells--began to sound midnight. But the absorbed author and authority +paced on, aware of no sound. He was thinking, with something like +excitement, of his next novel, "Bondwomen's" greater successor, for +which he was now just struggling to fix his point of view, straighten +out his "moral plot," by means of notes in the old French +exercise-book. Long as he had sensed a certain spiritual starkness in +his first novel, long as he had looked forward to his second, the vital +questions concerning his new "line" had never yet been settled in his +mind.... Well, suppose that, with a frank, courageous change of front, +he employed the New Novel to sound the wholesome Note of Warning; +suppose that he boldly took a Home-Maker for his heroine, for example, +and justified her--justified her _scientifically_--as no modern thinker +had ever justified her before.... + +The striking idea was not a new one altogether; but its possibilities, +suddenly opening out, rapidly grew more and more interesting. +Unfortunately, before it could be developed in even the smallest degree, +it was abruptly interfered with by a most unwelcome intrusion of the +practical. + +Charles Garrott was a tutor. He had turned eagerly to his table, to +capture certain phrases at least, while they were yet hot in his mind. +But now, chillingly, his eye fell upon that other exercise-book, lying +there publicly atop the volume on Women. At a glance that book looked +exactly like its sister, kept hidden in a drawer; but in fact there was +a boundless distinction. No hand had overwritten the label of that book +there raising it to the peerage, as it were. That book was just a common +book: "French Composition." And it was known to contain uncorrected +exercises, forty sentences at least, which must be tutorially attended +to, before Charles Garrott slept this night. + +There followed a brief struggle; but it could end in only one way. +Charles, with no good grace, sat at his table and clutched up a fat blue +pencil. + +It was a galling occurrence. Yet a man, of course, must live, whether +cynical Frenchmen can see the necessity or not. And the tutoring, say +what you would against it, was the best net result of a gradual sifting +process, designed to find what would yield the largest amount of money +for the least amount of work. So had Charles Garrott bent his life, to +be a writer. Bred casually to the law, he had thrown over the +encouraging beginnings of a practice directly he found that clients +expected to take all a man's time, including nights even. Teaching he +did not love, and yet, as he had enjoyed an excellent education, it +"came easier" than anything else. His boast to friends, indeed, was that +he could teach anything, whether he had ever heard of it before or not; +and it was a fact that at a private school once--years ago, in the +interval between college and law-school--he had taught Spanish on three +days' notice, keeping, as he said, precisely one page and a half ahead +of his class the whole year through. But teaching Ancient Languages at +Blaines College was found, upon fair experiment, to involve too many +papers in the Studio, conferences with boys, annoying teachers' +meetings, and similar invasions of a writer's privacy. Besides, it was +not nearly lucrative enough, after the coming of the Judge, who drew +twenty-five dollars a month as Secretary, besides his keep. + +Thus had evolved the private tutor, with a waiting-list. Thus it was +that probably the only living compeer of the lady in Sweden must put +aside his Thinking to-night, to peruse and criticize such stuff as +this:-- + + 16. _Bon jour, Monsieur le Curé! Avez vous vu le grand cheval + de mon oncle, le médecin?_ + +Oh, detestable! + +The two French exercise-books--twins with what a difference!--had +started life equally as the property of a certain dear old lady, who had +been spurred into studious endeavor by reading in a magazine that Roman +Cato learned Greek at eighty. She had pointed out to her daughter, +quite excitedly, that she herself was but seventy-one, and French was +easier, besides; and that evening she had telephoned to Charles. The old +lady wrote a very neat but virtually illegible hand, employing the +finest Spencerian pen ever seen:-- + + 23. _Non, petit Henri, non; votre soeur Marie n'est pas + jamais aussi méchante que vous fûmes hier soir._ + +The author's golden moments fled. + +Nevertheless, before he went to bed, Charles Garrott did produce from +his drawer that other private book of his (the front part of which, +also, was stuffed with observations about the Curé and naughty little +Henry). Here, for what time he had, the young modern set down, on a +fresh page, preliminary Notes, such as, indeed, contrasted oddly with +those inscribed in the earlier evening. And when he shut up his book to +go to bed, he did it with an air, and spoke aloud:-- + +"Let 'em bite on that!" + +From his tone, you might have supposed that all the Redmantlers of the +world would come to-morrow and look at these novel words of his. That, +of course, was far from being the case: these were his inviolable +secrets. Yet so real were his imaginings to the young man, so +reactionary seemed even the thought of a Novel of Warning, that an +unmistakable defiance had tinged his voice as he spoke. And particularly +did this defiant air seem to extend to his excellent friend, Mary Wing. + +Charles Garrott went to bed that night thinking defiantly of Mary (and +almost tenderly of Mary's so different cousin); and on succeeding +afternoons, when he took his walks abroad, he did not turn his steps, as +was frequently his habit, toward streets where the advanced assistant +principal was likely to be met. + +None the less, he did meet Mary on the street, before the week was out; +and then the case was such that the secret sense of disloyalty faded, +and Charles saw that he had been right all along. Mary, in short, was +found parading Washington Street, where the largest possible number of +people would be certain to see her, in the company of the too celebrated +Miss Trevenna. And then the authority thought of the Home-Making cousin +more sympathetically than ever; though he did not guess that the cousin, +chancing to see him and his ladies from an upstairs window, was also +thinking, not unsympathetically, of him. + + + + +IV + + +It was not Charles's fault that he did not see Miss Angela, to-day, as +she saw him; the sight of her would have been agreeable to him, at that +moment particularly. But the window from which the pretty cousin looked +out happened to be a considerable distance away; and she gathered +nothing of his sentiments. + +Dr. Flower's house, indeed, was not on Washington Street at all, but on +Center, a very different street. Center, however, had this merit, that +it stood back to back with Washington, and as the Washington Street +residences were mostly "detached" at this point, the rear of the Flower +house commanded a certain view of that handsome thoroughfare; not much +of it, of course,--an oblique slice cut in between houses. The distance, +as has been said, was rather great for eyes less keen than the lynx's. +But a pair of opera-glasses at the parted curtain discreetly bridged the +space, and brought a few feet of the Street of the Rich under the +legitimate observation of the less materially successful. + +Now, when she had leveled her glasses upon the three figures--for +Charles, at this trying moment, was escorting _two_ ladies down the +promenade--Miss Angela felt, to say truth, a little lonely and out of +things. Not only was Mr. Garrott the first man she had met in the new +city, but she had met him only, as it must now have seemed to her, like +ships passing in the night. Not dreaming how she had been figuring in +his thought, the girl felt, humanly and femininely, a little depressed. +And when she presently reflected, "I suppose this is the time he goes +down to lunch every day!"--the small thought was actually a cheering one +to her, presenting, as it were, some point of contact with Washington +Street and the pleasant happenings that seemed to go on over there. + +Such, in fine, was the sheer enchantment of distance. To Mr. Garrott +himself, this public promenade was as far from a pleasant happening as +could well have been conceived. + +When he had looked over the street just now, and seen who his old +friend's companion was, Charles had, indeed, experienced a decided +shock. On the heels of that, he had had a moment of distinct +uncertainty. Ought he to cross and join this remarkable pair, or should +he avert his eyes? The etiquette here was unknown to him, the business +without precedent in his experience. + +There was more than etiquette involved, of course. While this particular +city was alive to contemporary currents, and even had its little +Redmantle Club, it still considered the Church of England marriage +service a sound start for a union, and associated contrary theories +exclusively with inferior morals. To walk Washington Street with Miss +Trevenna was, as it were, to wound and rebuke the city's old-fashioned +prejudices. But that, without doubt, was the very reason Mary Wing was +doing it. + +Charles had crossed the street. Mary Wing saw him, half-way over. Not +suspecting how his unfavorable scrutiny had been upon her for some time +past, she smiled a bright welcome. + +He was presented to Miss Trevenna. She acknowledged his greeting in an +absent, fluty voice, and turned on him briefly a face of almost nun-like +serenity, palely lit by a pair of starry eyes. He found her altogether a +mystic-looking creature, not easily associated with things wild and +gay. + +"I was just telling Flora about the Education Reform League," continued +Mary, in her calm tones. + +But Charles, after all, had no great chance that day to show his +fearlessness of mere public opinion. Hardly had he passed out of Miss +Angela Flower's range of vision, when the walk of three ended, if the +episode did not. It was Miss Trevenna's corner, it seemed; she could not +be persuaded to go farther. + +[Illustration: CHARLES HAD NO GREAT CHANCE TO SHOW HIS FEARLESSNESS OF +PUBLIC OPINION] + +"I'd turn with you, but I have a class," said Mary, disappointed, and a +little surprised, it seemed. "I wish you'd stroll on with me!" + +"I've something to do at my room--some business to attend to, really." + +"Then let's walk this afternoon, do! Shall I come for you?" + +"How nice of you! I'd like to so much." + +On which the girl was gone, stepping on light feet down the side street. +In the momentary lapse of talk, Charles's eye went after her. He saw +something mysteriously withdrawn in that gray figure, something set +forever apart. + +And then, while he and his friend walked on six steps in silence, the +young man wondered, with a sudden fierce annoyance, what Mary thought +she was doing exactly. + +Of Miss Trevenna he knew only what the world knew, which was little +enough. One of several daughters of a prosperous family, she had been +known as a reserved, and somewhat dreamy girl, indifferent to social +life, and much addicted to curling up at home with books of poetry; +Shelley's poetry or some such bewildering stuff; altogether a queer +person. She even wrote poetry herself, it was damagingly alleged after +the crash, and it was recalled that in women's meetings she had +sometimes risen and expressed, in the quietest sort of way, ideas which +disconcerted even the Hodgers of her day. Duly there had come to town +the entirely typical dashing stranger: Robert McKittrick, this one was, +an architect in government employ, who came with excellent letters. Mr. +McKittrick was seen in public, a time or two, with Mr. Trevenna's +quietly peculiar daughter; it was known that a sane and sound Mrs. +McKittrick existed in Philadelphia, or some such place; there may have +been a little mild talk, but it was very little and very mild. And then +one fine day, the town was startled with the news that these two had +taken the great jump together, by the last night mail train north. + +It was the sort of thing you read about in every novel nowadays, +especially if written by an Englishman. But this time, unluckily, it had +really happened, and in a community not too large for a homogeneous +public opinion. Moreover, life does differ just a little from the +novels, in that it possesses no invisible author to shut the book +splendidly, the moment the case is proved. Life did not leave Mr. +McKittrick and Miss Trevenna forever singing in the honeymoon heyday. It +merely kept them in the back of the town's mind for two years, a tidbit +or a terrible warning, according as you looked at it, and then it +brought Miss Trevenna back to us again, alone. + +It might have seemed the oldest and the vulgarest story in the world. +The weak, trusting maiden, the handsome, promissory villain, the flight, +the rude awakening and Conviction of Sin, and then the piteous Return +(Act III, Curtain) to Forgiveness, a black shawl, Quick Decline, and +Death: these things have wrung the gallery's scalding tears from farther +back than we can remember. But well Charles Garrott understood that Miss +Trevenna's "case" had nothing to do with this cheap business. He thought +it right enough, of course (theoretically speaking), that Mary Wing +should sympathize with a sister in distress. And yet.... Well, no one, +certainly, had "deceived" or "betrayed" Miss Trevenna. Quite probably +she had proposed the excursion herself, like one of the glorious +heroines at the moment educating British maidenhood. Miss Trevenna had +gone with her lover because she had a Right to Her Happiness; she had +gone to fulfil the Unwritten Law of Her Being; she had gone to Strike a +Blow for Freedom. It was absurd to look for remorse in a black shawl +here. + +And still, glancing after that oddly cloistral figure, the young man +felt that the net effect was not so different from the sorry old +melodrama, after all. + +He spoke suddenly, with a manner proving that he did not pride himself +on wearing a mask for nothing:-- + +"Did you know that a woman's occipital condyles are less voluminous than +a man's,--yes, considerably so,--while her zygomatic arches are more +regular? Well, then, take my word for it, for they are." + +Miss Wing rewarded him by coming out of her abstraction with a laugh. +She asked him in what great tome he had learned that fascinating fact. + +"Ah, that's my secret. By the way," said Charles, "how's that charming +little cousin of yours, Miss Angela?" + +He spoke in his most natural voice, as if no thought of conflict had +ever risen between him and the best of New Women. All the same, the +cousin's name fell rather oddly on the advanced air. + +Mary Wing said that she hadn't seen Angela since the Redmantle Club; she +said she must try to go there this afternoon. He remarked that being +pulled up by the roots, and transplanted, was hard on the young, but +that Miss Angela would make friends fast enough. Having a passion for +biography, especially the biographies of women, he wanted particularly +to learn something about this girl, who had given him, Charles Garrott, +a phrase. But the talk now took another turn; it wasn't a day for +discussing Home-Making clearly. Miss Hodger and Professor Clarence +Pollock went walking by, across the sunny street, and Mary, having +greeted them much too pleasantly to suit his taste, said:-- + +"Do you know this is the third time I've seen those two together lately? +It begins to look like an affair." + +"What!" he cried, disgusted. "Why!--why, she'd bite his head off in a +week!" + +And then, while she protested argumentatively, he was silent for a +space, struck with the thought that here was an opening not unsuited to +his need. + +While the plan for his new work was by no means settled yet, beyond +doubt this matter of Miss Trevenna had given strong impetus to the +conservative wave. And meanwhile, there was the personal side. To +lecture Mary Wing openly was a thing scarcely to be thought of. Yet, +having felt the unmistakable reactions himself, the young man found +himself itching, literally itching, to get his hands on Mary and make +her react a little, too. + +He said in his pleasantest way:--"Did it ever strike you, by the way, +that she's got the propaganda in the purely archaic form?" + +"Archaic?--Hodger!" + +"She still imagines that the object of this Movement is to make women +more like men. Of course, the object of the Movement is to make women +more like themselves." + +Her silence seemed to applaud his epigram. Charles felt that it was +generous of him to add: "I bagged that somewhere. Sounds like Havelock +Ellis to me. But," he added, frankly, "I've improved the wording. Why do +you say I'm unjust to her? On the contrary, I'd be delighted to fork +over all those rights of hers she was demanding the other night. By the +by, what are Hodger's rights exactly?" + +"I suppose she's entitled to human rights, even if you, as a man, don't +find her especially attractive." + +Charles winced, and then smiled faintly. + +"Human rights--security and protection, life, liberty, and the pursuit +of happiness? She's got them, hasn't she? I thought what Hodger was +yelling for was special privileges, rather exceptional privileges in the +way of freeing her Ego from--" + +"As a woman, she hasn't even all the human rights, you know very well. +As a human being, she would feel that she's entitled to exceptional +rights, because she's an exceptional being. She would take the ground +that her public work--" + +"She would take that ground, of course. But," said Charles, amiably, +"possibly others would not agree with her. That is just the trouble, +isn't it? The doctrine that the world belongs to Exceptional People has +that fatal weakness." + +"In your opinion," she qualified him--"what?" + +"We'd need a great board, a sort of Super-Supreme Court of really +godlike understanding, to tell us which are the Exceptional People." + +Seeing that he had her temporarily at a loss, Charles continued his +agreeable prattle:-- + +"And hand them out their little certificates, you know. I remember, this +chap Chesterton said a fairly bright thing once--a little piece I read +somewhere. He said he'd always wanted to hear somebody--anybody--preach +'personal liberty' with one small qualification. Said he'd waited and +waited to hear one person state the creed something like this: 'Men and +women of genius must not be bound by ordinary laws. But I am NOT a man +of genius, and therefore I will keep the law.' Chesterton said he'd been +waiting for years." + +He was aware that Miss Wing was regarding him in a curious sort of way, +and now she said, directly:-- + +"Do you know, this doesn't sound like you at all?" + +"Doesn't it?--why not? I've always believed in taking a good look +around, every now and then. Constant discussion," said Charles, +"constant canvassing of rival theories--" + +"Well, those theories are only good for people who think that the way to +advance is by standing still." + +As she spoke these positive words, the two were overtaken and passed by +Henry Mysinger, of all people. Mr. Mysinger was at once Mary's principal +at the High School and her special adversary in the Schools, against +whom in years past she and her friend Garrott had how often schemed and +plotted. His salute now was pleasant, with reference to Charles, but the +eye he cast upon his assistant was distinctly not approbatory. + +As for Mary, it did not appear that she bowed at all. + +"But the way to advance is by advancing," she continued, declining to +lower her voice at all, "and it's only the exceptional people who are +capable of superintending these advances. That, by the way," said the +school teacher, "is probably the very definition you are looking for." + +He flatly rejected her definition; disputation followed. With increasing +pointedness, Mary Wing pressed the case for "exceptional people," +Self-Developing People who recked not of Homes and being Sisters and +Daughters. And presently she said, with only a small air of +hesitation:-- + +"And please remember that enlightened people cannot possibly point the +way without courage, and--a certain amount of pioneering experiment." + +Mr. Mysinger had mercifully withdrawn himself around the corner of Third +Street. There his assistant would turn, too, parting from her friend; +and really, that appeared to be just as well. Forgetting his mask, the +young man was beginning to betray signs of exasperation. No more than +Mysinger, of course, had he ever been deceived by the delicate +girlishness of Mary's face; but the positions she seemed to be taking +now passed anything he had ever thought of her addiction to the New. Was +this mere argument for argument's sake?--or did she seriously imagine +that the regeneration of society was to be accomplished by the antics of +a few wild female Egoists--lawless Egoettes? + +"That's true, to a point, of course," he said, with control. "Yet don't +you suspect people who talk about their Duty to the Race, while +overlooking entirely their duty to that part of the race which should be +nearest and dearest to them?" + +"I'd suspect even more people who daren't call their souls their own, +for fear they might be criticized by somebody who knows nothing about +the facts." + +And then she exclaimed suddenly. "Oh, why don't you say at once that +you've been talking at poor Flora Trevenna for three blocks!" + +He was considerably taken aback, but spoke calmly: "Not at all--or at +least only in a general way. One of the problems of the day, as we say +at the Redmantle Club." + +It was on the tip of his tongue to say then, man to man, as it were: +"Miss Mary, you have a great work ahead of you, in a special field. +Isn't it a pity to confuse your good cause with one that perhaps is not +so good?" But, of course, you hardly gave advice of that sort to Mary +Wing. + +"But since you seem to invite my opinion," he continued, "I will say +that I do think there is a logical connection between Hodger's kind of +talk and Miss Trevenna's--ah--pioneering experiment." + +"Of course there is! Who denied it?" said she, with a forthrightness +that increased his wonder at her. + +And then, as they came to a standstill at the corner, she added, after a +grave speculative stare:-- + +"If it'll do you the slightest good, Mr. Garrott, I'll tell you exactly +what finally decided Flora to forget her duty to her sisters, aunts, +uncles, and so on, as you consider. Prepare yourself. It was a sentence +in a book." + +"_A sentence in a book!_" + +Miss Wing nodded, several times. "As she's a reserved girl, and I appear +to be her only friend now, of course this is a confidence." + +"I can name the book!" cried Charles; and he did. + +"However," he resumed, with bitter urbanity, "if she'd happened to read +a few pages further, she might have noticed that the Lady in Sweden took +every bit of it back." + +To his surprise, Mary Wing laughed. + +"Do you know, that's just what I told her, in almost those very words? +And what do you suppose she said? 'Well, I'm glad I didn't read as far +as that.'" + +Continuing to look at him and continuing to laugh, the annoying young +woman added: "I'm afraid you don't begin to understand women as yet, Mr. +Garrott! No, you don't begin to. _Au revoir!_" + +It was noted that Charles's bow was characterized by a certain +stiffness. + +He went on his way alone, to Berringer's, and the good solid man-talk. +The strongest thought in his mind now was that the end of these things +was not yet. And here, at least, he was by no means deceived. + +The next day was Saturday. At two o'clock on that day, each week, +Charles took train and went down to his mother's place in the country, +there to remain till early Monday morning. This was an invasion of his +writer's time, with which he let nothing interfere. Returning to town, +and finding "Bondwomen" not yet heard from, he became absorbed in a +short story--for the "line" of his new novel could not be laid in a day +or a week, of course--and went suddenly upon his emergency schedule, as +Judge Blenso had named it. This schedule called for the omission of all +exercise, other than as tutoring necessitated, and a general withdrawal +from the world of living women. But he couldn't get away from their +Unrest, even so. + +Late Thursday afternoon, as he was working out the last pages of the +time-killing fiction, the door of the Studio opened without a knock, and +Donald Manford walked in. Donald certainly continued to make himself +very much at home here. + +"Get out," said Charles, tired and cross. "What do you think this is, a +Wheelman's Rest?" + +The tall engineer said that he was passing and thought he'd drop in. But +with the aid of an eyebrow he made known, over Judge Blenso's snowy +head, that he desired private converse in the bedroom. + +The public talk between the two young men, continuing, was that Donald +wanted to borrow a white waistcoat from Charles, which Charles was +rather reluctant to lend him. Thus, gradually, they faded from the +Studio, much to the annoyance of the Judge, who had ceased typing on +purpose to listen, while ostensibly merely engaged in picking lint from +his types with a brass pin. + +When the door of the bedroom was shut, Donald Manford said, in low +hurried tones:-- + +"Have you heard all this talk about Mary? I tell you the town's buzzing +with it!" + +Charles had heard no talk; he was disturbed, if scarcely surprised. But +when it became clear that the purpose of Donald's visit was to get him, +Charles, to "drop a hint to Mary," he refused at once, point-blank. + +The engineer was pained and astonished. + +"You don't understand the situation," said he, stewing. "I tell you +Mary's gone to work to make a heroine of that woman! Recommending her +for good jobs, with her morning, noon, and night, having people in to +meet her at _tea_! Now, of course, she just doesn't understand what +she's doing. She's too innocent; she's ignorant of the practical meaning +of this business. And it's my duty to protect her from her +ignorance...." + +Charles sat down on one of the parallel white beds--the Judge's. And +little as he sympathized with Miss Trevenna's Blow for Freedom, he +seemed to sympathize even less with his young friend's proprietary +absurdities. + +Whatever this stalwart youth was, Mary Wing had made him. An orphan and +poor, he had been taken to the bosom of the kindly Wings; and Mary, a +girl of twenty then, had been from the start his second mother. She had +fed and clothed Donald, helped pay his bills at college; she had trained +him, taught him, filled him with her own ambition. She had got him his +first opening, pulled wires for him, hewed out his ascending steps. Fine +and confident as Donald stood there, Mary Wing had made him. And now to +see him, as to her, clutching on the toga of the primitive male, to hear +him, the ignorant, ridiculously claiming overlordship in a field which +should have been supremely woman's. + +"Go ahead," said Charles dryly. "Protect her all you want." + +But Donald angrily told him not to be an ass. It was a delicate +matter--for him--he declared; besides, Mary wouldn't listen to him. He +wasn't _advanced_. + +"But you're another matter. You've got some influence with Mary, and--" + +"Stop right there! I've got more influence with the Weather Department +than I have with Mary Wing." + +Glowering at him over the foot of the bed, the engineer demanded reasons +for his strange unpractical behavior. Charles offered a few simple +selections from his complex feelings. + +"First, your cousin's personal behavior is none of my business. Second, +I'd have no respect for her if she gave up her principles because you +asked me to ask her to. Third, I despise a person who's scared out of +his wits by fear of what the neighbors'll think." + +Donald appeared momentarily speechless. Perceiving this, the author +fitted a cigarette into a holder Mary Wing had given him on his +birthday, and resumed his few remarks:-- + +"Of course your mistake is in supposing that Miss Mary is acting through +ignorance. She's acting from principle, as I say, and doing a plucky +thing, too. For she doesn't think that because a poor silly girl has +once made a mistake, the thing to do--" + +But Manford recovered his voice with a bound. + +"_Mistake!_ I'm surprised at you, Garrott! I did you the justice to +think that all this advanced rot of yours was just talk. Come!--say +right out you think it's a mighty plucky thing for a girl to go off and +live with a married man!" + +Charles smiled, and then hesitated. It was odd how instantly Donald +Manford modernized him, killing all reactions: But what was the use of +arguing with a fellow who honestly believed that a woman had but one +"virtue," who spoke of her frankly as "the sex," allowed her no honor +but "woman's honor," had but one question to ask about her "character"? +This youth had not budged since the fifth century. + +"The only way to punish this is by the disgrace of it, I tell you!" he +was arguing. "There's no punishment at all when you make a heroine of +the woman." + +"There'll be enough to punish, don't fret, without Mary Wing's taking a +hand." + +"Now look here, Charlie," said Donald, encouraged. "Just look at the +matter in a sensible way. You can feel sorry for her and all that. But +it isn't right, by George, it isn't decent and moral, to stand up and +practically say you admire a notorious bad woman! Just think of the +effect on other women! They'll argue, 'Well, if that's the way people +feel about it, there's no use being good any more.' And think, +Charlie!--what'll become of Society if all the girls get to skipping off +and living with married men!" + +Charles laughed and rose. "Of course I'd not dream of speaking to Miss +Mary about this." + +The young engineer exploded. But presently he gave it up. + +"Then I'll have to speak to her myself," he declared, and looked as if +he expected the hazardous audacity of such an enterprise to touch his +friend's heart, even then. "And you remember this," he added, angrily, +"when Mary's friends are all dropping her!" + +"Nobody who drops her for this was ever her friend." + +"More New Thought! And what about Mysinger? Suppose your idea is that +this plucky business will boost Mary's standing in the schools like the +devil?" + +"My dear fellow, you're seeing things! You never heard of politics, I +suppose? Nothing can shake us in the schools. 'Cause why? We own the +Board by two votes." + +Donald regarded him with the strongest disapproval. "Do you know you +make me sick?" + +"By the way," said Charles, pleasantly, "didn't I see you go by here +with Miss Flower the other day? Where did you--" + +"Absolutely sick, and I've--" + +"Meet up with her, old fellow? Isn't she a--" + +"Sick!" roared Donald, and banged the door. + +He was a hopeless ignoramus, and Charles was the peer of the greatest +authorities, living or dead. But the subject, beyond doubt, was the most +complex and baffling in the whole field of Womanology. And Charles, +standing and staring at that shut door, was possessed with the odd +feeling that Donald had got the best of the argument, after all. + +Why must Mary _always_ be as independent as the Declaration, and more +militant than a Prussian? + + + + +V + + +The emergency schedule withdrew Charles from the streets; he lunched in +twenty minutes at Mrs. Herman's and spent the hour gained at his +writing-table. With the completion of the short fiction, he resumed his +walks to Berringer's. And now on Washington Street, the principal scene +of his social life since he became a regular author, he saw again Miss +Angela Flower. In five days, suddenly, he saw Miss Angela three times. + +Twice, as it happened, the two passed on opposite sides of the street, +moving in contrary directions. But the third time he fairly overtook +her, not a dozen steps from the door of the rich little Deming boys, to +whom he taught the Elements all morning. + +He was pleased with the agreeable coincidence. He greeted Mary's so +different cousin with a genuine warmth, springing spontaneously from his +personal sense of a bond between them. And Miss Angela, it seemed, was +not less glad to see him. + +"You don't know how nice it is," she laughed, a tinge of color in her +smooth cheeks, "to see a familiar face, after blocks and blocks of +strangers. And you're almost the only person I know, too!" + +Suiting his long stride to hers, he assured her that this state of +affairs would pass quickly. + +"I got only a glimpse of you yesterday," he pursued. "Do you take your +constitutionals at this time, too?" + +But she said, elusively, that she took them at all sorts of times. + +"It's my chief form of recreation at present, you see! But--I thought I +might meet father up here--it's his time for coming home to lunch from +the college. Only I seem just to miss him every day." + +He and the Womanly Woman walked a good half-mile together that day, and +the authority enjoyed himself thoroughly. It was in the course of this +walk that he evolved another phrase of scientific justification, viz.: +"The Business of Supplying Beauty and Supplying Charm." + +The talk turned naturally upon the girl herself. Having failed to get +any biography from the embattled Miss Wing, Charles proceeded to the +source. Under his agreeable, yet artful promptings, Miss Angela sketched +with a charming simplicity the story of a commonplace family life: how +she and her brothers had grown up at Hunter's Run, a crossroads +post-office four miles from Mitchellton; how they had moved into +Mitchellton, which had seemed like heaven at first, but had palled after +seven years; how all the boys of Mitchellton grew up and went away, one +by one, to make their marks in the world (though there was one +exception, it seemed, a Mr. Dan Jenney, who was still in +Mitchellton--Aha! thought Charles); how lonely she was after Tommy, her +older brother, had thus gone away; how her father had had quite a large +practice in Mitchellton, but didn't seem much interested in getting +patients here; and so on. Tommy, it was learned, had married money in +Pittsburg, but appeared to be happy all the same. As for the younger +brother, Wallie, his ambition was to go to college and be an +electro-chemist, and he was now at work downtown, gathering funds for +that purpose. Mary Wing had got him a position, it seemed. + +Miss Angela's conversation, as has been noted, was not remarkable as +conversation. But what mattered that? Into an atmosphere too heated by +the Trevennas of this Unrestful world, her girlish unsophistications +blew like a primrose zephyr. Moreover, she had her moments, you may be +sure; her vivacities as honest as wit. She said that Mitchellton was +like a town in war-time. + +"That's the way a man described it to me once, a surveyor from the +North, when he'd only been there three hours! He declared he hadn't seen +a male between the ages of fifteen and sixty-five. They'd all gone off, +you see--" + +"And then the surveyor went off, too?" + +"He did!--exactly! Hopped on a funny little calico pony he had, the +minute he said that, and trotted off down Main Street. We never saw him +again." + +Charles, laughing, looked down at her. She wore a plain blue suit and a +simple hat with a yellow quill, obviously inexpensive both, and not new. +She was characterized, sartorially, only by that unobtrusive yet +exquisite neatness whose practice some women bring to a fine art. Pretty +and sweet she looked, none the less; feminine, too, without a doubt. + +And, quite unconsciously, she was giving by piecemeal an answer to that +fundamental question of her Modern critics, How do you spend your time? +A considerable part of Miss Angela's time went, it seemed, to the actual +care of the house. With her leisure she really had little to do as yet, +because of her lack of acquaintance. Even the table of bridge with +Cousin Mary had not developed so far. She walked a great deal, usually +alone, but mentioned having met Mr. Manford the other day; the +impression was left that she and Donald hadn't specially taken to each +other. She kept her mother company; she often went into the shops, "just +looking"; once or twice she and Wallie had been to the moving-picture +shows. She read also, it seemed, for she had just finished "Marna"--a +gift to her, this was--a certain late New Woman novel which Charles +himself meant to give an hour to some day. Her account of her domestic +business the old-fashioned girl concluded thus:-- + +"I don't know very much about housekeeping yet, but I do the best I can. +I think mother enjoys the rest." + +And whatever criticism narrow utilitarians might have brought against +her management of her fifteen hours a day seemed to be morally destroyed +by that unconscious stroke. _Mother enjoys the rest._ Imagine Miss +Hodger, for instance,--to come no nearer home,--casually mentioning: "I +don't want to do this, but I will. I want to go there, but I won't." +"Why, Miss Hodger?" you would ask her. "Why must you mutilate your Ego +thus?" "Well,"--you are to fancy Miss Hodger saying,--"you see, I think +mother'd enjoy the rest!" + +But the girl herself remained delightfully unconscious of the reactions +she set in motion. + +"Mr. Garrott," she said suddenly,--"I hope you don't mind my asking, +but--when are you going to have some stories coming out? I'm crazy to +read one of them!" + +"Oh!" laughed Mr. Garrott. "Well!--I can't say definitely, at the +moment. I'm trying," he said, modestly, "to write books, you know, and +it's a slow business, with the little free time I have. My first one, +that I've just finished, took me four years." + +"Four years! How wonderful! But isn't it going to come out soon?" + +"I'm--ah--negotiating with a publisher now." + +"It must be fascinating! I--I never knew an author before." + +He warmed, expanding. + +At the parting of their ways, these two paused, talking like old +friends; and no parting took place here, after all. Angela said, with a +charming hesitancy: "Mr. Garrott, if you really want to read that +book,--'Marna', I mean,--I wish you'd let me lend it to you. We've +finished with it--for good!--and if you have time to stop a minute--" +And he, who never called, who had a special rule against borrowing +things from ladies, restored his hat to his head at once, accepting with +pleasure. + +So they turned out of Washington Street toward Center, and she +continued, with a laughing, sidelong glance:-- + +"Do you know who _Marna_ reminded me of? Quite a friend of +yours!--somebody you admire a great deal!" + +Knowing the nature of the book well from the reviews he was incessantly +reading, the young man smiled: "I wonder if you can possibly be alluding +to one of your most distinguished cousins." + +"It did, just a little! At first, I mean--where Marna goes away to lead +her own life, and everything.... Mr. Garrott, do you think she's really +going to take the position in New York, Cousin Mary, I mean?" + +"Take it! Why, of course she will, provided she can get it! It would be +a remarkable thing for such a young woman, and a great opportunity +besides." + +This the girl seemed to understand. She remarked, however, that Cousin +Mary and Mrs. Wing seemed so wrapped up in each other. Her extreme +domesticity was peculiarly refreshing to Charles just now; nevertheless, +he now took up the cudgels for Modernity, though in the gentlest way: +Why should not daughters have the same right to leave home for work that +the sons of Mitchellton had, for example? Daughters had always left +homes for another reason. Suppose _Marna_ had married the first +whippersnapper that came along, and he had carried her off to Australia, +etc. + +But Miss Angela seemed to feel that, for her part, she would look long +at any lover who wished to separate her from her mother. + +Center Street, at this point, was a place of car-tracks, cobblestones, +and threatening small establishments of those personal sorts which are +always first to appear in a waning "residence district." At the corner +stood a Human Hair Goods Works. The Flower house was not intrinsically +pretty. It was one of a block of six, all just alike and evidently built +some time ago; rather dingy little brick houses, with weather-beaten +small verandahs set only a step or two above the sidewalk, and scantily +separated from it by grassless "lawns." However, Charles was not +repelled by poverty, to which he had been well used. + +Within, he had the pleasure of meeting Miss Angela's father, who was +encountered in the hall, in the act of removing his overcoat. Angela +left the two men together, while she tripped upstairs to get "Marna." + +Charles found the medical father a decidedly queer individual. A very +tall, thin, seedy man he was, with a neglected sandy mustache, and a +long neck punctuated with a very large Adam's apple, which he jerked +with a sort of nervous twitch as he talked. With his lusterless eye and +spare, remote manner, he looked like a man who had let himself dry up +from within. Yet, if Charles remembered aright, the Medical School had +counted this gentleman a distinct acquisition. + +He assured Dr. Flower that he had long desired this pleasure, and +explained:-- + +"Your cousin, Miss Wing, is an old friend of mine." + +"My wife's cousin," said the Doctor, seeming to make a distinction. +"Quite so! Certainly!" + +"I believe it was she who first brought the Medical School to your +attention?" + +"Ah, yes! I fancy it was. Quite so. Have a cigar, will you? However," +continued the father, jerking his long neck, "you don't offer that as +something to be urged against her, I assume?" + +The young man, though surprised, smiled politely. + +"Possibly you're no more enthusiastic about teaching than I am, say?" + +"Ah, well!... It wants excitement, you maintain?--lacks the spice of +brilliant variety? You find no romance in it, you suggest? Well--" + +Dr. Flower fell silent, brushing his hat with the sleeve of his worn +coat, while he stared cheerlessly at nothing. Charles wondered at him, +with a certain sense of mild mystery. If he felt that way about +teaching, why had he thrown over his practice and left Mitchellton? + +"I believe," said he, with discretion, "your--that is, Mrs. Flower's +cousin, Mary Wing, is the only teacher I ever knew who could really be +called a 'fan.'" + +"Quite so. You won't have a cigar, you said? But even in that case, it +doesn't amount to a complete exhaustion of the energies, you would feel? +You'd contend there's an unused store for other enterprises, even +there?" + +"Quite so," said Charles, considerably puzzled. + +But then Miss Angela came skipping and smiling down the narrow stairs, +book in hand, and slipped her arm through her father's. She said that +Mr. Garrott could keep "Marna" as long as he liked, but that she would +be _so_ interested to hear what he thought of it. The trio stood +chatting a moment together. + +Angela's last word, in her soft and pretty voice, was, "Don't forget, +we're going to have that bridge game some night soon!" + +So he took leave of her, not only with the book, but with the promise of +a party shortly to come. And, curiously, that was the first thing this +simple Nice Girl had ever said that the authority felt inclined to +criticize somewhat: the use of the word "that," now. Skilled and wary he +had grown since he became a regular writer, and he could not recall +having agreed to give a valuable evening to playing bridge soon. The +engagement had just developed along, it seemed. + +But that was a trivial matter, early lost sight of. Continuing his walk +to Berringer's and the good man-talk, Charles pondered upon the nature +of a Home. + +La Femme, as we know, was all over for this young man; through too much +knowledge he had analyzed the charm away. He did not (of course) +exaggerate Miss Angela's values, magnify anything about her whatever. Of +course she was but a Type, and a familiar one. Only, for him she had +happened to personify, with unexpected freshness, that aspect of the +Question which, he was more and more convinced, scientific thinkers +fallaciously slurred over: the business aspect of Home-Making, to wit. +Though few of the sounder authorities openly advocated the suppression +of Homes, was it not true that they--and he once among them--practically +did so by denying any value in their schemes to those emotional and +spiritual contributions which alone turned a house into a Home? There +lay the heart of the whole great problem. "Four walls," mused Charles, +as he swung rapidly down Center Street, "and three meals a day, and even +the banisters dusted, to boot--these mere utilities can never make a +Home." + +And he made a mental note of the sentence for his conservative Notes in +the exercise-book of the old lady. + +But this day, as it fell out, was memorable in the Studio for more than +meditation. + +When he left Miss Chorister's at four-thirty, which was when the +tutorial day ended, the author did not make straight for the Studio, +according to habit, but turned downtown again, instead. He had personal +affairs to attend to to-day, an accumulation of small shopping and +sundry errands that could not be longer procrastinated. They took much +valued time. It was after six, in the winter night, when he got home. + +At the foot of his own steps he encountered his and his relative's new +fellow-lodger, and their only one. Possibly he was still thinking +scientifically of Miss Angela, for it instantly occurred to him that +here was Miss Angela's full opposite. + +"Oh, good-evening, Miss McGee!" + +He spoke as pleasantly as possible, but the lodger only answered +"Evening," and turned her back at once. + +"How do you do to-night?" + +"Tired as a dog." + +"And no wonder, working such long hours!" + +No answer from the lodger. + +"You _are_ later than usual this evening, aren't you?" + +"Keep me on purpose," muttered Miss McGee angrily (or something like +that), climbing the tall stairs. + +She was a dark young woman, darkly dressed and darkly scowling, it had +seemed, at the mere sight of Charles. As he knew from a rare letter on +the hall table, her official name was Mary Maude McGee, but to him she +was always and simply Two-Book McGee, on account of her apparent habit +of reading two novels a night, every night in the year. She had them +under her arm now, with the labels of the circulating library showing. + +Charles also had a book under his arm, "Marna": here was a topic! + +"Do you," he inquired, continuing the social chat, "find many good +novels these days?" + +"No, I don't!" said she, so sharply that you would have supposed he was +to blame for it. Imagine! + +"You must really look over my stock some day, Miss McGee. I'm sure I +have _something_ you could read." + +But the invitation brought only a mutter from Miss McGee, and the door +of the Second Hall Back banged shut behind her. + +"Help! help!" mused Charles, and straightway was struck with an +interesting thought: How about taking over Two-Book McGee as a minor +character in the new novel? + +He considered the idea, mounting to his Studio. The lodger was known as +a self-supporting female, allied with a tintype and "art photography" +establishment. Certainly she seemed an odd sort of person to say "Look +pleasant" to anybody. Friends, engagements, pleasures, she had none, on +the word of Mrs. Herman. All day she helped to photograph the General +Public; all night, till sleep overcame her, she sat alone in her very +small room, reading novel after novel which she did not like. A dull +life, it might have seemed; but then, you see, she had, to bless her, +the priceless knowledge that she was a self-respecting and independent +being, a person and not a parasite. The authorities could not doubt that +Two-Book McGee was happy in her way. + +Charles, however, seemed to be doing just that, at the moment. He +conceived Miss McGee as one not joyful in her economic freedom; hence as +an "illustrative character" for conservatism, sowing doubts in the minds +of readers as to whether Leading My Own Life was, in fact, necessarily +the other name for happiness. Climbing the stairs now, he invented +words for Two-Book's mouth: imagining her as saying, "Oh, I'd marry +anybody to get out of this!"--and again, with sobs, crying out to some +modern arguer, "Oh, just to be a parasite again!--just to be a snug, +comfortable little parasite!..." + +So making fiction, Charles Garrott opened the door of his Studio. And +full upon the threshold, he encountered the great surprise of his life. + +The large room looked familiar and inviting. The lamp burned on the +writing-table; the drop-light shone over the Judge's typewriter; the +author's office-coat hung on his chair-back. By the typewriter stood the +Judge, pink and shining from his evening bath. Wrapped in a beautiful +lavender robe, he turned, smiling. + +But on the writing-table, beyond the lamp, there lay a strange package. +The author's eye had fallen on it even as he opened the door. Some +instinct in him seemed to divine the incredible truth instantly, but +something else within spoke loud and sharp:-- + +"_What's that?_" + +Judge Blenso laughed agreeably, and lowered the bath-towel with which he +was rubbing his fine white head. To the secretary, the literary business +was still a sealed book indeed; so far as he was advised, a package of +manuscript back by express was doubtless a very pleasant little +occurrence. + +"Why, it's Entry 2, Charles!" he chuckled. "Your novel--just come in! +Must be! And gad, my dear fellow! Willcox wrote you a letter, too!" + +The young man bounded for the table. + +Long as he had deemed himself a writer, Charles King Garrott had as yet +sent out little manuscript, "Bondwomen" having absorbed all his creative +energies for years. Accordingly, the prevalent stupidity of editors and +publishers, amounting ofttimes to mere madhouse imbecility, as every +young writer can testify, was yet as a sealed book to him. With the +ultra-modern message of the Old Novel, he, personally, might have become +authoritatively dissatisfied; but that any publisher in his senses could +fail to jump at it had, of course, scarcely entered his mind. + +Hence, in the two seconds required to pounce upon and open Willcoxes' +letter, his mind was tossing out other explanations of that package with +the utmost lucidity and vigor. Willcoxes had been so pleased with the +Old Novel that they had put it in type at once: this package was the +proof. The package was the manuscript; but it had been sent back by an +office-boy by mistake, and the letter rushed after it to implore pardon. +Willcoxes, while delighted with the novel, had thought that possibly +some of the ultra-modernism had better be toned down a little, in the +interest of Homes; therefore.... + +In short, Charles Garrott's mind executed exactly the processes that all +young writers' minds execute at these moments, in instinctive recoil +from the stupefying fact of Rejection. But when he got the letter open, +all this activity was quickly stilled. + + DEAR SIR [it ran]: + + We have given careful consideration to the manuscript of the + novel, BANDWOMEN, which you were good enough to submit, but + regret to report that the decision has been adverse. We fear + that the publication of the story would not prove a financial + success. + + The manuscript is returned to you to-day by express. Thanking + you for giving us the opportunity of examining it, we are + + Yours very truly, + + WILLCOX BROTHERS COMPANY. + +In this stunning letter the stenographer's error seemed the crowning +insult. _Bandwomen!_ Charles, for once in his life, blew up. + +The proceedings ensuing came as a complete surprise to the secretary, +exciting in their way: he had really never thought that Charles had it +in him. That commonly sedentary and controlled young man had abruptly +become dynamic and vocal. Some of his remarks eluded the listener, as, +for instance, the menacing cry: "I'll rent the Academy of Music some day +to tell about this!" But on the whole Judge Blenso, who himself, in his +prime, had been counted an accomplished commentator on the world's +devilish ways, gladly gave tribute to Charles for verbal ingenuity and +somewhat arresting vividness of metaphor. + +But it was clear now to the secretary that this was no pleasant +happening after all. When the storm began to abate, he spoke in +mollifying tones:-- + +"Now, my dear fellow,--this unfortunate occurrence. Unfortunate! But as +to that plan of mine--we might consider it now, Charles? What do you +think?" + +"What plan?" Charles said, in a let-down voice. + +"I regret this, about Entry 2," said the Judge, with his brilliant black +gaze. "'Bandwomen' is a fine novel, my dear fellow,--fine! But as to +that little plan of mine--giving our undivided time and abilities +henceforth to some more remunerative kind of work? Gad, +Charles!--wouldn't it be wise?" + +And then Charles, after staring blankly at his relative's odd handsome +figure, suddenly burst out laughing.... + +But later he stood at his window, staring silently down into the lamplit +street. A rare depression had suddenly closed over him. Oddly enough, it +seemed to have little to do with his great repulse as a writer. After +all, "Bondwomen," good though he felt it to be, did not represent his +best thought now; moreover, that the next publisher would jump at it +still seemed to him as certain as Judgment Day. The young man's deep +dissatisfactions were with all the terms and conditions of his writer's +life. + +Long ago he had said to a friend once, "I can't afford to give my time +to making money," and the remark, being repeated, had gained him the +reputation of a fool's wit, none recognizing that he had practically +bagged it outright from a fellow of the name of Agassiz. And there (he +was thinking) was the measure of the degree to which he had withdrawn +from the accepted ways of men, from all the currents of stimulating +life. Making money, after all, was the "battle of life," and he--he had +thought it often before now--had placed himself with the noncombatants. +All day, downtown there, vigorous beings met and fought, crossed wills, +locked minds, pitted strength against strength; while he, Charles, spent +his days with women and children and his nights alone in this room, +palely pondering over ethical subtleties. He remembered something Mary +Wing had said to him one day last winter: "You're a great deal more like +a woman than a man; don't you know it?" On the whole, Mary had meant +that as a compliment, but the word had stuck in him like a knife. + +He had bent his life to be a writer--and for what? Merely that those who +knew him best might view him, tolerantly, as a member of the Third Sex. + +"A writer ought to go out once a month and do something cruel," he +thought moodily. "Assault and battery.... Blood in rivers...." + +He was disgusted with tutoring and writing, with Woman and all womanish +ways. + +Nevertheless, the instant supper was over, he was found seated at his +writing-table, "Notes on Women" open before him. In fact, the bee had +stung this young man deep, whether he liked it or not. In sum, the +unimagined rebuff to his principal _opus_ did not diminish, but +intensified the literary passion. Now he embarked upon his first attempt +to plot out a definite scenario for his new novel, "Bondwomen's" subtle +and superior successor. And it must have been that the novel thoughts +generated at the Redmantle Club had rapidly crystallized through the +days succeeding. For now it seemed to be quite clear in the author's +mind that he would take, as the central figure in his greater work, an +extreme specimen of lawless Egoette, against whom he would set, in +subtle but most telling contrast, the best type of Home-Maker. + + + + +VI + + +It was one of those slack hours in the domestic day when even the most +tireless hands can find no task to do. Miss Angela Flower sat by the +single window of her bedroom, the window that gave, over two sets of +back-yards, a sectional view of Washington Street. On the ledge beside +her stood the opera-glasses, employed sometimes for long-distance +vision. They were old glasses, somewhat shabby now, and the case to them +was long since lost. + +To be transplanted is hard on the young, as Charles Garrott had once +said, and to be a normal girl is to desire that pleasant happenings +shall occur. This was Angela's favorite seat in the house, because it +brought her nearest to the happenings of the Street of the Blessed: +nearest to them, while she was yet farthest away. Often in the early +weeks she had, indeed, felt quite forlorn as she sat here; she was a +stranger and friendless, of a poor family and with small opportunity. +Since the Redmantle Club meeting, however, the view from the window had +become more personally interesting, more touched with the sense of +participation. Here Angela had seen Mr. Garrott on his way to lunch; +here she had twice glimpsed Mr. Manford, striding along from his office +just at dark; here she had even made out Mr. Tilletts, whom once she had +mistaken for somebody's uncle, whirling by in a great automobile. + +And this afternoon, in her leisure hour, Angela did not feel forlorn or +out of things at all, nor did she so much as glance out of the window, +with a naked eye. She had sheets of note-paper upon a magazine in her +lap, and on one of the sheets she was writing blithely:-- + + Miss Angela Flower entertained at bridge Thursday evening. + +As the Redmantle Club had been her first party in the city, so the young +girl, with real pleasure, now planned for a second, this one to be her +very own. It had occurred to her, more for fun than anything else, to +write out a little notice of her party for the social columns of the +"Post." Not being as experienced at writing as Mr. Garrott, she took +some time to get the wording of the notice just to her liking; but it +was a very happy sort of time. + +That finished, Angela turned again to the more practical aspects of the +party. Who were to be the guests at it, in fine? As yet she had only +herself and Mr. Garrott. + +Now, calling out suddenly to her mother in the front room, she learned +to her surprise that it was almost half-past four o'clock; whereon she +sprang up at once, and began to dress quickly for the street. About +quarter of five, after talking a little with her mother in the front +room, Angela set out to call on her cousin, Mary Wing. + +Now Angela knew that something rather unpleasant was going on in +connection with her Cousin Mary at this time. Being a well-brought-up +young girl, she was, of course, not allowed to hear bold, improper talk, +but still she knew that there was _something_. Mrs. Flower, though very +fond of Mrs. Wing, who was her double first-cousin, had, indeed, felt +obliged to forbid Angela to cultivate any undue intimacy with Mary; +which Angela, considering the differences between the two girls, was +hardly likely to do in any case. Nevertheless, relations were still +pleasant, and Mrs. Flower had agreed that, under the circumstances, +Cousin Mary and Mr. Manford should be invited to the bridge-party. It +was the cousinly thing to do, and besides, as Mrs. Flower had pointed +out, she could not very well invite Mr. Manford without inviting Cousin +Mary, too. + +The Wings lived in a pleasant house on Olive Street, four doors from +Washington and overlooking the Green Park. The house was bigger than it +looked, because of a two-story extension that ran out behind, converting +an ordinary dwelling into two quite nice flats. Building that extension +was the very first thing that Mary had done when she took charge of the +family. In the upper flat dwelt Mr. and Mrs. Crowther, who could +sometimes be heard recriminating each other in embittered tones. In the +lower flat Mrs. and Miss Wing were very comfortable, with four rooms, +bath, kitchenette, tiny back yard and patent clothes-dryer. The fourth +room, which had been Donald Manford's till he outgrew apron-strings, was +a convertible affair, now a dining-room, now a bedroom, according as the +Wings dined at home, on the one hand, or were receiving a visit from +Fanny Warder--Mary's younger but married sister--on the other. At +present the latter condition prevailed, and Fanny's two babies possessed +the room, the flat, and the world besides. + +Angela entered upon three generations, scattered widely over the +sitting-room floor. Fanny was out, but her place in the line was ably +taken by Aunt Mary, whose modernity did not stick out so much in these +purely domestic moments. Angela, watching her cousin explain to Paulie +Warder why the best little boys never, _never_ ate green paint, thought +with a kind of surprise: "She really looks very nice." She was duly +presented to Paulie and Neddy-Weddy, who were coaxed to show off their +store of tricks for the Pretty Lady, and she did her best to shower +those eulogies which the relatives in the case invariably expect. But +Neddy-Weddy, for his part, appeared altogether too sleepy to care what +strangers might think of him, and it may be that to a coolly impartial +eye Paulie appeared more soiled than cute at this particular moment. +Angela really wasn't sorry when the babies' grandmother gathered them +and their belongings to her bosom and withdrew to an inner chamber. + +But when she broached the matter of the bridge-party on Thursday, Cousin +Mary said at once:-- + +"My dear, it's very sweet of you, but I couldn't--possibly. I can't +dream of taking an evening off--oh, this side of Christmas!" + +Cousin Mary had a great stack of examination papers to mark, it seemed; +she pointed to them on her open desk in the corner. She also had ten +thousand leaflets to distribute for that Education League of hers; they +lay in bales in another corner, behind the sofa. Further, she had three +articles to write at once for the League's magazine: for it had a +special magazine all its own, it seemed. As for Donald Manford, she said +she could not speak. But Cousin Mary did mention, in a discouraging way, +that Donald also was doing a good deal of rush-work just now, clearing +his desk for his trip to Wyoming. + +"And besides, my dear," she concluded, "to the best of my knowledge, +Donald can't play bridge at all." + +"I could teach him, Cousin Mary--it's awfully easy! I remember, I taught +a man in Mitchellton to play once, in twenty minutes! Besides--why, of +course, it wouldn't make any difference!" + +Mary Wing, no doubt, desired to play fair. She could not say now, as of +old, that Donald never went out; for she knew that Donald was going out +that very evening, escorting Miss Helen Carson to the theater, in short. +Mary knew this, because she had arranged the matter herself, and +personally bought the tickets for Donald's account. + +So she said: "You must ask him, Angela--do! Use my telephone there, why +don't you, and catch him now before he leaves the office?" + +But no, that was just what Angela felt she could not do, for, while she +had enjoyed two short walks with Mr. Manford, the truth was that he had +never called. Mr. Garrott, on the other hand, besides everything else, +had called, the day she lent him the book. + +"I thought _you_ might ask him, Cousin Mary. I thought you might just +bring him with you, informally. It's going to be very informal," said +Angela. + +"But as I can't go myself, Angela, you see ..." + +Angela concealed her disappointment as best she could. She was a +sweet-natured girl; moreover, Cousin Mary, after all, was the only +person who had tried to do anything for her. Nevertheless, her +disappointment was keen, and touched with a little irritation at Cousin +Mary's attitude. Her cousin, Mr. Garrott, Mr. Manford, and herself--they +made a natural table of bridge, a little coterie of friends and +relatives who instinctively met together now and then for congenial +diversion. It did seem rather hard that Cousin Mary should spoil it all, +with this firm stand against all social enjoyment. Only she and Mr. +Garrott, it seemed, cared for a little wholesome pleasure. + +And undoubtedly this attitude of Cousin Mary's did reduce the +bridge-party to a rather precarious position. Of course Jennie Finchman +could be secured for the other girl, or even Fanny Warder; but as for +the man to fill Mr. Manford's place, that was a more difficult matter. + +"I'm awfully sorry _you_ can't come, Cousin Mary," she was saying in her +soft voice. "Mr. Garrott'll be _so_ disappointed. He admires you so +much--indeed, he does! He told me so only yesterday." + +"Oh!" said Mary Wing; and added, as if it were a part of the same +sentence--"yesterday! You're seeing a good deal of him now?" + +"Oh, yes! We have a walk or something nearly every day." + +"He's quite attractive, don't you think?" + +The girl answered without self-consciousness: "Oh, I do--he's the nicest +thing! And so cunning-looking, too!--isn't he?" + +"I've always been intrigued, I admit," said the school-teacher, "by the +three brown freckles on his nose." + +She was looking with admiration at her cousin's fresh youthfulness, so +unmarked by experience, so innocent of knowledge of fierce conflicting +ideas. And Mary looked with a kind of compunction, too. She had honestly +wished and tried to "do something" for Angela; but, alas, she herself +had been so long and completely out of things that few connections +remained to her now, such as would assist to launch a somewhat belated +début. She had her hands full enough trying to do something of that sort +with Donald, an eligible man. Still-- + +"Oh, Angela, here's a thought!" she said, suddenly. "If you'll only make +a decently long visit, you'll be almost certain to see Donald here! He +drops in nearly every afternoon to see the babies, you know--" + +"Oh!--does he?" + +"You never imagined such a goose as he is over them. And then you could +ask him to the party, in--in a casual way." + +Angela cheered up at once. Of course, if she could meet and ask Mr. +Manford in a casual way, it would be different. And it must be admitted +that Mr. Tilletts, who had hovered in the background of her mind, did +seem a rather remote possibility. + +So the talk passed easily from the bridge-party to Fanny Warder, and +other lesser matters. + +Mary Wing moved about as she talked. She was picking up fire-engines and +pieces of cake, overlooked by the grandmother in the suddenness of +departure. Angela's eyes followed her over the room, and she felt a +touch of envy. It was really a pretty room, much prettier than anything +in the Flowers' little house, large, light, attractively furnished, most +comfortable and livable. But, of course, it was a simple matter to have +pretty things if you had the money to buy them; which, in brief, was +just what the Flowers didn't have. It suddenly came over Angela that her +advanced cousin was, comparatively speaking, a _rich_ woman. + +She said something of the sort aloud presently. Mary Wing replied that +she worked pretty hard for all she had. + +"Our furniture is so old and awful I can't do a thing with it," +continued Angela. "I rub and scrub and polish, but it just seems to get +worse. And then the parlor is that long, narrow shape, like a +sleeping-car, and needs papering so dreadfully! You know, Cousin Mary," +said the girl, with a rueful laugh, "we were never so poor in all our +lives! You don't know how hard it is to accomplish _anything_, when you +literally haven't a cent to spend." + +Cousin Mary, who could be very nice when she wanted to, expressed +herself very sympathetically. "And I do know something about it, my +dear, you see, for I've been that way myself." + +"If father'd only get some patients!" said Angela. "But he's so funny, +he just seems to think a family gets along somehow, and never even put +up his sign till I begged him to! And, of course, Wallie doesn't +contribute anything; he just puts away everything he makes for his +education--" + +"It _is_ hard on you, poor dear--" + +"He has to, of course. But I _have_ wished we had Tommy back, these +weeks since we've been here! He was the sweetest, most generous thing, +till he married...." + +But soon Cousin Mary gave the conversation a characteristic twist, with +the very suggestion that Mr. Garrott had once promised to make to +Angela, and then permanently backed down. + +"Angela," she said, suddenly thoughtful, "did you ever think at all of +going to work--regularly, for yourself?" + +The girl looked up, in surprise. "Going to work? You mean in an office?" + +"Yes--something of that sort. You--" + +"Why, no, Cousin Mary! I've never _had_ to think of that. Of course, +father can still support me. I didn't mean you to think--" + +"Oh, of _course_! I understand that perfectly! I meant only on your own +account, my dear, so that you could have your own money, all you want of +it. It makes a difference, as I can testify! And then, too, I know a +good many girls with plenty of money already, who go to work--well, just +for the fun of it!--Helen Carson, for instance." + +Angela looked as if she hardly knew how to explain herself to one +holding her cousin's known ideas of fun. However, she endeavored, +sweetly. + +"Yes, I know. But in the first place, you see, I couldn't very well be +spared from the house. I do every bit of the work, except cooking and +washing, and mother doesn't expect ever to touch the housekeeping any +more. It takes so much time, and worry, and our cook is _awful_, because +we can't afford to pay but twelve dollars a month, and, of course, a +good servant won't work for that! And besides, father wouldn't dream of +allowing such a thing, Cousin Mary. He'd think it was--was just +charging him with being a failure, and not able to take care of his +family!" + +It was a sufficiently conclusive statement, as Cousin Mary seemed to +feel; she did not argue back, but replied understandingly, and mentioned +that Harold Warder felt the same way about women's working. So Angela +felt the moment to be favorable for explaining her deeper points of +view. + +"And, Cousin Mary, even if I made mother take back the housework, and +father'd let me do it," she said, with a girlish hesitancy that became +her well, "I wouldn't _want_ to go into an office--or have a business +career. I--just feel differently about all those things. I have no +ambitions that way--at _all_!" + +Cousin Mary, who chanced to be standing near, surprised her by stooping +suddenly and pinching her cheek. + +"Tell me what your ambitions are, Angela, dear." + +"Well--you probably--I don't believe you'd understand exactly what I--" + +"On the contrary, for two cents I'll tell you what they are myself." + +"Well, what?" said Angela, gazing up with unfeigned interest. "Tell me +what you think?" + +"They really can be stated as one, my guess is," said Mary, smiling in +the nicest way: "To be a good wife to the man you will love some day." + +Color flowed suddenly into the girl's upturned face. By a strange +coincidence, Cousin Mary had stated the ambition in the very words +Angela herself would have used. But, though maidenly embarrassed, she +would not lower her gaze as if she were ashamed of her ambition, or +overborne by her cousin's hard masculinity. + +"I know," she said, pink and sweet, "you think that's just a--weak +womanly ambition! I know you aren't much interested in my kind of +things, Cousin Mary." + +"Indeed, you wrong me," said Mary, her smile dying. "I don't feel that +way at all." + +And through her shot the irrelevant thought: "Why does she call me +Cousin Mary, all the time? I'm only four years older than she." + +But, as the two girls thus gazed at each other, the interval in their +ages seemed, indeed, indefinite and immense. Angela's eyes could afford +that subtle expression of known womanly advantage. The light of +afternoon, flowing freely over the park and into the long windows, fell +full upon Mary Wing's delicate face. It was a face, to be just, not +devoid of a feminine attractiveness at times. But now the bright day +showed it colorless and tired; the marks of many "fights" lingered +indefinably about the mouth; tiny crow's-feet netted the corners of the +fine blue eyes. Yes, this school-teacher's first youth was gone. Full of +strange isms, she had lost sight of the real things of life, and now her +Woman's Opportunity had slipped away from her forever. + +It may be that Mary Wing would have given something of her honors to be +prettier than Angela just for that moment. + +"I think it would be hard to name a finer ambition. To be a good wife +to ..." And, breaking off, she added, with another smile, sudden and +merry: "To Dan Jenney, didn't you tell me?" + +Her young cousin lost her dreamy look rather abruptly. + +"Why, _no_, Cousin Mary! Please don't say that! I only told you that--" + +But Cousin Mary, having turned her eyes toward the window, interrupted +the womanly talk with a smashing announcement. + +"Here's Flora Trevenna coming in--good!" she said in her most +matter-of-fact way. "Excuse me a minute, Angela,--I'm bell-hop, you +know!" + +Angela, who at least knew the ill-omened name, gave one startled gaze, +and sprang up. The prospect of casually meeting Mr. Manford was +forgotten in her sudden panic alarm. + +"I must _go_!" she said, looking about her a little wildly. "I--should +have gone some time ago--really! I just stopped in to--" + +Mary's colorless face seemed to stiffen a little. So, perhaps, Mr. +Mysinger was wont to see it. + +"Well, wait just a minute," she ordered, rather than requested. "I'd +especially like you to meet Flora." + +Nice reward this for being cousinly and inviting Cousin Mary to the +bridge-party: _to meet that woman_! + +"I--really, I _can't_, Cousin Mary! I'll just run back and see your +mother a minute--and then--" + +"You can't well be so rude as that, can you?" said Mary. And then she +added, as if something within her threw out the words beyond her will: +"Why do you call me Cousin Mary all the time? I'm only four years older +than you." + +The question, of course, expected no notice. Mary was gone into the +hall. Yet Angela, left unpoliced, did not immediately fly toward the +bedroom region, or run and hide with the leaflets behind the sofa. It +may be she feared her hard cousin a little; but besides that, in the +strangest and most contradictory sort of way, it appeared that she did +not altogether want to fly. She was conscious of an excitement, of a +sort of unworthy curiosity. + +The front door opened; there were voices. And then Mary Wing returned, +her arm slipped brazenly through that of her astounding friend. + +And Angela, despite all of the injunctions of propriety, looked; looked, +with a sort of fearful fascination. Never in her life before, to her +knowledge, had her girlish eyes rested upon a Badwoman. Though virtue +went out of her, she _must_ look this once.... + +"Flora, this is my cousin, Angela Flower, whom you know of, I believe. +My friend, Miss Trevenna, Angela." + +A look of greeting came upon the Badwoman's not displeasing face, a +little smile upon the pretty, sinful lips. + +"Oh, how do you do, Miss Flower?" + +But Angela, with her upbringing, found it impossible to reciprocate +these friendly overtures. Take one shameful peep, she might. But that +itself brought a reaction, perhaps; and as well as Donald Manford, as +well as Judge Blenso himself, Angela knew, if only by intuition, that +good people must stand up for morals. Donald certainly would have +applauded her, as she inclined her graceful head about an inch and spoke +two cold words:-- + +"Miss Trevenna." + +And then, her alarm mysteriously gone, she turned to her cousin and +said, formally: "Good-bye, then, Cousin Mary. Do come to see us when you +find time." + +Indeed, the two cousins viewed everything too differently to make much +intimacy between them probable. When the door had shut on Angela, Cousin +Mary put her arm about the shoulder of the Badwoman and said the +strangest, the most advanced thing possible:-- + +"Dear Flora! You must let me say--I'm sorry." + +Miss Trevenna, with her deceptively cloistral countenance, seemed to +flinch a little. Her gaze looked rather bright; it fell away from +Mary's. But she produced a fair effect of uncomprehension and surprise. + +"Sorry? Why, what for?" + +"Well--I can't feel my little cousin showed to very good advantage." + +"Oh, didn't she? But it makes no difference. I--hardly ever notice what +people do--really! Are you too busy, or shall we walk?" + +"Let me get my hat," said Mary. + +Having put on hat and coat in her own bedroom, the fighting educator +looked into the room beyond, where the babies and their grandmother were +considerably spread over creation. + +"Angela gone?" asked Mrs. Wing presently, in the midst of cooing. + +"Yes," said Mary; and let it stand at that. + +"Look how he cuddles in his granny's arm. I had to change his little +socks again. She was very strange with them, Mary, didn't you think so?" + +"Strange?--how do you mean?" + +"Why, she just didn't seem to care anything about them! Didn't you +notice, she hardly looked at Paulie once! How could she help loving such +little darlings? And she seems such a nice, womanly girl, too." + +"Well, _all_ women aren't maternal, mother, don't you know that?" + +"In my day," said Mrs. Wing imperturbably, "all good women loved +babies." + +But when Mary said where she was off to now, a shadow fell on her +mother's calm face, and Mary saw it. However, Mrs. Wing said nothing, +this time. + +Though Donald had never carried out that hare-brained threat of his, as +to "dropping a hint" to Mary, his voice could scarcely have been missed +amid the general feminine chorus. Indeed, everybody who possessed so +much as a hint to her name, in those days, seemed to be dropping it to +Mary. How far she minded her public unpopularity Mary did not say, but +her mother's unwavering disapprobation she unquestionably took to heart. +"Good women don't make mistakes of that sort," said Mrs. Wing, and was +shaken by no argument. And now, as Mary bent to kiss this wrinkled and +well-loved cheek, she was thinking that never in the world before had +there opened such a gulf between two generations; and she wondered why +life must be so hard. + +Later, Mrs. Wing sat for some time quite still, by her window, and her +brooding look was not grandmotherly now, but motherly, which is +different. For, of course, there was one person on earth to whom Mary +could never seem truly the mature, advanced and dangerous young woman of +Fights, Reforms and Careers. Through all her newnesses and strength, the +mother's eyes yet held her as the tiny, helpless, clinging little scrap +which she, a young girl then, had gone down to the gates of the world to +bring in. + + + + +VII + + +The "line" of the new novel refused to come straight on the first +attempt, or the second, and Charles had been compelled to leave his +preliminary scenarios to ripen gradually in his head. In the intervals +of intense plotting, he was tossing off short fictions; four such he had +now tossed since the completion of "Bondwomen" had set him free. +"Bondwomen" itself was in the hands of that discriminating house, +Messrs. Blank and Finney, Judge Blenso having risen up early on the +morning after the rejection to take it to the express office. Experience +was now coming with a leap; but yesterday the first of Charles's new +stories had been sent back by "Willcox's Monthly," with a mere printed +form of refusal. This was the fiction about Dionysius, who, it may be +remembered, had freed his eyes from the magic of sex and consequently +cracked walnuts with a sort of splendid sadness. + +Such episodes staggered belief; but, in a strange way, they seemed to +fan the fires of genius unrecognized. Hence it was without joy that +Charles confronted after supper this evening a memorandum he had lately +left for himself in the place where he left memoranda. It was brief, +containing but a single word,--_Bridge_; and, coming on it unexpectedly, +the author spoke but a single word, though a different one. No more than +Mary Wing, of course, did he have evenings to fling this way and that, +in mere idle frivolity. Why did people have this mania for playing +cards, going to places, calling, all the time? Why the mad rage for +doing things? + +As to this engagement, it seemed just to have developed along; the +first he knew of it, you might say, the thing was settled and arranged. +Still, it was admitted that from the young Home-Maker's point of view, +it was all quite simple and natural and human. Charles, even in the +first flush of author's revolt, really felt no bitterness. + +Shutting his table drawer with a bang, he withdrew to the bedroom and +began to assume one of those garments which first brought renown to +Tuxedo Park. + +Charles's acquaintance with Miss Angela had developed smoothly, without +any unusual effort on his part. That they had a walk or something every +day was not mathematically accurate; but he had seen the girl several +times since the day of the call, when he got the book. The very next +day, as it fell out, he had met the pretty cousin again on the +promenade, at about the same time and place, and as she was out only for +exercise, and had done her stint, she said, she very charmingly turned +around with him. In no sense was it repellent to the authority thus to +see, by pleasing signs, that the old-fashioned girl liked him, in the +good old-fashioned way. At the same time, of course, he was, by +deliberate choice, a fiction-writer, not a dancing-man; and his position +about the bridge-party, as he saw it, was that he was doing a kindly +deed, to give pleasure to a rather lonely young girl. Moreover, it +should not occur again. + +And when he set out on the brisk walk to the Flowers', he was not +thinking of Angela at all, but of Angela's cousin, Mary. He understood +that Mary was to be at the bridge-party--indeed, he understood that the +party was being given principally in Mary's honor--and he was genuinely +concerned as to what his manner toward that young woman now should be. + +His perplexity dated from an episode two days earlier. On Tuesday +afternoon he had met Mary Wing over by the High School, not entirely by +chance, and had turned and walked with her. She was alone, for a wonder; +but she had begun at once to talk of the unhappy Miss Trevenna, fairly +bursting out as to the way she was being persecuted, and so forth. Miss +Trevenna had "lost" two places already, it seemed. And Charles, seeing +how much to heart Mary took the luckless girl's troubles, suddenly felt +sorry for her--yes, he ventured to feel sorry for Mary Wing!--and did +what he had positively resolved not to do. He, also, dropped a hint to +Mary. + +The memory of that unwisdom was with him yet, as an exasperation and a +hurt. + +It had profited him nothing that he approached the task, circumspectly, +in his light, humorous vein. "Did you ever hear what Susan B. Anthony +said when she had tried using bloomers for a year?" he had inquired, +positively jovial. "Said she was convinced that one reform at a time was +all that one person could manage!" But Mary Wing had said instantly, +"You apply this to me," and right there had the trouble begun. "Aren't +you crippling yourself needlessly?" he had amiably suggested. "Is it +wise to feed the popular delusion that any sort of reformer is all sorts +of an anarchist?" To which she replied, quite indignantly, "This isn't a +question of _reform_ at all with me!--if you must have it explained to +you." And when he asked her what she expected to accomplish exactly, she +declared that in point of fact a great deal had been accomplished +already; Miss Trevenna's father had seen her, for one thing, and it +seemed but a matter of time before she would be forgiven and taken back. +"But if nothing was accomplished in a thousand years," said Mary, "I'd +still do exactly what I am doing!" + +The worst of it was that one large disunited side of Charles stuck it +out that Mary was doing exactly right: he knew, indeed, whatever she +might say for argument, that all this was chiefly a matter of her +sympathies, and she no more believed in this sort of Freedom than he +did. Hence his counter-argument had not been up to his best standard, a +mere urging of timid prudences, it seemed. And very soon she had swooped +on his weakness, silencing him at a stroke:-- + +"I'll not drop an old friend just because it's _safer_! I'll not. Mr. +Garrott, you disappoint me." + +Now, no man on earth enjoys being told that he has disappointed a +friend, least of all a woman friend, in a matter involving courage. Mr. +Garrott held that word ungracious from Mary. And now, as he strode +silently toward his evening of pleasure, he seemed to feel that there +was, indeed, a kind of hardness in her, and, as to him, a certain air of +assured superiority such as could not be further tolerated. + +How, then, should he deport himself toward Mary now, seeing her again at +the bridge-party? Through long blocks, Charles pondered the question. +While leaning from the first toward a manner of brilliant tolerance, +slightly aloof, indeed, yet splendidly witty, he really had not settled +the point finally in his mind, when Miss Angela opened her front door +for him, and said, almost in the first breath:-- + +"Oh, Mr. Garrott, what do you think? Cousin Mary and Mr. Manford both +backed out! _I hope you don't mind playing three-hand!_" + +Taken completely by surprise, the young man hardly repressed a bitter +mirth. + +But that, after all, was for his wasted evening only. And in a moment he +was himself again, doing his deed of kindness, distributing pleasure +among the young and lonesome. + +He was not, indeed, he considered, one to think the less of a girl for +being poor but hospitable, for desiring to "entertain," when, the too +obvious fact was, she had nobody to entertain. The three-hand's party +rather touched than repelled Charles; he criticized not Angela, but Mary +Wing, who had stayed away. Moreover, the other guest turned out to be +Fanny Warder, which suited him unexpectedly well. Grieved though he was +by Fanny's broken beauty, she had become a Case to him now, one more +exhibit in the growing gallery of Woman's Unrest. + +And certainly, when it was all over, it never once occurred to Charles +to think of this evening as a waste, exactly. + +Into the mysteries of three-hand, as pursued in the Flower parlor that +evening, it will do well not to follow. The play really was not the +thing, as Angela had implied to her Cousin Mary, when speaking of +Donald. Fanny Warder played a poor game; everybody said that. Of course, +she had only come to help out, but still, one could not avoid observing +how treacherous were her bids, or crying out upon her when she was +discovered slumbering with the three highest hearts. A great deal of +jumping up and changing seats there was, a great deal of discussion each +time as to which one had better jump and change, constant demands of, +"Whose bid is it?" and, "Who dealt these cards?" But there was much +girlish laughter, too; merry prattle flowed unceasingly; "a good time +was had." + +And Angela's bridge-party had, as Charles viewed it, one sterling merit: +it ended early. It is a point which, as is well known, rests entirely in +the hands of the hostess, according to when she elects to bring on her +refreshments; and when Angela rose soon after ten o'clock and tripped +away alone to get "the party," as she called it, the author's whole +opinion of her went up at a bound. He had known women, thus having you +at their mercy, to keep you sitting around till midnight before ever +mentioning "the party," and then sometimes those horrible jolly girls +made you romp back to the pantry and help. + +And when, after a considerable interval, Miss Angela returned, bearing +her refreshments on a large tin tray, the young authority again took the +large view, sympathetically seeing the general behind the particular. +The refreshments consisted of lettuce and tomato salad, together with +crackers, a little cheese, ice-water, and a small box of candy. Charles +could not conceal from himself that the salad was poor, the dressing had +"run," the crackers were without crackle, the candy cheap, the ice-water +warm; but, in a subtle sort of way, all this made him feel not less, but +more, friendly toward his simple young hostess. Not knowing that she +could not make mayonnaise, or suspecting that her little brother had +reluctantly stood treat to the candy, his fancy pictured the girl as +preparing the modest spread for her (two) friends with her own hands and +thought, her heart full of pleasant anticipations the while. And this +seemed normal and human to Charles, and sweet enough, and just a little +pathetic besides. Angela, gayly setting out her three plates, was again +a type and a symbol. She was all the poor Nice Girls in the world, ten +million poor Nice Girls scattered over the earth that night who, the +day's justifying labors done, were trying to create a little joy for +themselves and others, sweetly pursuing their great business of +Supplying Beauty and Supplying Charm.... + +But while Angela was still in the rearward regions, making ready her +tray, Charles engaged in a scientific talk with his old friend Fanny. It +both interested and depressed him. + +Mary's young sister had taken Harold Warder out of a field unusually +large for these lean days. Harold had been in love with her from his +knickerbocker days, and was considered to be "doing very well"; the +match had been a most promising one. But ill-luck had pursued the young +couple from the first, assuming the worst of all forms, unceasing +doctor's bills. Fanny, beyond any counting, had had long illnesses +following the births of both her children; and the expenses of the first +one had swamped Warder, wiping out at once the rainy-day margin he had +married on. That Mary Wing secretly sent money to Fanny, Charles was +morally certain. But Fanny was well again now, and poverty and debt were +wont to be the butts of young love. Why, then, was her pretty face drawn +to a birdlike thinness; why this beaten look in eyes that were once so +gay? + +Tête-à-tête over the three-hand table, Mrs. Warder surprised Charles by +saying that she wanted to go back to work; her husband, however, would +not hear of such a thing. Charles, though a modern, said naturally not. + +"I can earn a hundred a month," said Fanny, "and get a perfect nurse for +twenty-five." + +He explained the error in her utilitarianism. Intently shuffling the +cards on the table, he pointed out the injustice of orphaning Paulie and +Neddy-Weddy of their mother-love. Fanny's own mind seemed greatly +unsettled. But she could be as straightforward as Mary with those she +was fond of. + +"Harold supposed," she said, presently, "that he was marrying a lively +young person, one that he, at least, would find indefinitely +entertaining. He discovers instead that he's got an ailing woman on his +hands, one with no spirits or looks at all worth mentioning. Could you +blame him if he woke up some day and said, 'I've been cheated?'" + +And the Young Wife slowly added: "It'll be years before he gets his head +above water again. And that's my doing, Charles,--I, who'd have cut off +my right arm to help him the least bit." + +Charles scolded her roundly for her morbidness. "Great heavens!--you +must know _he_ could never think that way! Look how you have helped him! +If your health went, you gave it to him--let him hold that to his heart! +There's Paulie and the baby, that you brought him, more than +compensating--" + +But Mary's sister broke this argument with her old laugh. + +"Don't tempt me, Charles! I'm all kinds of a hypocrite but that kind! Of +course, I wanted children a great deal more than Harold, and they're my +compensation--for everything--not his at all. You know all that +perfectly well. No, no," said Fanny, lowering her voice as Angela's +returning steps were heard. "If Harold ever tires of me, I'll go, you +may be sure. He won't find me clamping on his shoulders, claiming to be +taken care of for life because of my two little darlings...." + +Charles had expected to walk home with Fanny, continuing the sad but +interesting talk, but he was frustrated in that intention by the arrival +of an escort of Fanny's own. This proved to be none other than Mr. +Tilletts. + +It developed that the seeking widower, who was known as a sort of public +Former Suitor, had called on Fanny this evening, and, finding her about +to go out, had begged the privilege of squiring her to and fro. Had +Angela understood this in advance, how willingly would she have raised +Three-Hand to a Table! But at least she could do her best now to remove +from Mr. Tilletts's mind the idea that she was rude,--derived at the +Redmantle Club, where she had made her unfortunate mistake,--and +apparently she was successful, for Charles heard the plump seeker say, +"May I call?" quite distinctly, as they moved into the hall. + +The door shut on a chorus of good-nights. + +The bridge-party was over; and it was only quarter of eleven. Charles +turned toward the hat-rack and the Studio. And in turning, he surprised +a look in his hostess's dark eyes, which seemed to say, in the most +ingenuous way: "At last, a few minutes to ourselves!" + +All evening, he had been aware of a subtly more personal note in Miss +Angela's manner; a coyer and engagingly proprietary note, which he, with +his known dispassionateness toward this sex, considered as intended for +Fanny Warder's benefit. Charles had not been annoyed by this: few men +repel the adoration of a pretty girl. And now this soft simple +expectancy of hers, this girlish lingering over her somewhat pathetic +party, seemed beyond his kind heart (as he would have put it) to +disappoint. "You're not going!--it's so early!" she exclaimed, and +coquetted prettily enough: "I'd think you were displeased with +me--promising to have Cousin Mary for you, and then not doing it!... But +you don't mind _very_ much, do you?" + +Kindly Charles capitulated at once. "Pay my party-call right now--?" he +threw out, gallant and yet thrifty withal. "If you're sure I'm not +keeping you up...." + +So these two reëntered Miss Angela's little parlor, with its +sleeping-car shape and too prominent Latrobe heater: a room poor enough +in itself, but having an institutional significance when considered as +the Waiting Room of the Womanly Woman. Here they sat down, side by side, +upon a dented sofa. And here, before a great while, there took place a +somewhat strange occurrence. + +There began an animated flow of girlish chatter. + +"I haven't seen you on Washington Street for three days now, Mr. +Garrott. I believe you're avoiding me! I met Mr. Manford this afternoon, +and what do you think he said? That he couldn't play bridge as well as +he could build them, and was afraid he'd be mobbed at a party! I don't +think he _could_ play any worse than Fanny, do you? But Mr. Garrott, why +does he want to go to _Wyoming_? I'd _lots_ rather go to New York, if I +were a man! I asked him if that river out there he was going to dam was +pretty, and he said he'd send me a picture post-card of it, when he +went. But I suppose he'll forget all about it...." + +Mr. Garrott, pleasantly relaxed, made suitable replies as need arose. In +his scientific way, he was noting how fine and clear Miss Angela's skin +was, what shining soft eyes she had, how soothing and sweet was her +voice. Certainly this girl did not try to create the air that she was +your manly superior, or address you like a Self-Made Man reproving his +wife. + +"Fanny's broken so dreadfully, hasn't she? She was so lovely and +attractive as a girl. Tommy was crazy about her when she visited us in +Mitchellton, a long time ago. He gave her the loveliest presents! But +Tommy was always the most generous boy. They were getting up a +drinking-fountain as a memorial to Major Beesom--he was postmaster for +years and years, you know--and Tommy headed the list with twenty-five +dollars, and he was only making forty a month! I just wish you could +have known Major Beesom! I know you'd want to put him in a book. Mr. +Garrott, I'm _so_ anxious to read some of your stories! What are your +heroines like, generally?" + +Out of which, she said presently, laughing and whisking her hand behind +her back:-- + +"You were looking at my ring!" + +"Why not?" said Mr. Garrott, starting a little. "A cat may look at a +ring." + +That was reasonable surely. Angela, after a few teasing pretenses, held +up her modest gimcrack for him to see. And Charles, naturally, accepted +the hand so presented. + +As to what subsequently occurred, there was always a divided house +within the many-sided Charles. But all his sides insisted that, at this +point, he had no interest in the matter whatever; some held that he had +not even seen the ring till she called attention to it. Now, bending +over the hand, he examined it, and said:-- + +"Well! This is news to me, you know!" + +"Not at all!" laughed the owner of the ring. "Why, what do you mean?" + +"I've seen an engagement ring once before, you see." + +"You're very clever! But--does it have to follow that I'm engaged?" + +"That was the rule, in my day." + +"You don't seem at all curious!" + +"I'm very curious." + +"Well, I'm not, of course!" + +"I'm glad to hear it." + +He made, as it were, a sort of sketch of a move to release the small +hand at this point. However, nothing seemed to come of it. + +"Are you?... Why?" + +"Oh, because--it's rather sad for an old bystander like me to see all +the nice young people going off two by two, for happiness and the great +adventure." + +To that, the girl made no reply. She merely gave a little laugh, and +withdrew her hand. The house seemed very still. And Charles was at once +aware that he had been found somehow deficient at the simple game of +parlor conversation. In a scarcely definable way, he felt himself +rebuked for timidity, wariness. + +Nevertheless, in her simple, natural way, the girl made known that the +ring was properly the possession of a man in Mitchellton--Charles +recalled Mr. Jenney--and was now worn only by courtesy, reminiscently, +as it were, with no obligations attached. + +"You see, his brothers all went off, like all the other men, and his +sister married and went away, and so he said he would stay in +Mitchellton with his mother. And it's truly the most hopeless place! He +doesn't seem to have any ambition at all--it provoked me so! I think all +men ought to have ambition, don't you?" + +"I do, indeed. And he owns that pretty ring, you say?" + +"Yes. You see," she said, laughing and coloring, "when I felt I must +break it off,--well, he wouldn't let it stay off exactly! I--I'm telling +you all my secrets! He said he'd still consider himself--oh--you know!" + +"Naturally. He had enough ambition for that." + +And, as if to show Miss Angela that, in point of fact, none knew better +than he how to talk to a girl on a sofa, Charles carelessly took up that +betrothal hand again, saying: "So he made you keep the ring all the +same?" + +"The day we left Mitchellton. And I said I'd wear it--oh, just till I +met somebody I liked better! It was really more of a joke!..." + +"Ah! And you haven't met such a person yet, I gather?" + +"Oh--I'm not to send it back till I know--" + +"How long," said the young authority, at once completely conscious of +the supreme inanity of the proceedings, and finding them enjoyable +enough, "how long do you allow yourself to find out?" + +"That isn't easy to tell.... Do you know you're the strangest man!" + +"Am I? How do I seem so strange to you?" + +The little hand was warm, not unpleasant to retain. The eyes, gazing up +at him, were liquid and bright; they were woman's eyes. "Consider me," +they seemed to say. "Am I not sweet, desirable? Am I not worthy to be +held dear? Was I not made to delight? See, I am Woman, beside you...." + +"Oh," said the soft voice, "the way you do. Cousin Mary says you're the +new sort of man, that isn't interested in girls at all. You're too +clever to care anything about them. Are you?" + +"Clever? I'd call that the stupidest thing in the world." + +"Then you do like them! I'm so glad. I've wondered, you see...." + +The feminine speeches, the appeal of these eyes, seemed all at once to +create an enveloping pressure, softer than nothing, yet extraordinary. +Or possibly the trouble was that Dionysius, after all, had freed his +eyes of the magic more brilliantly than his creator. + +"What sort of girls do you like? Tell me?" said the voice of Woman, +nearer. + +And then in the suddenest way conceivable there took place the Strange +Occurrence referred to. Without the smallest premeditation, Charles bent +and touched his lips to that smooth invitational cheek. + +On that central point there is not the slightest room for doubt. Let +there be no wriggling or evasion here. Charles Garrott, who scorned La +Femme and viewed Woman exclusively as a Movement, did bend his neck and +kiss the Mitchellton Home-Maker upon a sofa. + +He meant the salute, he was afterward certain, as but a fatherly tribute +to youth and beauty, or (considered in another way) but the expected, +and in a sense purely conventional, move in the ancient parlor-game. But +on such a move as this homes have been broken, families set to mutual +slaughter, thrones shaken, history changed. Charles, to put it in a +word, found it easier to begin paying his tributes than gracefully to +desist from them. + +Prompted by a not unnatural curiosity, the lady (who had not proved more +than maidenly surprised or rebuking) said:-- + +"Oh!... Why do you do this?" + +[Illustration: "OH!... WHY DO YOU DO THIS?"] + +Who knows what trusting heart first voiced that immemorial question? +Charles Garrott, at least, was not the first gentleman on earth to fail +to utter promptly the one satisfactory commentary on his behavior. Miss +Angela made that little, gentle note of interrogation which cannot be +written, and then she said again:-- + +"Tell me--why do you?" + +Then it was as if the intrinsic pointedness of that query penetrated the +man, suddenly and sharply. It was the mere force of iteration, no doubt; +but all at once the soft voice seemed possessed of a certain insistence, +tinctured with a certain definite expectation, you might say. Now that +Charles stopped to think of it, why was he doing this? + +The young man's arms fell, as if something had burned them. He rose +abruptly and strode away to the mantelpiece, where, however, the Latrobe +heater spoiled any hope of an effective pose. + +If he meant thus to signify that the little episode was closed and done +with, life, unluckily, was not quite so simple as that. The pretty +Home-Maker, having gazed at his back- or side-view a moment, as if +bewildered, said in an uncertain voice:-- + +"I--I don't understand you at all. Why did you do that?" + +Putting down the impulse to bolt, and the even more astonishing impulse +to return to that fatal sofa, Charles Garrott braced himself to reply. +In this effort he was handicapped by emotions altogether unknown to most +young men who sit upon sofas. For example: What would the lady in Sweden +have to say to this little affair? + +He confronted a fact which he had temporarily lost sight of: that he who +pays these tributes must pay for them to the full. Half of him might +feel resentful and furious, but it was clear that the whole of him, the +net Charles, must cut a sorry figure for a while. Half of him might be +crying out, stern as science itself: "Come, girl, be honest! Don't go +about dropping matches into gunpowder, and then pretend to be surprised +at the explosion." But the net Charles, brightly flushed, was speaking +lamely as a schoolboy:-- + +"Well! Do you think I could be _blamed_--exactly? It--it seemed such an +awfully natural thing to do. You--ah--it seemed I--I couldn't do +anything _else_!..." + +"I see," said the girl slowly. + +"Ah--you--you're a very kissable person, you must know--" + +"And do you always go about kissing people you think are kissable?" + +The young man shrank as from a blow. Not looking once in her direction, +he did not note that she had spoken with a quivering lip. With a great +effort at lightness, he stammered:-- + +"Well, hardly! It must be that I don't often meet people who--who are as +k-k-kissable as you--" + +"I suppose I ought to feel flattered." + +There was a miserable silence. + +"I was mistaken in you," continued the Nice Girl's stricken voice. "I--I +trusted you. I supposed you were too honorable--I didn't think--" + +That word seemed to touch him to the quick. He spoke with desperate +stiffness. + +"I _am_ honorable, I hope. Miss Flower--aren't you taking this too--too +seriously, perhaps? After all, you--" + +She astonished him by bursting into tears. + +And all modernity became as nothing then, and Charles was a simple man, +horrified by the sight of woman's grief. Now his abasement became +complete; now he groveled most properly; never, he vowed, would he cease +to censure himself most severely for this Occurrence. He wheedled, he +implored, he cajoled. But, of course, all this but made the matter +worse, threw his wary, inexcusable omissions into sharper and sharper +relief. And presently Miss Angela referred to him as _brutal_ (did she +not pause even after that, in a sort of expectant way?) and then ended +the tragedy by begging him to leave her, her fatally ringed hands held +fast before her eyes. + +No such conclusion to the evening of wholesome pleasure could have been +devised by the wit of fiction-writers. Charles gathered up his hat and +coat like a thief, and let himself gently out into the night. + + + + +VIII + + +He turned in at the Green Park, in the still night, and stood gazing +with bitterness at a dim gigantic Citizen, who rose in bronze at the +intersection of two walkways. The Citizen gazed back with no bitterness +at all; but then, he was dead. + +Charles Garrott, being very much alive, was thinking cadlike thoughts +with clarity and vigor. In the romances, men who won a maiden's sweet +kiss instantly besought her to name the day; failing that, they were +cads. But Charles was resolved to fail that, and he was struggling +determinedly not to feel a cad. He simply did not consider that Miss +Angela's kiss had such a pricelessness, entailing cosmic +responsibilities. Why was her kiss any sweeter than his own, to come +right down to it? + +Now pure remorse had faded: self-interest, outraged self-respect, fought +to have their say. Indeed, Miss Angela herself could not well feel more +mortified over those unimagined salutes than he, the New Man, did. And +it was as if his humiliation had destroyed all that restraining sense of +a bond here, and the brutal Charles was free now for a frank facing of +his new reactions. + +"Well, I won't marry her! I won't," said he to the calm Citizen. "I'll +call myself names for her, yes; I'll send her bonbons--flowers--that +sort of thing. I'll land Donald for her--that's a thought! I'll get her +invited to the Thursday German. But _marry her_!... No, the kindest +thing would be never to see her again." + +[Illustration: "WELL, I WON'T MARRY HER! I WON'T!"] + +And, gazing up in the silent darkness of the park, the unheroic young +man began to think how he could go to Berringer's by the Center Street +cars, and take his walks henceforth in the manufacturing district, and +in far countrysides. + +Between Miss Flower's and the park, Charles had been briefly unnerved by +a disruptive thought. This girl loved him. Recollections from his salad +days rushed on him, memories of swift violent fancies women took to him. +He was cursed, it seemed, with a fatal fascination. Women might be +practically engaged to other men; they might be at the altar's hinges; +but he could not stroll among them with his devilish gift without +scattering ruin amid the troths. If he was not openly rude to them, they +took it as direct encouragement; if he was civil, from him they viewed +it as wooing; and when actually crowned with the deliberate kiss ... + +But these bachelor terrors he had exploded with one "Piffle!" spoken so +loudly that two young street-car conductors, passing to or from a +car-barn, no doubt, nudged and jeered. Oh, no, Miss Angela was not in +love with him. She had merely conceived that he, Charles, was in love +with her. (A stinging thought this, even while it vastly reassured.) +Yes, this rudimentary country cousin, whom he had felt sorry for because +of her loneliness, whom he had been interested in purely as a Type (he +maintained), with which to cudgel the hard utilitarian egoism of another +sort of woman--this little creature must needs suppose that he, Charles +Garrott, who knew the most attractive women there were, had fallen a +victim to her village arts and bucolic wiles. + +Great heavens!--Oh, the cheek! Oh, the naïve complacence of the naïvest +sex the Lord ever made!... + +Why, he had never paid the smallest attention to this girl; never taken +dog's notice of her, you might say! Booting pebbles this way and that in +the darkness, the angry young man reviewed the circumstances with +scientific dispassionateness (as he considered). Compulsorily introduced +by the firm Mary, he had spoken politely to the girl; kindly presented +a suitable young friend or two; and therewith considered that the whole +matter was closed. But no, on the contrary; one pleasant smile from him, +and the Womanly Woman was up and doing. + +She had pumped out of him the hour at which he took his walks (he knew +nothing about the opera-glasses as yet); and straightway she began +waylaying him on the street, nothing less. She had all but forced a book +on him, which he would have to return with a "call"--she supposed; when +he did not call, she did something which could only be described as +inveigling him to her home (that was his word now), by the shallow ruse +of a bridge-party; and then and there she had (you might say) flung both +arms about his neck and kissed him. And by these proceedings, it +appeared to her, in that queer world where Nice Girls lived, that she +had affixed a claim upon him, fairly bagged his heart, in short. "Why do +you do this?" said she, insistently. Oh, how simple life looked to such +as these, her and her sisters of the Naïve Sex! Forever putting that +stereotyped query, forever expecting to elicit the hoarse but extremely +welcome reply, "Because I love you so!" No conquest too extraordinary to +seem at all surprising to their quaint little self-approval! + +There was humor now in his imagining of the Womanly Woman as quietly +waiting at home to be wooed. It appeared that Miss Angela had done +everything but that. + +A church clock boomed suddenly: it was half-past eleven. The young man's +eyes fell from the face of the Citizen. Through the stark stems of the +winter trees a yellow light glowed strongly in a lower window. That was +Olive Street there; this light shone in the Wings' house. He noted it +absently, wondering why Mary worked so late to-night. On the heels of +that came another wonder, more personal: What would Mary think of these +proceedings upon a sofa? + +There must have been a bracing quality in the thought of Mary Wing, for +Charles's hot desire to justify himself chilled instantly. Mary had her +faults, heaven knew; but she had nothing to do with sofas. In a wink, +the young man became staggered at himself. For there was nothing he had +been thinking just now that he had not seen clearly for many years past. +What, then? Had his vision of late been blurred in the cheapest way +conceivable? When he told himself that he was scientifically commending +the supplying of Beauty and Charm, was it possible that he, Charles +Garrott, had been subtly allured by La Femme? + +From outraged and resentful, Charles became let down and depressed. +Standing and gazing at Mary Wing's bright light, he found his whole +point of view shifting. He, of course, was blameworthy, not this soft +bit of unthinking femininity. Turned out without a lesson and with but +one way of life--what could she do but signify, like her mothers, that +she was ready to twine about her oak? So again, Charles saw the girl he +had left in tears as a being mysteriously wistful and pathetic. And +still she was a type to him, still a symbol of myriads of girls, waiting +over the world: Girls brought up by simple parents who assumed that life +was still as simple as they; girls made to stake their whole lives on +the vague expectation that, because they are girls, some man or other +will be sure to want them some day; a million girls waiting, day by day +and year by year, while all they have to offer life fades away under +their eyes.... + +The young authority trailed out of the park feeling much like the cads +of Romance, after all. And yet it seemed to be settled now, definitely +and positively, that he would not make a Womanly Woman the heroine of +his new novel. + +A light snow had begun to fall. Other people than Charles Garrott moved +homeward from evenings of beauty, charm and pleasure. Motor-cars rolled +on Washington Street. Emerging from the Green Park, Charles moodily +saluted two young men who stood there on a corner; one was his good +friend, Talbott Maxon, but the author passed him almost like a stranger. +To all intercourse with his kind he felt utterly averse. Nevertheless, +when he passed the door of the Bellevue Club, presently, he found his +privacy ruthlessly invaded. + +Down the wide steps between the two columnar lights--exactly as on that +other evening when it had all begun--came shambling the loose figure of +Uncle Oliver Wing. Only now Uncle Oliver's large face was faintly +flushed, his large felt hat was pulled over his eyes, his very large +cigar was rakishly uptilted toward the heavens. From which it was +concluded that Mr. Wing was not less than five drinks and five dollars +the better for _his_ little card-party at the Club. + +"Let's see now, Charlie,--what was it you asked me?" said Mr. Wing, +catching stride and slipping his arm through the silent young man's. +"Did I believe in this Woman's Movement, wasn't that it?" + +Resenting the intrusion, Charles replied coldly: "That was it, I +believe." + +Mr. Wing appeared no whit abashed. "Well, Charlie, fact is I believe in +most any kind of a movement, as I reckon you know, and all I ask about +any of 'em is, where's the harm of moving kind of slow, and taking a few +good squints around as we go. That'd about give my view that you asked +me for," said the money-lender, a known reactionary in theory and +practice--"Move slow and squint." + +Genially, he took a fresh grip on the arm Charles had almost detached, +and therewith went off into an ill-timed long rigmarole. So convivially +windy was Mr. Wing that he had talked steadily through two blocks before +it came over Charles, with force, that Mary's uncle had had a sharp aim +from the beginning. + +"Now, you take, for instance, this privilege of work they're all +clamoring for, Charlie. Women mustn't be parasites; give us the +privilege of work, they say. And that's right, too; give 'em all they'll +take's my view. But, Charlie, my observation is that when a woman +clamors that way, it's ten to one she's thinking of work like being +governor, or a great public speaker maybe, or Miss Jane Addams, out to +Hull House there. But if you ask _me_, are they willing to work like men +do, just so's not to have you call 'em parasites--well, that's where I +say, let's stop and squint around. Of course, now, whenever you see a +rich man's daughter refusing to touch her daddy's money, and jumping up +mornings by an alarm-clock to catch the 7.42, and when you see her +working nine hours a day, winter and summer, at a job it makes her sick +to look at, for ten little dollars a week, and no brass band or +fireworks anywhere--why, then you got a right to say, _that_ woman hates +being a parasite. But, Charlie, you're so quiet, you don't say anything, +I don't guess you're following while I try to answer that question you +asked me." + +"Oh, I follow you," replied Charles, with annoyance. + +Mr. Wing shot one keen glance at the young man's face, and another ahead +as if to measure the distance yet remaining to his domicile. + +"Well, now, morals, Charlie!" he continued, most agreeably. "Lor', the +things our little gals do say nowadays! Make you laugh right out loud. +Ain't it funny how innocent women can keep, now? Up and take their +cocktails, yes, and smoke their cigarettes, and talk right out, white +slave this, and red-light that, and all the time--no more _notion_!... +Why, Charlie, you wouldn't believe the pretty-faced little gal, no +more'n twenty-two years old, I heard making a public speech once, and +what do you think her subject was? 'My plea,' says she, 'is a single +standard of morality for men and women. Whatever man may do,' says she, +'that we claim woman's right to do also.'" + +The old gasbag broke off to say, "How-do, Ed," to a passer in the +filtering snow, knocked the ashes from his cigar with the large hand +that was not clutching Charles, and resumed. + +"Well, Charlie, I'd been sitting there meek as peaches while that little +gal explained to us all about men and women, but when she gets that off, +and right away asks if anybody in the audience has got any questions, +seemed like I couldn't sit still any longer. 'Excuse me,' I says, +standing up, 'but d'ye make a plea for the single standard of physical +courage also, miss?' I says. 'What say?' she sings out, pretending not +to hear me, while she tries to think what it said in that book she'd +been reading. 'It's a little thing, miss,' I says, 'only an old fellow's +way of saying if maybe Godalmighty didn't figure a little variety'd be a +good thing in this hard world he gave us. When the ship goes down,' I +says, 'do you call on your sisters for the single standard of courage, +miss, or do you hold by the men's rule of the sea and the land, and hop +into the lifeboats with the kids? Excuse a plain old fellow from +speakin' up this way, miss,' I says, 'but seems to me maybe Godalmighty +might have known what he was doing when he gave women more feeling, and +men more fighting strength; when he appointed women to give life and men +to guard it; when, as you might put it, he appointed some virtues for +both to hold in common, and then some for each of 'em to grow and +cultivate specially. And maybe, miss,' I says, 'Godalmighty made the +distribution fairer than some of our college gals realize.' Well, +Charlie, you ought to have heard the hand the crowd gave me, though +there was some hissin' by Suffragettes, I own. And what d'ye think that +cute-lookin' little thing does? 'I deny,' she sings out, her voice +shaking, 'that God gave more strength to men. I deny there is a God,' +she says. And right there she bu'sts out crying, and runs off the +stage.... Yes, she did!--first speech in public maybe. Well, Charlie, +all I say is, that's the kind of loose talk our gals're hearing all the +time nowadays. And that," said Mr. Wing, coming to a halt before his own +steps, and glancing hastily over his shoulder toward his door--"that's +why I can't help feeling sorry for this little gal here that got into +the trouble, and taking sides with her, too, against my public duty and +morals. Why, Charlie, _she_ thought all the talk was meant, not seeing +it was only half-foolin', like in a play." + +Now it was that Charles Garrott's bored eye upon Uncle Oliver suddenly +became fixed. + +"Taking sides with her?" he said, speaking for almost the first time in +the walk. "What do you mean?" + +"Well, that's just what I did, the effect was," said Mr. Wing, his own +eye wandering, "and against my conscience, too. Why, Charlie, if I +wasn't an early retirer by habit, and this snow comin' on, too, I could +show you quick enough where all this Single Standard was +damfoolishness--unless, of course, you mean Perfect Purity, like I +preach myself. And when a woman jumps up and hits a crack at marriage, +that the rest of us are sacrificin' ourselves to build up for the good +of Society, why, she's a bad woman, you can talk till you're black in +the face, that had ought to be punished. Yes, and those that help her, +they're lending encouragement to the enemies of the Republic, seems +like, and they'd ought to be punished, too. But, shucks," said Mr. Wing, +crushing the fire from the cigar against the iron railing, and putting +the stump carefully in his pocket, "blood's thicker'n water, like they +say. And I don't regret voting the way I did, though the majority was +against me from the start." + +The two men stood fronting each other in the silent street, and the +young man's face had become rigid. And he was now perfectly aware of the +faint gleam in the old man's eye, a gleam of distinctly malicious +enjoyment. + +"Mr. Wing, what are you talking about?" + +"Why, I thought you must have heard, Charlie, you seemed so kind of +glum. Why, I thought you must be on your way from Mary's now." + +He glanced again at his door, as if to say that he really must not be +expected to stop for further conversation at this late hour. And then he +said what exploded Miss Angela Flower off the horizon. + +"Why, Charlie, you see the School Board fired Mary this afternoon. On +account of this little friend of hers, Trevenna, that she--" + +"WHAT?" + +"Well, transferred's really the word, Charlie," said Uncle Oliver, +edging up a step or two. "She's sent over as a teacher to Lee Grammar +School, reporting Monday. Johnson Geddie's the new assistant principal +at the High School, commencing Monday, too. Well, Charlie, good--" + +Charles seized the burly arm in a grip sufficiently strong for a writer, +and threw all his turmoil into three words: "_Who went over?_" + +"Creamer and Honeykamp, I guess you mean. Of course, there was right +smart feelin' aroused, and it seemed Creamer's got a growin' daughter in +the High School, that's got to be protected and all. 'Twas only Mary's +good record saved her being dropped entirely, I guess, considering how +Mysinger'd worked the case up against her. Well, _good_-night, Charlie." + +Wrenching away his arm, Mr. Wing rolled rapidly up the steps and +vanished into the dark cave of his hall. But Charles stood still as a +snow-man on the sidewalk, feeling as if the skies had fallen. + + + + + +IX + + +So Mary Wing's name flared in newspaper headlines once again. + +In matters of school politics, the editorial writers of the city were +habitually gun-shy, but it was noted next morning that the reporters had +treated Mary with marked consideration. "Of all the changes and new +appointments ordered by the Board in its three-hour session," wrote the +kindly youth on the "Post," "none created such amazement as the demotion +of Miss Wing, she having for long been conceded to be possibly the most +valued teacher in the city school system. Members of the Board, however, +refused to explain their totally unlooked-for action, Chairman Garcin +merely claiming that 'All changes were for the good of the schools.' +Charges of politics were freely heard in the lobby, and one well-known +citizen, who prefers not to be quoted at just this juncture, said," etc. + +Reporters, as everybody knows, must severely repress their personal +opinions and stick like mucilage to the bare facts. But which facts are +the bare ones? Judicious selection is a wonderful thing. + +However, one of Miss Wing's admirers read the "Post's" amiable sentences +with no abatement of his burning indignation. Print made the thing +immensely concrete, and that was all. In Charles's mind, every hard or +critical thought of Mary had fallen instantly in the face of her +astonishing disaster; "I told you so" was not in him. That his old +friend's struggle upward had collapsed in sudden disgrace: this was bare +fact enough to possess him completely throughout the tutorial day. Here +fell a Modern principle from which he had never wavered, the great +principle that a woman should have a fair field to work, and fair +judgment, without prejudice of sex. All Mary Wing's success had been +entwined with that principle; since she was in her teens, she had +fought for it, in sunshine and in thunder; and in that town at least the +way was smoother for all women henceforward, because of what she had +done. And now to break her, after all these years, only because she, a +woman, had refused to throw a stone at a mistaken sister ... By Heavens, +this could not be endured. + +Thus Charles communed with himself, crisply teaching the Elements, +French and Sociology. And he snapped his watch at Miss Grace Chorister +five minutes ahead of time and, writing forgotten, went rushing to the +support of his "demoted" friend. + +But he did not rush by way of the frequented promenade. As he had gone +to lunch by street-car to-day, so his journey to the High School was +conducted in the same discreet manner. Through all this unimagined +disturbance about Mary, the young man had not lost sight of his last +night's resolve, formed in the Green Park, as to Mary's so different +cousin. Cad he might be; understand it she might not (in view of the +kiss); but Charles was clear that it was for the best that he and Miss +Angela should meet upon Washington Street no more. + +The "Post's" story had made one thing certain at least: Mary did not +mean to tear up her teacher's certificate and pitch it, with her +resignation, in the faces of the School Board. In the still watches, +Charles had thought she might be capable of just such reckless repartee; +now he divined that she was reserving her resignation, to discharge it, +like a bomb, upon her expected election as Secretary of the Education +Reform League. That prospect in the Career blurred the situation +considerably, without doubt. Still, the secretaryship was three months +away, at the worst. And meanwhile the immediate problem thundered for +attention, namely, how to get Mary back into the High School at the +earliest possible moment? Charles, who as a man considered this problem +his own no less than Mary's, arrived at the School with three promising +plans in his head. + +It was Friday, commonly a late day for Mary, but you could count on +nothing on such a day as this. However, when he had dashed into the +great building and up the two tall stairways, there sat the late +assistant principal in her little office, hard at work before a regular +man's desk. She was discovered deep in the sorting of papers, and swung +around at his step with a start and a smile. + +"Good-afternoon!--and excuse the mess, please! The notice to move caught +me a little unawares, you see.--Don't look so solemn, please!" + +Whatever emotions she might have wrestled with last night, when her +light shone so bright over the park, it was clear that Mary Wing had put +them all down to front the world to-day. Neither did she seem +embarrassed by any memories of recent conversations on these topics, of +hints dropped and too firmly repulsed. Her manner, her sensitive fine +face, were as composed as ever. + +It may be that this, at the outset, was slightly upsetting to Charles, +who was himself not composed at all. + +He scooped a pile of "The New School" from a chair and sat with an elbow +upon the writing-leaf of her masculine desk. Dumping papers from +pigeon-holes, Mary calmly explained how complete was her overthrow. +Senff, who was known as Mysinger's "personal representative" on the +Board, had preferred the charges, she said, recommending her outright +dismissal from the schools. The train had been carefully laid; it +appeared that Mary had received an official warning from the +Superintendent--an obliging man, elderly and weak, whom Mysinger meant +to succeed before long--all of two weeks ago. Beyond influence and +politication, much weight was attached to the simple fact that Mysinger, +as Mary's immediate associate and superior, felt this persistent +antipathy toward her. All the same, the Board had debated the case a +full hour. + +"Dangerous ideas," she summarized. "I'm not a suitable person to have +authority over the education of--young women and men." + +"What they said about Socrates, too--" + +"Yes, but I don't want a monument after I'm dead!" + +She laughed, without self-consciousness, and said: "Oh, if I'd tried, of +course, I couldn't have put a better club into Mr. Mysinger's hands. +Ideas!--I'm really amazed I wasn't electrocuted on the spot. Of course +it isn't as if I were a man, you see, with a right to have ideas. That's +my real fault, from the beginning--at least with Mysinger. I'm a woman, +and so should never have been suffered 'to teach, nor to usurp authority +over the man, but to be in silence.' Dear St. Paul!" + +It was rare to find bitterness in Mary. Charles asked hastily if there +had been much talk about the building to-day. She said that the School +had been buzzing with it. + +"It's almost been worth having it happen, to see how many friends I've +got. And the children are the best, of course. All afternoon my boys and +girls have been streaming in here, in threes and fours--just to say +they're sorry I'm going...." + +A shadow fell on her oddly fragile-looking face, and the author struck +the writing-leaf with a large fist. + +"By George, you shan't go!" + +"By George, I've got to," said Mary. + +"Well, by George, you'll come right back. Listen to me." + +Leaning forward over her desk, he eagerly unfolded his leading plan, +elaborated by him in the night season. This plan involved an immediate +appeal to the State Board of Education, which body had the power of +overriding all acts of local school boards. Chalmers Brown, the young +Attorney-General of the State and Charles's good friend, was an +_ex-officio_ member of this august body. Brown would arrange to have a +meeting called at once, ostensibly on other business, if necessary. Mary +Wing would find herself triumphantly back in this office within two +weeks from to-day. And as for-- + +But at the first mention of the State Board, Mary had begun to shake her +head, and before Charles had got his plan fairly set out she interrupted +him, rather (it seemed to him) as an older brother interrupts. + +"No, I've thought that over very carefully. Mysinger's pull has me +beaten there before I begin. I'd only be playing into his hand, don't +you see--giving the State Board a public opportunity to indorse and +approve my punishment." + +"But, great heavens! Mysinger's not the whole show here. You overrate--" + +"He is, and he isn't. Some good men, like Creamer, are against me now, +it's true. And yet, if Mysinger let either Board know that he wanted me +back here, I'd come back to-morrow. He's that much of the show, Mr. +Garrott." + +Charles argued warmly. He was chagrined at the ease and decision with +which the sure young woman brushed his arguments aside. Nor did the +consciousness that she was probably sound in her positions soothe his +masculine sense of the fitness of things at all. With a subtle loss of +enthusiasm, he broached his second plan; and it too was summarily thrown +out of court. That plan had called for an investigation of the "due +cause" by the City Council--an intention attributed by the generous +"Post" reporter to the well-known citizen, unnamed. Finding his +supporting shoulder thus rejected, Charles demanded what was _her_ +plan, then. And it seemed that Mary's plan was merely to wait until May, +when the terms of three members of the local Board expired (all of them +Mysinger men), and then to see to it that these places were filled with +men friendly to her. + +The plan seemed to the young man so feeble and remote, so +uncharacteristic and tame, as to indicate a certain indifference in her. +He sat eyeing her a moment with intent speculation, and then said +deliberately:-- + +"That's good enough for publication purposes, I suppose. But--you're +thinking of something very different, aren't you?" + +"Am I?--what do you suspect?" said Mary, continuing her labors of +paper-sorting. + +"It's occurred to me that you have rather a brilliant revenge up your +sleeve all the time. What'll you care for little pigs like Mysinger, +when you go off as General Secretary of the League?" + +The self-contained young woman surprised him by throwing both arms above +her head and saying, passionately. "If I only could! Oh, oh! If I only +could!" + +Charles's gaze became fixed. "But you're going to, aren't you?" + +Her arms fell and she said, in another voice: "No, I don't think I'm +going to land it, you see!" + +"Not going to--! Why, I thought you were practically sure!" + +"That's the worst of it--I _was_, for a few wild weeks. Now I'm positive +I'm not." + +"Why!--but what's happened?" + +"Oh," said she, light and calm again, "merely reading between the lines +of Dr. Ames's letters. I hear from him all the time about the State +work--once a week, at least. But he's never referred at all to the talk +we had--about my being Secretary--from the first. Of course, I've +wondered. And then yesterday--no, day before--I had a letter asking if I +expected to be in New York any time before fall. He said he'd like to +talk with me about my work here." + +The straightforward sentences carried a painful conviction. Charles's +eyes fell from his friend's face. For this crowning disappointment of +hers he was distressed enough, indeed; and yet he was perfectly +conscious that there was a side of him which could not lament at all. +Publicly speaking, he had not honestly viewed the secretaryship as a +"revenge"; since to get Mary out of the schools, by hook or crook, was +the exact object in life of her adversary, Mysinger, who so earnestly +held that woman's place was the Home. And then, there were those more +personal and secret reactions in him, which had somehow recoiled from +this development of the Career from the start. + +"How long have you felt this way--that you weren't going to get it?" + +"Oh--for two months now, at least." + +"Two months! Why, you've never said anything about it to me!" + +"Well, I don't remember your asking anything about it." + +"No, because I supposed it was virtually settled--" + +"Oh, no, indeed. In fact--oh, it was just a mad dream for me, of course! +I'll live and die a Grammar School teacher." + +"No! I swear you'll not!" And, seeing the way cleared of all +extra-complications now, the young man flung out with unwonted +exuberance: "You trust _me_! You'll come back here so quickly you'll +not remember you ever went!" + +But the male protectorship, he should have known well, scarcely thrived +in this atmosphere. Mary tied a package of papers, gave him a look and +smile, and dropped it efficiently into the suitcase at her feet. + +"Well, that's on the knees of the gods as yet. Meanwhile--there's no use +crying over spilt milk." + +"My point is, don't you see, this milk shan't stay spilt! _I'm_ not +going to wait till May to have you back here." + +It was on the tip of his tongue to confide to her then, for her comfort, +the third plan he had for her, a plan more circuitous and elaborate than +either of his others, but yet, given time, his personal favorite from +the beginning. However, Mary's little laugh checked him. The laugh may +have been the best cover she had for feelings deeply bruised, after all, +perhaps: but the breath of it chilled the young man's ardors +effectually. + +"I'm afraid you must, though! This milk--" + +"I decline. Trust me, I say. I intend to help you here." + +But her reply was to put into words of one syllable, at last, what her +manner had been saying plainly from the beginning:-- + +"My dear friend, you _can't_ help me, in this." + +She added, quietly snapping on a light: "Don't worry your head about it +any more, please. Whatever, can be done,--I can and will do it, you may +be sure." + +It was odd how completely this silenced the young man. It was as if she +had suddenly blown up the whole line of their communication. + +And it seemed to Charles, all at once, that Mary had accidentally stated +exactly what was the matter with her, as a woman and a friend. It seemed +to him suddenly that ever since he had known this girl he had been going +to her and saying, "Look here, I'll help you do such and such," and she, +in one way or another, had always been replying, "Why, _you_ couldn't +help ME!" + +The conversation between the two old friends thus abruptly thinned out. +It became almost desultory on his part, not untouched with dignity. And +as they so chatted of Lee Grammar School and its unfavorable location, +he, the authority, was eyeing Mary Wing askance, unmistakably +reacting.... Was hardness, then, the necessary corollary of +"independence"? Was it true, exactly as Old Tories said, that a woman +could not grapple long with actuality without rubbing away that natural +sweetness and charm of hers which, it might be, the grim world needed +more than duplicate Careers? Certainly there was no charm for him in +this slip of a girl's self-assertion: "I'm a better man than you, don't +you know it?" Splendid, indeed, was her Spartan calm in a defeat serious +in every way, and with the peculiar sting conferred by Miss Trevenna's +fame. Why was it that he would have warmed to her so infinitely more, +have felt quite a new depth of affection for her, if, rather, she had +turned to him helpless and wildly weeping, "Help me! Help me, friend, or +I perish!" + +"And at least you'll get out much earlier in the afternoons," he was +observing courteously.... + +But his secret thought continued to engross him, this fantastic thought +of Mary weeping. Now he remembered Miss Angela's girlish outburst last +night, after the bridge-party; and he saw that there was something +subtly fitting, engaging on the whole, in a woman's weeping over her +troubles. But Mary, of course, could not weep; she simply didn't have +the plant, as you might put it. No--you could picture Mary asking you to +sit on the sofa and look at her ring, more easily than weeping. + +And then, becoming aware of a teacher hovering about in the corridor +near the door,--a fellow named Hartwell it was, who had long seemed +rather attentive to Mary,--Charles Garrott rose to go, a mere polite +caller. + +"Isn't it time you were knocking off?" + +"I think I'd better clear up a little more of this, now that I'm at it." + +"I wonder if I couldn't help you with some of that?" + +"Oh, no, thank you." (Why, of course he couldn't help HER, even to tear +up old papers.) "Nobody could understand it but me. But +I've--appreciated your visit." + +He wished her a good-afternoon. In a stately silence, he traversed the +spacious corridor, stalked down the handsome stairways. For the moment, +he could not get his thought back to the concrete; the sting of defeat +possessed him, the bitterness that is the portion of the friend of +women. And then, in this mood, shaking the dust of the High School from +his feet, he encountered, of all inopportune people under the sun, Miss +Flora Trevenna. + +He came upon the unhappy girl standing in a corner of the outer +vestibule, beyond the great bronze doors; she stood alone, looking off +down the twilight street. Her head turned at the sound of Charles's +feet; recognition came hesitatingly into her glance, and she bowed, +smiling remotely in the absent or reserved way which seemed to be +characteristic of her. It was clearly on a second thought that she spoke +suddenly, in her fluty voice:-- + +"Oh!--could you tell me whether Miss Wing is still in the building?" + +Pausing, his hat stiffly raised, the young man said that Miss Wing was. +"You'll find her in her office--on the third floor at the front, you +know." + +"Thank you." + +But, as he bowed and passed on, the Badwoman made no move to enter and +ascend. She stood as he had found her, waiting, aside: a solitary and +withdrawn figure, for the moment to the perceiving eye not untouched +with pathos. + +But Charles, proceeding, could see in this figure only the witting cause +of all the trouble. He had spoken kindly enough to Miss Trevenna: now +suddenly all his accumulated and complex resentment seemed to gather and +pour out. Couldn't the woman leave Mary alone, even on this day? But +no--of course she couldn't! She who had claimed her Happiness over her +mother's heart would see nothing amiss in seeking to scramble back to +good repute by the same general route. It was her Higher Law to throw +her blight over all who might assist her: over her friend, Mary Wing, no +more than over her own young sisters, from whom (Judge Blenso said) +people were already silently dropping away, now that it was known that +the "free" Miss Flora came sometimes to the house. + +_Free!..._ Was not here, indeed, that underside of "Freedom," that true +reverse of Taking My Happiness, which the New speakers never mentioned? +This girl conceived freedom just as a Developed Ego would conceive it, +as an order of things in which she should be "free," while everyone +else, going on as usual, sacrificed and denied to uphold her comfort and +support her illimitable selfishness. In her goings out and comings in, +she would take no thought but for her Self. And there she stood, no +leader of a new dawn, but a true enemy of the common good: a female +Anti-Social, a lawless Egoette, who maintained that the world was +ordered and the sun set in the heavens, that she only might indulge +herself where her whim led.... + +On the corner the young man halted, shook himself slightly, and glanced +up and down. A brief anxiousness crossed his face, followed by an air +of irresolution. + +This street, Albemarle, was three blocks from Washington, and certainly +not a street that a pleasure-walker, like Miss Angela, would be likely +to pick out. Charles's legs seemed to thirst for exercise. But it was +clear to him that it would not do to run any superfluous risks; +especially just now, when it was all so fresh and new. Therefore, after +a moment of struggle, the authority once more set his face ingloriously +toward the street-cars. + +And as he went he began to think again, more intently than he had +thought in all the thoughtful day. He had taken that challenge of Mary's +full in the face, as it were. She had said, as if in final summary of +their relations, that he was incapable of helping her. Very well; he had +a clear field now to show her, once and for all, whether or not that was +true. + +That third plan of his (of which she should hear no inkling now till the +thing was done) was nothing less than to roll up such a body of Public +Opinion as would overwhelm the School Board--a body somewhat sensitive +to Opinion--forcing it to reverse itself. This could not be done in a +day, of course. To gather momentum enough to rouse the local papers +would mean to start far back. So Charles's mind had fastened at once on +his old idea of a thoroughgoing eulogistic "write-up" of Mary, to begin +with, in some national magazine of the highest standing. Only now his +soaring ambition was to "plant" three such write-ups at least--cunningly +differentiated in matter and manner, and signed with different names. +Nor did this seem by any means a dream. From the periodicals themselves, +he saw that there was a demand for just such "stuff" nowadays, just such +little smartly-written sketches of "people who were doing things." Mary +did things, without a doubt. And once he got the write-ups in +print,--even two write-ups, or one,--he had a powerful bludgeon to +swing at the local editors. "Look here," he would say to them, "why do +we have to go away from home to learn the news? Are you fellows going to +sit still and say nothing while some live city gets this woman for +Superintendent of Schools? Why don't you ..." + +The imaginary exhortation ended there. Round the corner ahead of Charles +a man came swinging just then, rapidly drawing near. And all small +plottings were catapulted from the mind of Mary's friend as he looked +into the face of Mr. Mysinger. + +The principal of the High School approached with a native swagger, on +much "shined" shoes. He was what is called a careful dresser; a heavily +built man, fair and not ill-looking. Ten steps away, his eye fell on +Charles, and, while his lips assumed a gracious smile, the eye in +question seemed to lighten with a flash of triumph. And the sight of +Miss Trevenna was nothing to that sight. All the blood in the young +man's body seemed suddenly to be pounding in his head. + +"Well, Garrott! How goes it to-day?" + +It had not occurred to him to "cut" Mysinger, but so the matter seemed +to be written in the stars. In silence, the passing author looked the +principal through and through. And his head grew hotter, and the pit of +his stomach icier, as he saw Mysinger's smile become fixed, saw it waver +doubtfully and die, saw open hostility slide into the hated eye. So Mary +Wing's conqueror and her unhelpful friend went by at half a foot. + +"By George! I'll beat up that rascal yet for this!" + +The unliterary words were ejected, it seemed, by a demon within. But no +sooner had they fallen on the ear of Charles than all the rest of him +leapt upon and seized them, as one recognizing a long-felt want, an +unconquerable need. And thus his writer's imagination was off upon yet +another plan, the last and the best. + +Yes, that was what he wanted, needed now, more than anything else. He +would humiliate this swaggering Teuton past all endurance; he would go +and kick him till his weary legs refused the office; he would batter him +till his own wife passed him by for a stranger. Lord, what a plan! And +then, the moment he could leave the hospital, Mysinger would crawl +around to Olive Street, hat in hand. "Miss Wing, I'm petitioning the +Board to invite you back to the High School at once," he would say. "I +humbly beg you to come, and try to forgive me for my contemptible +conduct in the past. I don't know why I've always acted like such a +dirty dog" (Mysinger would say). "It's just my low, base nature, I +guess." And Mary, starting up in surprise (but, perhaps, already +half-suspecting the truth), would say: "But this is astounding, Mr. +Mysinger! How come you here, saying these things to me?" And that +insolent fellow, whiter than death, would mumble through swollen lips, +"It's Mr. Garrott's orders, miss." + +_Then_ Mary would, perhaps, understand a little better whether or not a +_man_ could help her.... + +The author turned suddenly on the darkling street, moved by an instinct +to look after his retiring enemy. By an odd coincidence, Principal +Mysinger had been moved by an instinct to turn and look after him, +Charles. Both men turned hastily round again. + +So Charles, halting on the corner for his car, shook himself once again, +reined in his imagination, and remembered that he was a modern and +civilized being. For the moment, the reminder seemed to accomplish +little. The blood continued to pound in the sedentary temples, redly. +Charles saw that the idea of primitive male combat, over a manly +woman's Career, was unmodern and grotesque. But the idea lingered all +the same. + + * * * * * + +He spent the evening upon the first of his write-ups, scenarios shut +fast in the drawer. This piece concerned Mary Wing the Educator, and the +intention was to have Mary's friend, Hartwell, read, sign, and father +it. Every precaution must be taken, of course, to give the whole thing a +spontaneous air, avoiding the appearance of a concerted boom. By +midnight, the first draft of the Educator write-up was finished, and, +wearied, the young man picked up the "Post," where he had had eyes but +for one story that morning. + +Here his wandering glance fell presently upon this:-- + + Miss Angela Flower entertained at bridge last evening at the + residence of her parents, Dr. and Mrs. Oscar P. Flower. Miss + Flower's guests included a limited number of the younger set. + +At this description of himself and Fanny, Charles smiled, for almost the +first time that day. But as he continued to gaze at that small hopeful +item, his mirth faded, and soon he began to stroke the bridge of his +nose, his look distinctly worried. + + + + +X + + +In the little house of the Flowers, Miss Angela sat forlorn at her +favorite post. She entertained the younger set no more. It was the +middle of December, and a cold rain poured. With a ragged bit of +chamois, the old-fashioned girl polished her already comely nails. The +window-curtain, shrunken and twisted with more than one washing, was +hooked back on a convenient nail; now and then Angela picked up her +shabby opera-glasses and peeped over into the fan-shaped sliver of +Washington Street. But few pedestrians passed over there to-day, and the +motor-cars of the Blessed slid by in curtains of waterproof. + +[Illustration: ANGELA PEEPED OVER INTO WASHINGTON STREET] + +It was the slack hour again, it seemed, leaving home-makers with idle +hands. Even that subtle business to which but one modern authority gave +a scientific rating, the Business of Supplying Beauty and Supplying +Charm, was here at a complete standstill. The men of Angela's family, +who must be refreshed and made joyful for their battlings in the world +without, were at this hour out, battling. Mrs. Flower was lying down in +her room, doing her own refreshing. As for the cook downstairs, she had +her orders, and recked not of Charm. Angela, thus, had her strictly +earned leisure; and, on the other hand, she had not those intenser +occupations for leisure, reforms, fights, and attacks on Morals, such as +engrossed the mind of her advanced Cousin Mary. As a womanly woman, she +naturally thought a great deal about people, her friends, and as an +unassisted stranger in the city, she really had very few friends to +think about. Hence, it was the most natural thing imaginable if she was +now wondering, for the thousandth time, what in the world had become of +Mr. Garrott. + +Angela could not understand about Mr. Garrott. He simply never seemed to +walk any more. That she had hurt his feelings very badly that night +after the bridge-party she had understood, from the start. But perhaps +she had never meant to hurt them so badly as this; and that Mr. Garrott +could vanish utterly from Washington Street had, indeed, not entered her +thoughts. This, however, was precisely what Mr. Garrott had done, from +the very day following the misunderstanding. + +For so, in the lapse of days, had Angela generously come to think of the +occurrence on the sofa. She and Mr. Garrott had had a terrible +misunderstanding. + +It was half-past four o'clock; the dreary day was shutting in. Angela +looked down into her own back yard, which was small, mean-looking, not +devoid of tin cans, and now running with dirty water. A dingy old shed +or outhouse, where some previous tenant had thriftily stabled a horse, +contributed not a little to the wintry desolateness of the scene. +Beneath the window the cook, Luemma, emerged, a ragged print-skirt +turned over her head, and emptied ashes into a broken wooden barrel. +Angela yawned, and picked up a hand-glass. + +The girl's more kindly view of Mr. Garrott's demeanor had been, of +course, a gradual growth. Her mortification and rage against the young +tribute-payer had lasted two days, at least, and chancing to see her +poor Cousin Mary at this time,--who was now being talked about from one +end of the town to the other,--she had taken occasion to speak most +disparagingly of Mr. Garrott, though, of course, in an indirect manner. +She had described him as a person of the _lowest ideals_. At this Cousin +Mary had protested, quite indignantly; and, though Angela well knew +there were phases of Mr. Garrott which her mannish cousin was not likely +ever to see, that stout championship had doubtless done much to check +her first resentment and make her see things in a truer light. Moreover, +she was naturally a sweet-tempered creature, and the long days +following, and the long empty walks, may have been just the things +needed to appeal most subtly to her higher nature. After all, Mr. +Garrott had been remarkably nice to her, paying her every attention from +the beginning. And even if he _had_ been carried away, for once--what +did that show ... + +A ring at the doorbell made Angela jump a little. While the Flowers had +a small house, they had a loud bell. Though its clanging nowadays rarely +meant anything exciting, the diversion, on the whole, was not unwelcome. +The young housekeeper rose, went out into the hall, and listened down +over the banisters. + +Below, there was nothing to listen to. Receiving only twelve dollars a +month, Luemma seemed to think she must take out the residue of her wages +in inefficience and impudence, and did; sometimes she answered the bell, +sometimes she "had her hands in the lightbread," etc. The present seemed +to be one of the latter times. The bell pealed again; a voice from the +front called, "Angela!--are you dressed?"--and Angela, replying to her +mother, went down to the door herself, smoothing her hair and trimming +her waist as she went. + +The caller proved to be none other than her disgraced cousin, Mary Wing. + +"Well, Angela, how are you?" said she, entering confidently, and kissed +Angela's cheek. "I hope I didn't break into your nap, or anything +unforgivable like that?" + +"Oh, no, indeed, Cousin Mary. How d' you do? I wasn't asleep." + +Cousin Mary was enveloped from neck to heels in a becoming gray +raincoat. Beneath that were seen glimpses of a costume rather elaborate +for bad weather and a workaday world. Nor did Cousin Mary's manner seem +in the least crushed or subdued, as morals demanded that the manner of a +disgraced person should be. + +All the same, Angela greeted her cordially enough, with only a faint +conscientious stiffness traceable to her mother. For one thing, she was +really sorry for Mary now; right or wrong, she genuinely wished they +hadn't expelled her from the High School, and sent her off to a Grammar +School, in a low quarter of the city. And then besides that, whatever +Cousin Mary's strange ideas and behavior, the fact remained that she +happened still to be one of her, Angela's, particular little +coterie--that small group of friends and relatives with whom she herself +seemed to be sadly out of touch just now. + +Mary entered with the air of being in a hurry. In the car-shaped parlor +she unbuttoned her coat, nevertheless, the Latrobe heater being, like +the doorbell, small but powerful. Angela, seated on the famous sofa, +said:-- + +"Cousin Mary, you're all dressed up! I believe you're going to a party!" + +Mary glanced down at herself with indifference. + +"No," said she, "but I've been to a little sort of one, a luncheon. And +we didn't leave the hotel till half an hour ago, either--" + +"Oh, a luncheon! They're fun, I think. Where was it?" + +"At the Arlington--very fine and beautiful, but it took hours! That's +why I'm so late getting around here. I've wanted specially to see you +for several days, Angela, but I haven't seemed to find a minute, and +this was my last chance. I wondered if you had any engagement for +to-morrow afternoon?" + +"No, indeed, Cousin Mary, I haven't any engagement." + +"Then I want you to come with me to a lecture," said Cousin Mary, "at +four o'clock." + +The young girl's face, which had become brightly expectant at the +mention of engagements, fell perceptibly. She covered her disappointment +with a little laugh. + +"Well,--thank you, very much, Cousin Mary,--but you know I don't +appreciate lectures very much. I'm not clever enough--" + +"But this isn't an ordinary lecture. In fact, I shouldn't have used that +word at all. It's a talk, a personal talk to women by a woman, and a +wonderful one--Dr. Jane Rainey. You may have heard of her?" + +"Well, I'm not sure. What is she going to talk about?" asked Angela +politely. + +"The subject that means most to every woman, no matter what she thinks +or says! And Dr. Rainey, I do believe, knows more about it than anybody +else living. Jane Clemm she was--but that was years ago, before you +could remember. I got her to come here to speak, myself,--and expect to +lose some money on the transaction, too,--heigho! But I don't mind +really, it's such a privilege to have the whole subject lit up, from the +modern point of view, by a speaker like this. Jane Rainey's a practicing +physician, a fine human being, the mother of four children herself, and +she--" + +"But what _is_ her subject, Cousin Mary?" + +"That's it!--marriage and motherhood." + +Angela stared at her cousin, and then looked rather shocked. Next, faint +color appeared in her smooth cheeks. It really seemed that Mary had +learned nothing, from the painful lesson she had just received. Why did +she have this persistent interest in the unpleasant side of life? + +She said more decisively than was her wont: "No, Cousin Mary, I really +don't think I'd care to go--thank you." + +Mary Wing, checked in her forensic by Angela's expression, looked +surprised, though, perhaps, not taken aback, and certainly not rebuked. + +"Now, why not? I honestly hoped the subject would have a special +interest for you. You--" + +"For me!--Oh, no! I--" + +"My dear, you know you told me once what your ambition was--to be a good +wife some day, when the right man came for you. And that's the ambition +of every normal woman, I believe,--or one of them,--no matter what else +she may have in her head! Well, you see, that's exactly what this +brilliant student--and woman--wants to advise us about--how to fulfill +this ambition; how to prepare ourselves to be good wives and--" + +"But I don't think of it that way at all, Cousin Mary. I hope," said +Angela, pink-cheeked, but once more standing firm for propriety against +all the astonishing Newness--"I hope I'll know how to be a good wife--to +the man I love--without going to any lectures--" + +"Do you think anybody on earth knows as much as that, just by intuition? +It seems to me ... But perhaps your feeling is--you don't like the idea +of a public talk on the subject?" + +"I don't, Cousin Mary--frankly. I know I seem to you dreadfully behind +the times--and all. But that's the way I was brought up to feel, and +it's the way I do feel. I'm not advanced at all, I thought you knew." + +There was a silence in the dingy little parlor, during which the pouring +rain became audible. + +"Of course I don't want to press you against your will, Angela," said +Mary slowly. "You know that? But--I can't get away from feeling that +being a good wife--and mother--in this awfully upset, transitional age, +when men's ideals are changing step for step with women's--and perhaps a +little in advance of them, who knows?--I believe it's the most +complicated and difficult vocation in the world. Compared with it, any +ordinary man's profession--like engineering, for instance--looks to me +like simplicity itself. And, Angela, I can't believe that every woman is +born with all this understanding, all this difficult expert knowledge in +her head, any more than I believe that every man is born knowing by +intuition how to be a good engineer. Of course we'd think it quite +strange--shouldn't we?--if Donald, as a boy wanting to be an engineer, +had thought he mustn't read any books that mentioned engineering, and +must stop his ears if--" + +Angela, feeling almost ready to stop her ears herself, interrupted with +some warmth:-- + +"Cousin Mary, we simply don't understand each other! I don't think +of--of romance--and marriage--as anything in the least like +_engineering_--not in the least! I don't think of them as subjects for +lectures by _experts_! And I was brought up to feel there were some +things not very--suitable to talk about. I was brought up not to think +about them at all." + +"Of course, my dear!--I understand. But every woman thinks about +marriage--doesn't she? She can't help it. Take me," said Mary, +good-humoredly--"a confirmed old maid school-teacher who's just +scandalized half the city, and been publicly dismissed from her job. I +haven't the slightest idea of marrying, ever, and yet I think about it +often, and would like to feel--" + +"You do? Well, I am different. I _don't_ think about it." + +"You don't think about marriage?" + +"I never think of it at all," said Angela. + +That settled Cousin Mary. After a brief pause she said, in the nicest +way: "Well, then, forgive me, Angela, and forget everything I've said." + +Angela forgave her readily enough. Shut your eyes to the horrid, +unwomanly streak in her, and Mary Wing was really a very pleasant +person. She had always said that, to her mother and others. So talk +flowed easily into other channels, and the air of cousinly amity was +soon restored. But just when that was accomplished, Mary rose +unexpectedly to go, and Angela found herself left with several topics +not yet mentioned at all. + +"Oh, don't go yet!" said she. "I want to--" + +"I _must_! I really had no time at all to-day, but came anyway, whether +or no. How pretty you look, Angela," said Mary, and kissed the now +unblushing cheek again. + +"I wish the lunch-party hadn't kept you so long! I haven't--" + +"I do, too! A whole good afternoon! And the worst of it was," said Mary, +eyeing her with a sort of speculative archness, "I stayed after +everybody was gone just to talk to Charles Garrott, whom you dislike so +much! Still," she added, with a fading of archness, "I had something to +tell him for his own good, at least." + +Cousin Mary's changes of expression were lost upon Angela. "Mr. Garrott! +Was he at the lunch party?" + +"He gave it--didn't I say? It was just a little _bon voyage_ party for +Donald--and Helen Carson! Donald's leaving to-morrow for Wyoming, you +know, to be gone a month--" + +"No--you hadn't told me.... Who else was at the lunch, Cousin Mary?" + +"Oh, just those I've mentioned, and Fanny for chaperon, and Talbott +Maxon." + +Angela, naturally, felt more lonely and out of things than ever. In +fact, she felt blankly depressed. Mr. Garrott's luncheon had included +exactly her coterie, only she herself being omitted. + +"Why do you say I dislike Mr. Garrott, Cousin Mary? Of course I like him +very much. You know I told you long ago he was much the most attractive +man I've met here." + +"Well, but I thought you must have changed your opinion, when you told +me the other day that his ideals were so low." + +"Why, of course I didn't _mean_ it, Cousin Mary! I thought you knew I +was angry when I spoke." + +The two cousins regarded each other, in the dark little hall by the +hatstand. Angela felt her position to be annoying. But she explained +with that complete lack of embarrassment characteristic only of women +conscious of rectitude:-- + +"I can't tell you _all_ about it, even now. But what happened was that +Mr. Garrott and I had a terrible misunderstanding, and at first I put +all the blame on him, and was awfully mad with him, I admit. But since +then, the more I've thought of it, the more I've seen that I was very +unjust to him--in what I thought and said, too. He really has much more +cause to be mad with me--now--than I have with him." + +"Well, I'm glad to hear it. Don't quarrel--that's my motto," said the +stormy Miss Wing. "And Mr. Garrott thinks you are charming!--I know, for +he told me so. Well--" + +"Yes--that's what has changed my feeling about it all, you see. Cousin +Mary--when you see him again, you might just say--" + +"My dear, I never see Mr. Garrott!" said Mary, rather hastily. + +"Why, you've just seen him!" + +"The first time for a week, and probably the last time for a month. He's +going down to his mother's in the country on Saturday, to stay over +Christmas and New Year's. Angela, I must _run_!" + +Left alone, Angela remained standing in the hall for a moment, gazing +into space, of which the hall really afforded little. Her despondency +now had a certain edge; it did seem hard that, while her friends and +relatives--and Cousin Mary, of all people--were going to jolly lunches +of the younger set, _her_ invitations should be only to New-Woman +_lectures_. And still, the girl's feeling had no bitterness, even now. +Of course she understood that she would have been at Mr. Garrott's +luncheon, too, but for the misunderstanding.... + +As she went upstairs, her mother called out to her, and Angela pursued +her way to the front bedroom, as she had meant to do anyway. Here, her +mother was discovered prone upon a pillowless lounge, dangerously facing +a gaslight and reading a magazine which had no covers. Having laid the +magazine, broken open, on her lap, Mrs. Flower listened attentively to +her daughter's report of Mary's call, and at the end said:-- + +"I must say I think it's very kind of Mr. Garrott to stand by her in +that way. Men secretly can never admire that sort of woman, whatever +their theories may be. And that's just it--that explains Mary's whole +lurid course. If she had ever had a ray of attention, of course she +would never have dreamed of these wild goings on." + +Angela's mother was still a pretty woman, and long habit, it seemed, had +impressed her voice with a permanent plaintiveness. She had kicked off +her slippers for comfort; her high-bred feet were clad in faded cotton +stockings; she herself looked high-bred and faded. Her air and tone were +those of one to whom life had brought rude shocks--such as, that lovely +woman's portion was sacrifice ever, and that men cared only for the +first bloom of girlish beauty--and who found her only consolations in +her religion, and in the noble words, My Duty. + +"You must see her when she calls, I suppose, but that is all. Until she +completely changes her ideas on all subjects, I cannot allow any +intimacy. I cannot." + +"She means to be nice to me, mother. And besides--that's the sort of +connections you and father have given us, you know." + +Mrs. Flower denied any responsibility whatever for the advanced Mary. +She continued her remarks with interest, the theme being one of her +favorites. Angela, having moved restlessly about the room for a time, +had halted at the window. Hence, she gazed out at a board fence billed +all over with advertisements of a celebrated spring tonic. A trolley-car +went rumbling by, its wheels throwing off jets of icy rain-water. It had +been a long, long day. + +"The things women will do when they discover they're not attractive to +men! They simply get defiant. They get all reckless and bitter!" + +Into the narrow walkway below turned a very tall man, under a small +greenish umbrella. In the silence of the house, the front door was heard +to open and shut. Then there were footsteps along the hall below, and +another door shut quietly, toward the back. + +"Anything, anything to distract their minds!" + +"Mother!--where on earth do you suppose father _goes_! His lecture was +over at half-past three. If only, _only_, he'd try to get some patients! +But he's not even in for his office hour half the time!" + +"I'm sure I do not know," replied her mother, generally, and picked up +her coverless magazine. + +Angela fidgeted at the window, drumming on the dripping pane. Presently +she said:-- + +"Oh, mother! Why _couldn't_ you or father have some relations that would +help us! We're the only family I ever heard of that hasn't a _single_ +rich relation!" + +Her mother, not looking up, mentioned complainingly the branch of her +family to which she always referred in such discussions. + +"Much good the Ashburtons have done us!" said Angela truly, and also as +usual. "When they think we're not good enough to speak to. I have nobody +to help me but myself." + +It was as if the girl was herself struck with the truth of her own +observation. Her gaze out the window became thoughtful, and then intent. +Suddenly, without more speech, she left the window and the room. + +In the hall there came an interruption. An untutored voice bawled up, +without the slightest preamble:-- + +"_Sugar hasn't came!_" + +"All right," responded the young housekeeper, after a short annoyed +pause. + +And then, returning to her own room, she thought: "If I telephone from +Mrs. Doremus's now, it'll be too late for supper. I'll have to ask +Wallie--just to step around ..." + +Angela shut the door behind her and lighted a flaring gasjet. Then she +stood still, knitting her brows slightly, glancing about. She wanted +writing-paper, and didn't know where to put her hands on any, exactly. + +In the sharp light of the gas it was now seen that Angela's little +bedroom lacked Beauty, of the purely objective sort: Beauty of that kind +depending, as all know, on fathers being good providers, which was not +the case here, alas. Everything in Angela's room was cheap when it was +new, and everything was far from new now. A very large old walnut +wardrobe occupied all one side of the room, awkwardly substituting for a +clothes-closet. The bed was of yellow imitation-oak, and sagged +considerably in the middle from worn-out springs. The bureau was to +match; its somewhat wavy mirror was the nearest Angela came to a +dressing-table; its three drawers would never quite shut, and frequently +wouldn't quite open. There were also two chairs in the bedroom, one +straight, one a re-seated rocker, and a small walnut work-table, which +trembled dangerously if you brushed against it. + +Nor was the room specially spruce, at the moment at least, people's +tastes differing in these matters, even in the same family. Angela's +young brother, for example, kept his small room shining like a new pin, +and let himself personally go till he was a disgrace to the family. +Angela, on the other hand, whose exquisite personal neatness had +attracted the notice of Charles Garrott himself, was more or less +indifferent about a room which nobody but the family ever saw. The door +of the wardrobe stood open now, with one of the yellow bureau-drawers; a +pair of shoes rested on the straight chair, with a pair of stockings +curled on the rag-carpet below. On the sway-backed bed were strewn +various things--a towel, two old summer dresses that she had been trying +on a little earlier in the afternoon, a pair of soiled white gloves, a +paper of pins and two new dress-shields. + +In the drawer of the wardrobe, Angela presently found several sheets of +note-paper, and, after a longer search, a single envelope. The envelope +was not what it had been once. It had knocked about the world a bit in +its time; its bright youth was gone. Upon its face was a dusky smudge, +souvenir of some forgotten encounter, and, near the smudge, some hand +had once written the word "Mrs.," and then lost heart and abandoned the +whole enterprise. Still, it was possibly the only envelope in the house. +Angela found, after due trial, that the smudge yielded, quite +satisfactorily, to the eraser on the end of a pencil. As for the +reminiscent "Mrs.," that was easily enough worked over into a "Mr.," +though not, to be sure, without a slight blot. + +Angela sat on the edge of the bed. She pulled the rickety work-table +into position before her. Having addressed the remainder of the +envelope, after the "Mr.," she sat biting the penholder for a space. But +when the business end of the pen was put into action, it went ahead +quite steadily:-- + + DEAR MR. GARROTT [wrote Angela from the bedside]:-- + + When you left here the other night, I did not think it would be + so long before I would see you again! + + I have been very sorry about our misunderstanding--and I have + felt that I should not have said what I did. I have thought it + all over, and I understand better now. + + When you are not so busy, you must come in to see me--and I + will explain just what I mean. I couldn't that night. + + Yours most cordially, + + ANGELA FLOWER. + +She had hardly written the final letter of her pretty name when the +front door was heard to open again, this time with a bang. Having +hastily tucked the note into the experienced envelope, Angela got +downstairs before her little brother, Wallie, had finished taking off +his dripping overcoat. + +Wallie was quite the queerest, gravest boy Angela had ever known. In her +whole life, she had never seen him laugh but once. That was one summer +day in Mitchellton, when she, having undertaken to paper the walls of +her room, had fallen backward off the stepladder into a bucket of paste. +Wallie was an eccentric, undoubtedly. Still, he was admitted to be +obliging enough about little things. Now he made no special objections +to going for the sugar; and when Angela then asked him please to step by +at the same time, and give the note to Mr. Garrott, he only said, with +one of his absent stares: "Step by? That's six blocks further." + +"Well, I haven't anybody else to take it for me, Wallie," said Angela, +in a voice rather like her mother's. + +"And, Wallie," she added, presently, "I'm not sure whether there'll be +an answer or not. You'd better just ask him, that's the best way. Just +say, after he's read it, 'Is there any answer?'" + + + + +XI + + + +To the host, the luncheon party at the Arlington had not once presented +itself as a jolly gathering of any set, young or old. He had conceived +it as a duty, and an expensive one; he approached it, truth to tell, +with a certain secret complacence as to Mary Wing uppermost in his mind; +and he left it (after Mary's private talk with him) with chastened +reflections and a group of new reactions on the subject of Egoettes. + +For two weeks, Charles had been very busy in the Studio. The luncheon +stood as his first whirl in Society since Angela Flower's bridge-party. +Donald Manford, departing to seek his biggest commission, seemed to need +a friendly send-off. Miss Carson seemed to be indicated as the logical +co-sharer of the same. At the Redmantle Club, as he had never forgotten, +Charles had taken Donald bodily away from the firm beautiful girl Mary +had selected to be his wife. Now, as it were, he was handing Donald back +to her again--loyal Moderns all. Beyond the match-making, however, this +function was intended to cheer up Mary, and to indicate to the Public +that Charles Garrott was her supporter in adversity as in success. Thus, +from every point of view, the "demoted" school-teacher was the real +guest of honor, and the host, when not fomenting conversation of a +matrimonial nature between the two young persons on his right, found a +peculiar pleasure in conversing with her. Indeed, he could hardly look +at Mary to-day without a lurking smile. + +Later, as noted, Charles sobered. What Mary lingered to tell him, "for +his own good," was that Flora Trevenna had gone away. As it was the one +thing he had supposed Miss Trevenna incapable of doing, he was +proportionately taken by surprise. But, for a moment, he saw in the +tidings only that the great obstacle in his and Mary's way back to the +High School, their common Old Man of the Sea, had been amazingly +removed. + +Endeavoring to conceal his immense relief, he said: "Gone away! Why, +where'd she go to?" + +Mary's reply was meant to shake him, and it did. + +"Oh--anywhere! She went, not because she had anywhere to go, but just +because she wouldn't stay here." + +"But--I don't understand you! I thought this was where she wanted to +stay." + +"More than anything else in the world. And that was why she went--don't +you see? She went because of her mother and father and sisters--whom you +supposed she never gave a thought to. She went because of Mysinger and +me." + +The two advanced friends stood among the shrubs of the Arlington winter +garden, beside a little tinkling grotto. In silence, Charles dropped a +pebble down among the dusky forms of fish. + +"Of course," said Mary, slowly, "I told her a story about--my trouble at +the High School. But I could see that she knew all the time. I'm sure +now that was what decided her to go--by herself. Some friend or other +got her some sort of position--in Philadelphia. Of course she went +without saying anything to me...." + +Her voice, which could be so annoyingly calm at times, was deeply +troubled. Charles expressed sympathies, with haste; and, indeed, he felt +them now, oddly and disturbingly. It was as if Miss Trevenna, by that +simple act of getting down off other people's backs, had too suddenly +upset his whole opinion of her. + +"Don't you think, after all," he said presently, "it may be easier for +her somewhere else for a while, than--" + +"Oh, easier in a way, yes! But I know she felt, and I think, too, that +her only hope of really putting her life together again, ever, was +here--where she broke it in two. To go and bury herself among strangers +won't ever settle anything. Oh," exclaimed Mary, "if she could only, +only _marry_ now! I suppose people might stop thinking of her as a +pariah then, I suppose she might come back! But what's the use of +hoping? She's still crazily in love with that man, you see." + +"What!--she _is_! Why'd she leave him then--?" + +The former principal regarded him, drawing on her gloves. She had dark +eyebrows, well-marked and unusually arched; they gave a peculiar +intentness to her blue gaze, and a faint habitual interrogativeness. +Now, perhaps at the young man's expression, she laughed, suddenly and +naturally. Her spirit was not broken certainly. + +"And women are really so awfully simple, too! Of course she left him, +Mr. Garrott, because she didn't think he cared enough for her any longer +to--justify her." + +And, grave again, she asked, directly: "Have you really doubted that she +has a higher ideal of love than half the good people who've wanted to +run her out of the city and stone her?" + +This, indeed, Charles had had no reason to doubt. He, of course, had +never shared the low opinion of a woman, that she had but one virtue, +and that one too crudely appraised. His complaint against this girl had +been upon a wholly different ground--now abruptly fallen beneath his +feet. He was troubled with the sense that this young figure, in +vanishing, had suddenly touched the dignity of tragedy. He had +remembered, with a little shock, that Miss Trevenna was not yet +twenty-five years of age. + +And still, he, the authority, knew that having a high ideal was not +enough. + +As the two moderns left the hotel, he said in a grave manner: "Let me +take you home." + +"No, don't think of it! I'm only going to the car-line," said Mary; and +added absently: "I've been trying all week to go to see Angela, and now +I must." + +"Ah, yes!--certainly!" said the luncheon host hastily, and a look that +could only be described as guilty flitted visibly over his face. + +But this disappeared; the somewhat chastened authoritative look returned +at once. Pursuing his tutorial round, Charles seemed able to think of +nothing else but Mary's ill-starred friend, who had so damaged Mary, who +had so staked and smashed her own life, on a sentence in a book. + +And who put that sentence into a book, and who was going to wipe it out +with another, if not he, Charles? Here, it might be, he had a pointer or +two to give to that great compeer of his, the lady in Sweden. + +He had done Miss Trevenna a serious wrong, of course; he had judged her +by the company she kept. It was an age when cheeky "prophets" were +shouting from every bush a New philosophy which amounted to this: that +civilized society must be made accommodating to self-indulgent people. +They did not mention, very probably they did not know, that it had not +been easy to civilize society, and that self-indulgent people had not +done the job. With such shallow egoists he had classed Miss Trevenna; +and now, silent still, she had finely refuted him. There was, indeed, a +quality not for little folk in this girl's fierce imprudences. At the +test, she had repudiated the Ego, kicked off all the meanness and +flabbiness of her teachings. But in the meantime, unfortunately, these +teachings had done for her. + +And it seemed to Charles Garrott, tramping intently along (for the +downpour gave him the freedom of the streets to-day) that it would be a +sweet and glorious thing if, say, a dozen of these leathern-lunged +professors of a new chaos could be gathered up, from the studies and +libraries where they sat so snug around the world, and brought here to +share this girl's catastrophe and go with her in her exile. And by +George!--they shouldn't squirm out by trying to blame it all on a mere +ignorant Public Opinion either! No, he, Charles, having a lot of them +together thus, would improve the occasion to explain, once and for all, +that freedom was not a thing that any chance passer could pick up and +use, like a cane; but, rather, the last difficult conquest of a unified +race. He would inform them that it was only too fatally easy to act +"free," at others' expense, the difficult and important thing being, +precisely, not so to act. And as to love, he would hammer into their +thick heads that the way to freedom was NOT through the delightfully +easy course of "demonstrating experiment" by self-elected Exceptional +People, but by the far more difficult demonstration that men and women +could be strong and constant in their affections, and trustworthy in +their passions. + +There, indeed, was a demonstration for Exceptional People to get to work +on at once. Why write large books to declare that "the great love" was +its own justification. Why waste good ink upon an ideal truism? On what +day would a New book-writer teach men and women how to love greatly, or +how to tell even a little love from love's baser counterfeit? So long as +every schoolboy, drawn by a brief spark, will swear that his is the +great love; so long as men greatly love one person this year, and next +year quite another; so long as they will gladly deceive themselves, or +ape emotions above them, lest they must deny themselves a passing +indulgence: thus long would untrustworthy mortals need the hard +restraint of Law. + +"Why, if men and women had the quality of love needed to make 'freedom' +work," thought the tutor suddenly, sloshing along toward the +Choristers', "they wouldn't need the freedom! No, then they'd be +perfectly satisfied with monogamous marriage." + +Decidedly impressed with this epigram, Charles thought at once of "Notes +on Women." To draw the ruined life of Miss Trevenna across the line of +his new novel had, of course, come into his mind while he yet talked +with Mary. But he was fully aware that not one novel, or five, would +ever plumb bottom here. + +Nevertheless, these thoughts pursued the young man through his lesson +with Miss Grace Chorister, and up to the very door of the Studio. There, +he suddenly became a working author again. + +It was now five-thirty o'clock in the rainy afternoon. The demands of +hospitality had forced the postponement of Miss Grace a full hour, and +the cutting altogether of the old lady who was studying French. Entering +his retreat thus belatedly, Charles shot a look ahead at the +writing-table, according to his habit. A letter lay on the table, +wearing a distinctly business air; and when the young man was still +several paces off, he saw that the envelope bore the name of "Willcox's +Weekly." + +For the most part, Charles's communications from editors had come to him +in long envelopes of an ominous, a rejectional, fatness. Now it was his +hour to see other samples from the editorial envelope supply, square +envelopes, gratifyingly thin. Breaking the square thin envelope of +"Willcox's Weekly" with nervous hurry, Charles read:-- + + DEAR MR. GARROTT:-- + + We have pleasure in accepting your interesting sketch of Miss + Wing, for early publication in the WEEKLY. Our "Persons in the + Foreground" department is always in the market for entertaining + material of this character. + + Check for $20 will follow in due course. We are, with thanks, + + Yours sincerely, + + WILLCOX'S WEEKLY. + +Having read these few lines once, the author, still standing, read them +again, and yet again. Upon his lip was the faint smile it had worn when +he looked at Mary at the luncheon--before she began telling him things +for his good. He was fairly entitled to wear this smile; but now it +seemed in danger of becoming fixed for life. + +He was selling write-ups of Mary like hot cakes; there was no other word +for it. He had written and sent out three write-ups--an unprecedented +number about a single person--and now he had sold two of them already. +He had hoped to plant, say, one write-up among the weeklies--to get +quick results--and now he had planted two in the weeklies. Moreover, the +third write-up had been in the hands of a famous weekly for ten days +now. + +That he had managed it all with remarkable adroitness, the young man +could not conceal from himself. Cunningly enough, he had based all the +write-ups on the fact that Mary Wing, at thirty, had risen almost to the +top of a large city school system, where no woman had ever risen before. +For that made Mary a public figure; that justified the write-ups. But, +the bait thus thrown, he had given to each eulogy a special character +and thesis of its own, always with an eye to local effects. This piece +here, for example, which "Willcox's Weekly" found so extremely +interesting and entertaining, concerned Mary the Freewoman, and touched +delicately yet with vigor upon her late persecution for righteousness' +sake. And this piece, the most personal and the best of the lot, alone +bore the signature of Charles King Garrott. He had got Hartwell to sign +one, Elsie White Story, President of the State Equal Suffrage League, +to sign another. And only yesterday, Mrs. Story had telephoned that +_her_ piece (Mary the "Feminist"--only you may be sure Charles had not +used that horrible word) had been gobbled up by the "Saturday Review," +and sent around the "Review's" delightful letter. + +So Charles could recall Mary's hard saying, that day at the High School, +with a sense of triumph now. She, who had said he couldn't help her, had +rather overlooked this gift he had, his power and his art. +Unquestionably, the thing was going to break big: she would have the +surprise of her life.... + +"Great heavens! _How I can write!_" suddenly exulted the young man, +throwing out his arms. "I'll beat 'em all some day!" + +Upon which, exactly as at a cue in a play, the door from the bedroom +opened, slowly and quietly. And there stood Judge Blenso in the crack, a +flat package in his hand. + +Between uncle and nephew there passed a long stare. The uncle began to +turn a little pale. But it was the nephew who spoke first, nervously and +yet expectantly too:-- + +"Prepare yourself, Charles, my dear fellow! I much fear it's +'Bandwomen'!" + + * * * * * + +It was a long time before he was alone again. + +There were moments in every writer's life, of course, when he was +obliged to wish frankly that he didn't have to have a secretary. What a +writer most wanted at times was solitude, just a chance to sit quietly +and think things over. + +A great while Judge Blenso had pottered about under his little red +"Nothing But Business, Please" sign. Now he was posting elaborate +entries in his secretary's book, now he sang sweetly to himself over +wrapping-paper, paste, and twine. For if his sedentary employer's +failure to blow up, this time, had momentarily nonplussed the Judge, the +sight of the letter from "Willcox's Weekly" had raised him to the +highest spirits again at once. That distant people, entire strangers, +were actually proving willing to exchange real money for words written +by Charles there, and typed by him, Judge Blenso,--here was a delightful +thing, full of novelty and promise. And nothing would do, of course, but +that he must start the rejected novel out upon another journey to New +York without loss of a moment's time. Business _before_ pleasure, rain +_or_ shine. That was _his_ way. + +But he went at last, to make his toilet for the express-office. And +Charles, alone, sat taking stock, with no more exultation. + +Blank and Finney's letter had proved to be twin-sister to the remembered +letter from Willcox Brothers Company. That is to say, it was rejection, +flat and unqualified. But this time, after the first shock, Charles had +perceived that he did not seem to be much surprised. It appeared that +his expectation of the old novel had, after all, died violently on that +other day. It was almost as if he himself had come to despise the old +novel, because the publishers despised it--as if that were any +reason... + +From the mantel he had plucked a thick ledger entitled (on a neatly +typed label), THE RECORD. This ledger was the great work of Judge +Blenso's life, and large enough for twenty authors. Here the Judge set +down, with much pains and a striking assortment of colored inks, the +detailed progress of each of Charles's manuscripts: "When Finished," +"When Sent Out," "Where Sent," "Editor's Decision," "Editor's Comments +if Any," "Remarks," etc. On these pages, the essential part of +"Bondwomen's" career (officially known as Entry 2) was thus recorded:-- + + _Comments + _Decision._ if Any._ + + 1. Willcox Brothers + Company Adverse. Declined for + financial reasons. + + 2. Blank and Finney do. do. + +The Record now showed nine entries, including the novel. Entry I was +"The Truth About Jennie," which the Judge had insisted on posting in, to +give a tone of success to his work at the outset. Entries 3, 4, 5, and 6 +were short stories; Entries 7, 8, and 9, the write-ups of Mary. The +pages devoted to the write-ups made, as we know, stimulating reading, +but with the fiction entries the case was otherwise. Here under +"Comments if Any," the words "See printed form, on file," appeared with +monotonous, indeed sickening, regularity. The Record did show, indeed, +that the "Universal," in rejecting Entry 5,--"When Amy Left Home,"--had +written a personal letter furnishing the Judge with this "Comment": +"Excellently written, but claimed unsuited to his present needs. Let him +hear from us again." Otherwise, rejection was unmitigated. + +A scant showing for the work of four years, look at it how you would. +One examining these coldly dispassionate annals would probably say, +offhand, that there was but one form of writing Charles King Garrott was +qualified to do: that was the write-up form. He had just read his two +letters again, his acceptance and his rejection, side by side. Unusual +and peculiar it seemed that the only writing he had sold for money, +since "Jennie," was this series of articles designed to bring fame to +Mary Wing. Of course, as far as that went, a man would like a little +fame for himself, now and then.... + +"Why, I'm a fool to think I can write!" groaned the young man, suddenly. +"I'm wasting my life! I ought to be carrying bricks up a ladder." + +His fall from complacence was, indeed, complete. However, every writer +knows these little ups and downs. It may be, that Charles did not +believe his bitter words, even then. And now his secretary reëntered, +checking thought. + +"Well! Now for the express!" + +Judge Blenso wore a new English mackintosh and an olive felt hat, +rakishly turned up in front. No board of social investigators could have +commended him for spending virtually all his wage upon his back; but the +results seemed always to justify him none the less. + +"And, my dear fellow!--you shouldn't worry, as the expression goes! +Bandwomen's a charmin' novel, a charmin' sweet love-story, and James +Potter Sons'll be sure to take it--gad, by the first mail!" + +Having seen it with his own eyes in Willcoxes' famous letter, the Judge +was now finally convinced that "Bandwomen" was the correct title of +Entry 2, just as he had said in the beginning. Further argument being +useless, the young man returned a vague reply. + +"And there's that other idea of mine, too," said the Judge genially, +halting with his package under his arm--"bringing your sketches of Miss +Wing out in book form! Put in Entry 1, too 'Jennie's Truth,' if we +liked--make a regular holiday giftbook! Gad, you know, Miss Wing's +little pupils at the school would give us a whackin' sale!" + +He went out blithe upon his duty. After an interval, the adoring voice +of Mrs. Herman floated up, beseeching him to put on his ar'tics. + +At the Studio table Charles sat, struggling to get down to work. He had +put away The Record, put away embittered thoughts. But he did not get +down to work with much success all the same, the reason being that his +great Subject, unluckily, was no longer clear in his mind. + +From the table-drawer he had produced a stack of manuscript, an inch +high; and now he sat, not reading it, but merely disapproving it _en +masse_. The stack was his premature effort to begin, really to begin his +new novel--six chapters of the new novel written, fifteen thousand +words. Launching upon this draft an hour after he finished Mary the +Freewoman, he had pushed on, night after night, at first with confident +rapidity. Latterly, he had become conscious of an increasing sense of +resistance. And now he knew that all this was mere waste stuff, +accomplishing nothing but to show him what not to write. + +Well, but what to write then? What did he really want to say? It was +absurd; but he did not know. It really seemed that he saw too much to +settle, with enthusiasm, upon anything. By constant accessions of fresh +understanding, his centre of balance, his novel's chief prerequisite, +was kept in a continuous state of flux.... + +Of "material" on the Unrest, Charles possessed a superfluity; of +"plots," of "significant characters" and "illustrative incidents," his +head was fuller than his pencil would ever write. His problem, of +course, had always been for the fixed point of view and the moral +"line." No longer could he be satisfied with that crude, simple line +which had contented him in his first book, which still contented the +other fellows: the line which "proved," as _Lily Stender_ proved, that +economic independence was the automatic salvation of women. He knew that +wasn't the whole story now. As for writing a book to show that Woman's +Place was the Home, of course that had never crossed his mind, even when +most strongly gripped by conservative reactions. His quest was for a +framework which should develop conflicting values on a far finer scale. + +Of course, what he should have liked to show was a wholly admirable +woman: one who combined all the sane competence and human worth of the +best new women, with the soft faculty for supplying beauty and charm of +her old-fashioned sister. But that day in Mary's office had left him +with the honest suspicion that such a goddess did not exist, and +couldn't. From the other direction also, as noted, his delicate scales +had been joggled, with unsettling literary effects. The too hasty +manuscript on the writing-table by no means followed the "line" the +author had first plotted, prior to his meditations in the Green Park, +after the bridge-party. No, in this draft the Home-Maker was married and +had three children in Chapter One. Through all, the desire to rebuke the +egoism of the day had persisted, as clearly the point of view most +inviting to him, fullest of possibilities. And now Miss Trevenna, in +some way, had disturbed and unsettled him there too.... + +The rain beat against the Studio windows. The green-shaded lamp burned +dully on the author's table. Big Bill, without surcease, ticked off the +author's minutes. Charles rubbed the bridge of his nose, pondering +deeply. Just now, as he turned the pages of his private book--where the +essay form had long since been abandoned, where appeared the most +surprising vacillations of authoritative opinion--he had made a somewhat +striking discovery. It had suddenly come upon him that "Notes on Women" +had, gradually but distinctly, dwindled down into "Notes on Mary," +"Notes on Angela Flower," and "Notes on Flora Trevenna." In short, it +appeared that, in the most unconscious way, he had been seeking to +extract his "line" from his own story, as it were, from "life." + +The discovery came upon the young man as most arresting and significant. + +"And I don't know where I stand, that's just the trouble! I ought to +wait awhile," he thought, aloud. "See how it all works out.... Things'll +be turning up...." + +On which--once more--Judge Blenso's picturesque head came sticking +through the Studio door, and Judge Blenso's rich voice said, +officially:-- + +"Young gentleman here with a letter, Mr. Garrott. Admit him?" + +Returning to actuality with a slight start, Charles replied, "Admit +him--certainly!" A day for letters, indeed! + +Forthwith, the Judge standing aside, the young gentleman stepped into +the Studio. A grave-looking young gentleman he proved to be, of some +sixteen years, perhaps, with a dome-like forehead, a resolute mouth, and +thick spectacles. He entered in silence, in silence held out the missive +referred to. + +"Good-evening," said Charles. "Thank you. This comes from--?" + +"My sister, Angela Flower." + +The young man's heart seemed to drop a little. + +"Ah, yes! And--ah--is there--an answer?--" + +"I'll wait and see," said Wallie Flower, following instructions, in a +deep, calm voice. + +"Ah, yes. Sit down a moment, won't you?" + +He essayed a bright negligence which he was far from feeling: this thing +had come suddenly. No amount of scientific argument, no recollection of +sharp rebukes received, had ever convinced Charles that he had cut a +fine figure in the affair on the sofa. Indeed, the very ease with which +he had avoided all further consequences of his Rash Act, by the purely +mechanical device of street-cars, had deepened, rather than diminished +his consciousness of obligations unfulfilled, of caddishness, in short. +To salute a girl tenderly after her bridge-party, and then never go +within a mile of her again--well, that _was_ a little crude, say what you +would. + +Hence Mr. Garrott, opening Angela's envelope with the blurred "Mr.," +anticipated bitter reproaches, anticipated being termed a brute again, +and called on to be honorable without further delay. Hence again, as his +eye leapt over the neat lines, and found only sweet forgiveness and +generous friendliness, he felt a sudden upstarting of relief and +gratitude. A more perfect note had never been written! Why, the charming +girl wasn't expecting anything of him at all! + +Or, rather, nothing at all worth mentioning. On a second glance through +the perfect note, the hypercritical young man did observe an expression +or two not up to the general standard, perhaps. "I did not think it +would be so long before I would see you again." "When you are not so +busy, you must come in to see me." On the whole, it could be argued that +it was rather a mistake to put those sentences in. Fine as the note was, +it would have been a little finer still without them. Yet, under the +circumstances, what more natural? And of course, as far as that went, he +and the city traction system had the issue in their hands. + +So Charles looked up buoyantly at the bearer of good tidings, to speak. + +The bearer, however, had clearly forgotten his presence. He had remained +standing, three feet from the table-end, and was found to be gazing, in +the most pointed manner, at the old Studio lamp. The grave face of Miss +Angela's brother plainly expressed amusement, and a certain good-natured +contempt. + +"Hello!" said Charles, diverted. "Anything wrong there?" + +Without turning, the boy answered with a small dry chuckle: "Yes. +Pretty near everything." + +"Well! I've noticed it hasn't been burning well. Need a new mantel, I +suppose--" + +"New mantel won't do you any good long's your air-draft's choked that +way." + +"Oh! So that's the trouble, is it?" + +"That's one of them. P'r'aps you like it that way?" + +The proprietor of the lamp having disclaimed such a fancy, the strange +lad said: "Well, I'll fix it for you, then. Sit steady." + +He reached up an arm long as a monkey's, which shed drops of water on +the writing-table, and the green glow suddenly faded out, leaving the +Studio in total darkness. + +Out of the Stygian gloom Charles said: "There's another light there. +I'll--" + +"I know. Thought I might as well look into that one, too, while I'm at +it. Just give your globe and chimney a minute to cool." + +"Oh, of course!--certainly." + +"Don't s'pose you want to stand a new mantel for the lamp?" + +"I'm enough of a sport, but I fear there's not a new one in the house." + +"Hold it for me, please," said the boy. + +A pinpoint of light had appeared in the blackness; it moved toward +Charles's hand. He received the little searchlight, let it go out, +hastily found and pushed the button again. And then Miss Angela's +brother began to take his lamp all apart, cleaning it, blowing through +it at unexpected places, and wiping the parts with a dark oily rag, +which, luckily enough, he seemed to have in his coat-pocket. + +The lad's single-mindedness, his un-selfconscious matter-of-factness had +attracted Charles at sight. He recalled what Mary Wing had told him of +Wallie Flower's struggles to get an education. Thus, as the +light-repairing proceeded in the almost total darkness, a conversation +grew up, at first largely question and answer. And the upshot of it was +that Charles, as a tutor, offered to instruct Wallie Flower, free +gratis, in German and English, the two college entrance subjects in +which he was still somewhat deficient. + +This odd development came at the end of the talk, when the illuminating +power of both Charles's and the Judge's lights had been notably +improved. When the brother understood that further education was being +offered him for nothing, a gleam came suddenly into his oddly mature +gaze. + +He almost exclaimed: "Do you know German?" + +"You might say I wrote it." + +He pondered. "That means you do know it?" + +"Like a member of the family." + +"Do you teach nights?" + +"I'm going to teach you nights." + +And it was so arranged, the lessons to begin directly after Christmas. +The boy became briefly embarrassed, boggling over his thanks. But +Charles cut him short. "I'm doing it because I want to. That's the only +reason I ever do anything." + +Relieved, Miss Angela's brother turned to the door, for all the world +like one who had come to mend the lamps, and nothing else. + +"By the way," said Charles, casually. "Thank your sister for her note, +and say that I'll send an answer by mail." + +He was left pleased with the interview, and with himself. In the +generous gift of three hours a week to Angela's brother, he perceived +something fitting and compensatory. If obligation existed--and it did, +in a way--did not this discharge it, subtly and modernly? Kiss the +sister on the sofa, tutor the brother in the Studio--what more fair or +honorable than that? + +One thing had rather struck him, of course--Wallie Flower's saying that +he had hated to come away from Mitchellton. This, it seemed, had been +chiefly due to Mr. Bush, the boy's science teacher at the Mitchellton +Academy, whom Wallie clearly adored, whose eyebrows he had blown off in +an experiment only last summer. As he had previously understood that +both the Doctor and Mrs. Flower had also been attached to Mitchellton, +it really appeared that Miss Angela was the only member of the family +who had actually desired to make the move. And she had moved. + +But this thought--like the hypercriticisms on the note--merely knocked +at the door of the young man's mind and passed on. He felt himself +warming anew toward this simple Type, with its charming friendly +instincts and its sweet forgiveness of the stormy ways of men. On his +return from his holiday, he resolved that he would give Angela some +token of his regard more substantial than a note by mail: send her, say, +with that book of hers, a costly box of appreciative blossoms. + + + + +XII + + +Unlike the ladies in the books, Angela, regrettably enough, did not get +a "sheaf of letters" every morning. Mr. Garrott's answer to her note, +which lay beside her breakfast-plate on the second day following, was, +indeed, her only mail that week. Hence it was with feelings of +excitement that she seized a table-fork and hastily slit the envelope. + +Angela read:-- + + DEAR MISS FLOWER: + + May I say how deeply I appreciate your note? And will you + please believe that I have blamed myself entirely for what you + so generously call our misunderstanding? While, of course, I + must continue to blame myself, you cannot know how pleasant it + is to be permitted to feel that you have forgiven me. + + With the deepest appreciation, and all the good wishes of the + season, believe me, + + Yours sincerely, + + CHARLES KING GARROTT. + +It must be said of this note that it was the sort that puts its best +foot foremost. First impressions of it were agreeable, but it did not +wear. On the second reading, Angela perceived that, though as nice as +possible, Mr. Garrott's reply said nothing about calling, which, in a +manner of speaking, was the true subject of the correspondence. By the +time she had read the reply half a dozen times, she found it flatly +disappointing. Two days later, when she heard through Cousin Mary Wing +that Mr. Garrott had gone to the country, not to return till after the +New Year, she was conscious of a sudden and pervading hopelessness. + +The feeling applied, not to her principal friend alone, but to all the +conditions of her life. + +Angela understood, of course, that Mr. Garrott's remarkable offer to +tutor Wallie for nothing was an attention to her, and a very handsome +one. Still, it was not just the sort of attention that a young girl +prizes most, perhaps; and in especial it did not meet the needs of this +particular situation. To have a busy man-friend teaching German to your +little brother on your account is very flattering, indeed; but it does +not necessarily lead to the early clearing-up of a personal +misunderstanding. That Mr. Garrott had been much worried by their +misunderstanding, all along, Angela had known, by means of that womanly +intuition of which we read so much; now his note said so, in so many +words. But, manlike, he still did not see that, at heart, she was the +same girl that had attracted him so in the beginning, and that if he +would but call, she would make everything as it had been before. + +How was she ever to see him again now? + +At nineteen, youth accepts life's vicissitudes unquestioningly, but at +twenty-five, a womanly woman (if still without a home, a husband and +three curly-headed little children) has had time to whittle a number of +observations to a fairly sharp point. Angela thought her situation a +hard one, and it was. Wealth, influence, valuable connections--these +aids were not for her. All the ordinary opportunities enjoyed by girls +"in society," she lacked--in chief, opportunities of meeting people +casually, as at parties, of seeing the same people again and again, +under the most agreeable auspices. Her family simply failed to put her +in a party position, as it might be called; in consequence of which, it +came to this, that really her only meeting-place for the few people she +knew was on the street, walking. And even at the best, of course, that +method (by the mere laws of choice and chance) was most unsatisfactory. + +Suppose that Mr. Garrott _had_ been taking walks all the time, for +instance, but, by reason of her having called him a brute, was choosing +other streets--how was she to know? A city is a big place, and one young +girl in a tight skirt cannot walk very fast or far, or cover a large +amount of space in a given time. + +"Marna" alone was outstanding; and it carried but the slenderest +anticipations. Moreover, that question, all these depressing questions, +were academic now, and would be for weeks to come. The little coterie +had scattered far, and she had no means of filling the empty places. + +There followed the dreariest days Angela had known since winter before +last in Mitchellton. + +"How can you _expect_ anybody to notice us, mother?" she exclaimed, one +day. "The family of a poor, obscure doctor, living in a _hut_ on a back +street, with not a living soul to help us! I think it's remarkable I +accomplish as much as I do." + +It was on this day, a cold Sunday afternoon shortly before Christmas, +that the lonely girl carried out a good intention she had had in mind +for some time. She wrote a long, intimate, sisterly letter to her +favorite brother Tommy, who had got so far away since he married money +in Pittsburg. + +Angela had just come in from a freezing, eventless walk with Fanny +Warder. (Fanny, who as Mrs. Flower said, had made a great success of her +life, marrying at twenty, seemed to be on an indefinite "visit"; there +was talk, of course.) Having first thawed her hands at her register, +which was supposed to waft up heat from the stove in the dining-room +below, but didn't particularly, Angela drew up her rocking-chair into +the zone of ostensible warmth. She sat with one slender foot curled +under her, by a trick that no man has ever mastered. And this time she +had not searched for the formal tools of a note-writer, but employed a +stub of a pencil and a pad upon her lifted knee. + +"Dearest Tommy," wrote Angela, and followed with a solid paragraph of +very affectionate greeting. She went on:-- + + Well, Tommy, I promised to write you how things were, after we + got settled down. I must say the outlook is rather discouraging + at times--and home isn't what it was as you remember it! Do you + remember what fun we used to have even in Hunter's + Run--driving in to "the balls"--and how fine it was in + Mitchellton as long as you were there? Well, everything is + _sadly_ changed now! Wallie, I'm afraid, hasn't improved as he + gets older, he seems to rarely or never think of anybody but + himself--and, of course, having fun is simply something he + _doesn't care for_! He shuts himself up in his room every + night, making horrible mixtures in a "sink" he's put in--that + smell up the whole house, and never _dreams_ of contributing to + the housekeeping expenses--though he's been raised now to _ten + dollars a week_! Father is sadly changed, he gets quieter and + quieter all the time. + + Sometimes I'm really worried about him, he's so _indifferent_! + He never jokes any more, and doesn't try to get any patients, + though I _know_ he could get lots with his reputation. He seems + despondent, Tommy, and sometimes doesn't even come in for his + office-hour--and the other day he lost a patient that way that + the Finchmans sent, she waited half an hour and then went! But + though he may have liked the country life better; and let us + all _vegetate_; that can't be it--for he certainly made no + objection when the family _consensus_ seemed to be that we + should move here! Of course, we have to face the fact that he + and mother aren't very _congenial_, it is her problem, and + while I wouldn't criticize mother for worlds and she certainly + does her duty as wife and mother--I do think it's a _great + mistake_ for her to always make her attitude a sort of + _reproach_, saying how "she's sacrificed herself to him" and + all--you know what I mean-- + + Mother really gets along better than any of us--especially as I + now do _all_ the work of the entire house! + +The young writer paused, staring chillily at the register. She rarely +looked out the window now, hers being the blank certainty that there +would be nothing to see. Moreover, it was dusk. So, rising presently, +she lighted the gas, and resumed her sad sisterly letter. + +Of her mother she wrote in some detail: of the various friends of her +girlhood she had renewed acquaintance with, and how she was always +exchanging calls with Cousin This or Martha That, who was So-and-So +before she married. To Angela, it had really seemed funny how all these +connections of her mother's, whose social possibilities they had so +often discussed before they left Mitchellton, had resolved themselves +into dejected old ladies who had had unhappy marriages, and whose +children had also had unhappy marriages, as a rule, or were in some +other way unavailable as friends. Out of five families thus exhumed by +Mrs. Flower, positively only one unattached young person had emerged, +and this one, named Jennie Finchman (!), while certainly well-meaning, +was a shy, anxious, painfully homely little thing who had never had a +good time in her life, and gave all her pocket-money to a mission in the +Dutch East Indies. + + Well, Tommy [continued Angela], I've tried to give you a + picture of the new home like I promised--and I only wish it was + more encouraging! As for myself--the only outside person I had + to help me was Cousin Mary Wing, and she is a "New Woman," as I + wrote you in my Thanksgiving Day letter, and doesn't go with + anybody but _advanced older_ people!--and, besides, she got + into a terrible scrape, poor dear, and was dismissed from the + school! Cousin Mary, it's only fair to say, has done more for + me than anybody else, introducing me to her older woman + friends--who have called on me, and several have invited me to + teas, lectures, and etc.! But, of course, none of them were + _social_ people really, or at least of the younger set--and I + practically haven't been invited to a single party, except + "dove ones"! The one exception was a meeting of an "advanced + club," where I met several attractive men, who have been as + nice to me as you could _possibly expect_. + + But the truth is, Tommy, money counts a great deal more here + than it did in Mitchellton; all the girls who are prominent + socially have wealthy families behind them! I think I would + hold up the family end quite well on very little--but I have + hardly a decent "rag to my back," my _clothes_ let everybody + know I am a person of _no importance_, so the little inner + circle sees no reason to take me up,--mother and I have figured + that with only _fifty dollars_ I could get a really nice new + suit, and a simple evening dress as well,--and perhaps hat and + shoes, all of which I _sorely need_! But, of course, poor + father simply hasn't got such a sum, and Wallie puts all his in + the bank--for college next year, he has $240 there now! Tommy, + you know I don't mean to accuse the family of being + selfish,--father told us in advance that we would be poorer + here,--but besides that--nobody in the family but you ever + seemed to _understand_ that a girl can't accomplish anything + unless she is given some sort of a _chance_. Even mother + doesn't understand, she just thinks "things happen"! She is + always telling how in _her_ day men would work hard all day + "superintending the farms"--and then at night ride twenty miles + on horseback, to just talk for an hour to some girl of no + special attractions! I can't make her see that men simply + _aren't like that_ any more. + +The concluding paragraph of the letter merely described the writer's own +daily round, especially touching on the dull walks, so rarely broken by +a familiar face, which remained almost her only form of recreation. Here +Angela decided to put in one sentence in a less reserved vein, which she +did: "Well, Tommy, if you mean to make any thank-offerings to 'the poor' +this Christmas, you know where they will be _most appreciated_!" But, as +she loved her brother devotedly, it was also natural for her to return +to a sweet and generous note in farewell: "For your sake, Tommy, I am +glad you aren't here, with all the trials and hardships, but out in the +world having a happy life of your own!" + +The completion, stamping, and sending-off of the letter to Tommy left +Angela with a sense of definite accomplishment. It was as if something +pleasant had happened in the family at last, or at least was going to +happen very soon. Unfortunately, however, this agreeable feeling, having +such small relation to reality, was born but to sicken and die. Time +proceeded with no pleasanter happenings than before, and a letter from +Daniel Jenney, of Mitchellton--whose ring had caused the trouble--became +a positive event. + +By now, no doubt, the first natural excitement of "going to the city" to +live had subsided. Enthusiastic anticipations had been rubbed bare by +hard actuality, poverty, Finchmans, and so on. By this time also the +young home-maker had systematized her housekeeping, as she herself +said, and commonly ordered from butcher and grocer by means of Mrs. +Doremus's telephone, three doors away. With experience, too, Angela had +cut down the daily area of cleaning and polishing, from her first +youthful excesses. Small incentive there was to rub your fingers to the +bone on a house which was hopeless from the start, and which practically +nobody but her mother's sad friends ever set foot in. Thus--and also +through the all but eccentric indifference of the men of her family to +beauty and charm--Angela had more time than ever for thinking. And the +more she thought, the more clearly she saw that social progress in a +strange city was solely a matter of what might be called favorable +self-advertisement, and that this sort of advertisement, in her case at +least, was solely a matter of just a little money. + +But where was money to come from? Little could be expected from Tommy, +even at the best. As for the housekeeping allowance (on which +home-makers properly rely for some personal "pickings"), that held out, +alas, yet frailer hopes. So closely had her father and mother calculated +the budget, indeed, that in three months she had squeezed but five +dollars and a half out of it: this, though she had early investigated +the cheaper cuts of meat and learned the desirability of never paying +cash. + +"Oh," thought the girl, again and again,--"if father'd _only_ get some +patients!" + +Mary Wing's pretty sitting-room had, indeed, established definitely in +Angela's mind the close connection between money and work in an office. +But, for the sound reasons explained by her to Cousin Mary, Angela could +never consider work in an office as a possibility for herself. What, +really, would become of the Home, while she went rushing daily to an +office, to make money for her personal adornment? Besides, she could not +but see that Cousin Mary was herself proof of the fact that going to an +office had a very unfortunate effect upon a girl. Argue as you liked, +the fact remained that, even in this so-called advanced age, the normal, +sweet, attractive girls, the girls who were prominent socially, were +never office-girls. + +In short, how to get money without working for it? That, truly, was the +great question confronting every nice girl, every womanly woman.... + +To Angela, it gradually came to seem that nothing pleasant was ever to +happen to her again. Not only that, but the pleasantest sort of things +seemed to be happening all the time to everybody else. + +Returning Mary Wing's call one day, in the hope of news (Cousin Mary's +disgrace was being generously forgiven, now that the Badwoman had gone +away), Angela picked up two items that depressed her curiously. One was +that Donald Manford had got that position he was trying for in Wyoming: +that meant that one member of the coterie would vanish for good within +three months' time. The other item concerned a remarkable series of +articles about Cousin Mary that were coming out in the magazines all of +a sudden, and which Cousin Mary said were written by Mr. Garrott, though +admitting that his name wasn't signed to them. The Finchmans, whom +Angela had met on the street, said, "How do you like having a celebrity +for a cousin?" Cousin Mary, for her part, seemed to like being a +celebrity immensely. Angela had never seen her in such high spirits; it +really seemed in bad taste, considering the recent past. And, of course, +Angela wondered a little if Mr. Garrott, the departed, wouldn't have +written something about her, too, but for the misunderstanding. + +A chance meeting with Mr. Tilletts, on the way home from this visit, +hardly helped much. The seeking widower, afoot for once, had seemed +hurried; he merely paused for a hasty word or two, and then was on his +way again. + +"Considering I haven't a soul to help me, I think I've done remarkably +well," the girl protested once more, as if answering an inner voice, to +her mother next day. "We've been here only a little while, and I have +three men-friends already." + +"Who is the third?" inquired Mrs. Flower. + +When Angela mentioned Mr. Tilletts, her mother said, laconically: "He +has never called." + +"Men don't call any more, mother, I've said again and again! It's +practically gone out." + +Not feeling very well to-day, she lay in an old wrapper atop the +sway-backed bed. Mrs. Flower sat, for company, by the outlooking window, +dutifully stitching at a frilly "waist" which Angela had begun, but not +finished. But her mother was a beautiful seamstress and really enjoyed +an occasional task. + +"Besides," said Angela, listlessly making a dimple in her pretty cheek +with the end of a bone-handled button-hook, "I think Mr. Tilletts will +call. He specially asked to--only a little while ago." + +Mrs. Flower, after a speaking silence, observed: "Donald Manford never +sent you the post-card from Wyoming." + +"Well--all the time in the world hasn't passed yet, mother!" + +"Your Cousin Ellie Finchman says he is deeply interested in this Miss +Carson. She hears he has made her an offer." + +"How could Mrs. Finchman possibly know that, mother? Besides, _I_ don't +care! I like Mr. _Tilletts_ better than Mr. Manford!" + +Coming to bloom in the age of Chivalry, Angela's mother had enjoyed a +great deal of "attention" before she decided to bestow herself upon the +worthy Doctor. Hence it was constitutional with her to take a belittling +position toward less successful young women, including even her own +daughter. Equally natural was it for Angela, with no such opportunities +as her mother had had, to hold fast to what successes she had, and even, +it may be, for memory to magnify them somewhat. And yet, in the +freemasonry of women, she never resented her mother's coolly judicial +summaries, and in this case, frankly felt the maternal slap to be +justified. Really, Mr. Manford had never paid her any direct attentions, +which perhaps had something or other to do with her admiring him so +little as yet. + +On this day, the lonely young girl's spirits seemed to touch their +nadir. How _could_ anything pleasant happen? There was no imaginable +way. + +"Oh, mother!" she exclaimed, with an exasperation rare to her. "Why, +_why_, couldn't you and father give us _one_ relation that would help +us? Did you ever _hear_ of any poor people before that didn't have a +_single_ rich relation?" + +Then she cried out: "Oh, _please_ don't mention Mrs. Ashburton!" + +It was surely the most natural, reasonable, and human complaint in the +world. In family talk, it had an established standing, too, having first +been formulated far back at Hunter's Run. But now it was as if Angela +had flung her challenge in the teeth of fate once oftener than fate +could stand. + +On the very next day, in brief, the fairy godmother came rolling up to +the door. + +We read how it is always darkest just before the dawn. Angela, who knew +that pleasant things rarely just happened, indoors, had gone out, so it +was that she missed the direct distribution of gifts. But, as it +chanced, she had been having her first really good time, since the +earlier part of the bridge-party. In fact, on Washington Street, at +about the same time and place, she had met Mr. Tilletts again; and now +he was not hurried at all. It pleasantly developed that Mr. Tilletts's +doctor had ordered him to stop riding around in his great car, and that +henceforth he would be walking constantly. Moreover, the genial gallant, +after a considerable promenade, had taken Angela to tea at Mrs. +Hasseltine's famous shop, and, at parting--sure enough--made a +provisional engagement to call "one evening this week." Altogether, the +coterie seemed in a fair way to pick up a new member, after all. + +Whether fascinating or overplump, Widower Tilletts unquestionably +possessed the magic power, wielded by man alone, to restore the +self-esteem of a neglected young girl. Angela opened the front door of +home in a livelier humor than had been hers for weeks. And so entering, +she found her mother standing in the hall, and heard at once tidings +which, though not for her exactly, yet made her forget herself +altogether. + +Mrs. Ashburton had been, and gone. Mrs. Ashburton was going to send +Wallie to college, at once. Mrs. Ashburton was going to give Wallie +_five hundred dollars a year_, till he had got his education. + +This oft-cited lady, at last the waver of the magic wand, was Mrs. +Flower's first cousin. Close friends in their girlhood, their ways had +long ago parted; and, since Dr. and Mrs. Flower's visit to New York in +1896, amenities between them had hardly gone beyond an exchange of cards +at Christmas. But now it happened that Mrs. Ashburton, _en route_ to a +balmier clime than hers, had "broken her trip" here, after the frequent +way of tourists, and, having duly viewed the sights of the city from a +cab window through the morning, had bethought her to look up her +resident kin. So the rich relation came to the little house on Center +Street. + +By chance, it was Saturday afternoon, and Wallie was alone in the house. +It seemed that an experiment he had been working on for days had just +turned out a failure, and he had opened all the windows and the front +door by way of letting out the smell. But even then he did not see the +lady standing on the steps, so intent was he on the large glass retort +in his hand. His face was quite white, and beaded with perspiration. So +Mrs. Ashburton had described it to Mrs. Flower, who came in to find her +just leaving for hotel and train. She had asked: "What are you looking +at that brown liquid so hard for?" "That's it; it's brown," Wallie had +muttered, still without looking at her. "You mean it ought to have +turned out white?" said she. "No, green," said Wallie, frowning and +squinting. "Where'd the chlorine go to?" "Why do you care so much?" Mrs. +Ashburton asked, more and more interested. "Why do I _care_?" he said, +scornfully; and then, as if becoming conscious of her, personally, for +the first time, he turned his spectacles on her and said calmly: "You +wouldn't understand, ma'am. A--a problem here.... Well, I don't +understand it myself." And then, losing her again, as it were, he +actually endeavored to shut the door, with the lady outside. Mrs. +Ashburton had had to push against it, she said, and put her foot in the +crack, to attract his notice. "I'm your cousin--_your cousin!_--Mrs. +Ashburton!" she cried. "And I want to come in and talk to you, please." +And this she had done, with the amazing result mentioned above. + +Angela felt that the family tide had turned at last. She would scarcely +have been human if it had not occurred to her how easily she might have +been the one to be struck by the golden lightning; but such passing +notions in no sense marred her sincere, though vicarious, joy over this +great news. Moreover, it did seem, of course, that such a sum as five +hundred dollars could not percolate into a family at any point without +raising the whole level of prosperity very appreciably; and it was with +whole-hearted happiness that she skipped upstairs to congratulate her +lucky brother in the little bedroom she would not have to clean or +"make" any more. + +"Something _very_ nice is going to happen to _me_ soon, too!" she +thought gayly, as she undressed that night. "I feel it in my bones!" + +Her mind naturally slanted toward her favorite brother, with an +intuitive increase of hopefulness. And, true enough, it was from +generous Tommy that the more personal blessings presently came, though +in a form that had not entered Angela's dreams. + +Tommy's reply to her sisterly letter promised at first, indeed, to be as +disappointing as Mr. Garrott's had been, and for the same reason: it +omitted the essential thing. Angela, having shaken the letter, and then +shuffled the pages, early discovered that there was no thank-offering in +it. Similarly, Tommy's sentences seemed to contain nothing more +substantial than affectionate regrets: setting forth what a struggle he +had trying to keep up with the set that Nina had always moved in; how he +was five thousand dollars in debt now, getting deeper, and never had a +nickel to jingle for himself, and that was the God's truth; how it had +always been his dream to do something big for his sister, and certainly +would do the same when old Mottesheard (Nina's father) died; how the old +chap hung on in a way you wouldn't believe.... + +Angela read with a certain sense of chill. Truly womanly, she, of +course, never questioned the superior claims of wives. And yet it did +seem a little hard that Tommy (who made a large salary as a bond +salesman, or something like that) should lavish everything on a girl he +had never heard of three years ago, while she, his own sister-- + +And then, turning into the fourth page, she came on a passage which +checked all minor-key reflections instantly. In their place, rose and +grew a startled astonishment. Tommy, noting what she had written about +her long, dull walks, was offering to _give her an automobile_. + +At first, Angela simply could not take in this offer as a solid reality. +It sprang upon her like some wild, exciting joke. She read, with her +breath coming faster and faster, and her soft eyes as big as saucers:-- + + Now, Sis, I know a car may strike you offhand as a good deal of + an undertaking for a poor family, but you'd find it wouldn't + prove so at all. The car I have in mind for you is a little + simple one, that you could easily run and manage yourself. A + man from the nearest garage will teach you how to drive it in + an hour. There'd be no upkeep at all, with the easy city use + you'd give it--practically no expense of any kind but gasoline. + The little car is old, of course, but still sound as a trivet, + and it'll run till you wouldn't believe it on a gallon or so of + juice.... + +For a space the letter faded from the young girl's vision. Before her +mind's eye flashed a series of entrancing pictures: pictures of herself, +no longer the lone, slow pedestrian in a too large city.... + + And don't think you would be depriving us [Tommy went on]. Nina + _will_ have a new car every year, and we've really had no use + for this one for some time. By the by, didn't you tell me there + was an old barn in your back-yard, or an alley? Why wouldn't + that do for your garage? Then you would have your car ready at + hand, without storage cost, and could take it out at a moment's + notice and go for a spin with your friends. + + Now think it over, Sis, and let me know if you want it. I can + ship it at once, by prepaid express. Nina has a frank.... + +"Oh, _mother_!" cried Angela excitedly. "Tommy wants to give me an +automobile!" + +The heads of the Flowers lifted from their breakfasts as if jerked by a +common string. + +When the breath-taking letter had been read again, aloud this time, +there followed a family symposium, the question being whether or not +Angela could have the automobile. To her surprise and delight, it +appeared that there was really no question; all the family wanted her to +take the automobile; all agreed with Tommy that it would not be a +prohibitive undertaking. Mrs. Flower, an habitual conservative, pointed +out that there would be nothing to lose in any case: if having the +automobile proved impracticable, Angela could simply sell it. Wallie +said that, if the automobile came before he left for college, he would +teach Angela how to run it himself, thus eliminating the expense of a +man from the garage. And, finally, her father astonished her by saying +that he would find the necessary funds--estimated at ten dollars--for +repairing the abandoned shed, which now leaked dangerously, into a +serviceable little garage. + +At nine-thirty o'clock that morning Angela rushed out of the house to +the nearest telegraph office, to dispatch her happy reply. Excited +though she was, however, she did not forget to count the words:-- + + Crazy about it Tommy. Arrangements made. What kind is car? + + A. F. + +Tommy's response came at bedtime:-- + + Car started to you this afternoon. It is a Fordette. Happy New + Year. + + TOMMY. + +The night before Wallie started North for college Angela went to him in +his little bed-and-workroom and asked the temporary loan of seventy-five +dollars. In the interval, she had learned that her father had a patient; +it seemed, indeed, that he had had her for some time, only she was not +an office patient, so nobody had known about her. Also, Angela +anticipated that the housekeeping allowance would prove rather more +squeezable now, with Wallie gone. Still, one cannot pass into the +motor-car classes on a shoestring, of course; and Wallie, with his +prodigal allowance and his handsome store in the bank, now literally +rolled in wealth. + +Brilliant prosperity, however, did not seem to have improved her little +brother's character; he proved to be as reluctant as ever to "part." +After a good deal of unworthy haggling, he agreed to lend Angela but +fifty dollars, and actually entered the amount in a ridiculous little +black book he kept for such things. + +The joke of it was that fifty dollars was really more than Angela had +expected. She went out from the interview well pleased. Her resolve was +to spend thirty dollars of Wallie's loan on a new suit, and keep all the +rest for gasoline. + + + + +XIII + + + +They had all cautioned her, her father, her brother, the nice man who +sold the gasoline, to pick the quietest streets, and to go very slowly. +So, from the alley-mouth, her safe progress had been by Gresham Street +straight to peaceful Mason, where the traffic was so reassuringly light; +and now, as she rolled securely out Mason Street, there began to dawn +within her a first shy confidence. She went as slowly as her +well-wishers had meant, at least; prudently close to the known haven of +the sidewalk she kept at all times; now and then she stopped short, just +to see if she could, and always she could. Through all, was the +indescribable thrill of really doing it for herself now; lingering +incredulity but gave a sharper savor to delight. And she was continually +excited with the consciousness of large new possibilities here, of +personal power in quite a new dimension. + +It was possible to go on indefinitely out Mason Street, but at Olive +(always a quiet thoroughfare) she was seized with a sudden +adventurousness. She decided to turn up Olive, in short; not meaning to +stop at the Wings', of course, but just thinking that if the Wings were +looking out the window as she went by, it would be quite a pleasant +thing. The enterprise, once conceived, was carried out with perfect +technical success; but at the moment of passing the Wings', unluckily, +an enormous ice-wagon came lumbering close by, riveting her attention, +leaving her not so much as an eyelid to wink toward people's windows. +Hence, she never knew whether the Wings were looking out or not. But her +confidence waxed. At Center Street the rumble of a street-car warned her +to stop a moment--just in time, too, for the car was hardly two blocks +away--and when the car had passed, what must she do but roll boldly +across the tracks and into the altogether unexplored regions beyond! + +What prompted her to do this? Of course, the natural thing was to turn +down Center Street a block and get straight back to quiet Mason, which +had been duly tried and not found wanting. Afterward, she remembered +distinctly that she had been on the point of doing just that. Was it the +new adventurousness that beckoned her on, instead? Was it something yet +subtler and more mysterious? At any rate, here she was pushing into a +quarter of the city where she had never set foot in her life, where, in +all human probability, her foot alone would never have brought her. And +lo, she had not gone a block into the undiscovered country when a wonder +befell, and with a little jump, all but a little cry, she saw the lost +member of her coterie rise suddenly before her. + +He had come round the unknown corner just ahead, and was walking +straight toward her. She became aware of the beating of her heart. All +this, it must be understood, was the very first time that Angela had +taken out her Fordette alone. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Garrott was just off the train. Two hours in a day coach might have +cramped his long legs; there might have been cinders down the back of +his neck. Nevertheless, he advanced with an unmistakably lively tread, +continually slapping his leg with a folded periodical of a size and +shape like "Willcox's Weekly." + +Nor was the coterie member's presence on the Wings' street mere blind +chance, either. Those remarkable articles in the magazines about Cousin +Mary, which had but popped as a rumor into one of Angela's ears and out +the other, had naturally occupied a somewhat more prominent place in the +thought of their creator. He remained, indeed, dazzled by the +completeness of the write-ups' triumph. + +Charles had stayed in the country four days longer than he had intended. +And in his extended absence his whole mine of publicity had gone off +with a brilliant suddenness that had startled him. The successful sale +of the third write-up before he left town had assured a decisive _coup_, +but the quick action the weeklies had given him went beyond all reason. +He had not hoped that even the first of the write-ups could see print +before the middle of the month, say; on the contrary, he had discovered +the last and best of them--the one signed Charles King Garrott--on the +train just now, in "Willcox's," for January 10th. In short, in the space +of a Christmas holiday he, Charles, had spread the vindicating feats and +features of his "demoted" friend to the four corners of the globe. +Literally that, for did not the combined circulation of "Willcox's," the +"Saturday Review," and "Hervey's National" exceed two million copies +weekly (this on the word of the circulation managers themselves, a class +of men whose consecration to the austerest veracity has passed into +proverb)? Surely there remained few literate persons in the world to-day +who could plausibly pretend that they had never heard of Mary Wing. + +And Mary (as Angela had noted) had appreciated these extraordinary +services to the full. The letter she had written him in the country, +after the appearance of the "Saturday Review" article, was uniquely +grateful. A beautiful letter Charles had thought it; he had it in his +inside pocket now. And the interesting thought it had raised was this: +If his usually independent friend could be as grateful as that for the +write-ups, what would she say when his whole plan worked out, and his +Public Opinion had overwhelmed the School Board for her? Thus, on the +train, after reading "Willcox's" piece three times, and now as he strode +up the quiet back-street from the station, the author was intently +plotting out the next, or practical, stage of his campaign, still +unsuspected by her: the stage of the reprinting of the write-ups in the +local papers, in fine, of repeated editorial endorsement of the same, of +the outburst of letters from "Indignant Taxpayers," "High School +Graduates," and "Old Subscribers"--practically all, of course, written +by Uncle George Blenso and himself. + +His thoughts proved increasingly stimulating to the home-come Charles. +And when he came to Olive Street, he suddenly bethought him to turn up +that way; not expecting to stop at the Wings', of course (for he had an +engagement to call there this evening, much as if he hadn't been a +modern at all), but merely thinking that if he should happen to meet +Mary it would be quite a pleasant thing.... + +Having turned, the buoyant young man presently sent, as it were, a +scouting eye on ahead. And it fell, not upon the friend he had made +famous in a night, but upon an Object approaching. + +The object was a conveyance, a little vehicle of the self-propelling +type. It was an automobile, clearly; a runabout, you would have to term +it, though certainly of a pattern adopted in no recent year. So steep +and bobbed was this runabout's little body, so quaintly archaic its +contour, that it stirred in the beholder dim recollections of the early +days of the horseless age, of strange pictures seen in scientific +magazines back in the nineties. Very slowly the little vehicle +approached, but very loudly, too, with an increasing bias toward the +sidewalk, with queer rumblings and groanings, with the oddest snorts. + +Charles's puzzled eye lifted. And so it was that it encountered again +the soft gaze that he had last seen misted in tears, upon a sofa. And so +he heard the pretty voice, that had once referred to him as a brute, +saying:-- + +"How do you do, Mr. Garrott!... I--I'm very glad to see you back!" + +"Why--Miss _Flower_!" + +Sheer surprise had halted him in his tracks, and the self-propelling +runabout, which had been almost stationary all along, became entirely +so, right at the curb. + +"When did you get home?" Miss Flower was finishing, laughing, a becoming +color in her cheeks. + +"I'm just in--this minute! How are you? I--ah--didn't realize at all +that it was you." He had taken the small hand she offered, momentarily +flustered, despite all effort, by the utterly sudden re-meeting. He was +aware that the girl looked a little conscious, too. But something in her +gaze seemed to be trying to tell him that bygones were bygones now; and +she went on with reassuring naturalness:-- + +"I hope you had a nice holiday? I've wanted very much to see you, and +thank you myself. About Wallie, I mean--your offering to teach him--" + +"Oh!--Why, _that_!" + +"It was really the nicest thing. I--haven't seen you since, but you +don't know how much I--we all appreciated--" + +With recovered poise the young man easily brushed aside these thanks. +"But I'm awfully glad," he added, "that he didn't wait for me, after +all." + +"Oh!" she exclaimed. "You _heard_, then?" + +He mentioned his letter from Mary Wing, causing her to say, "Oh," +again.--"Wasn't it _wonderful_! I knew you'd be interested...." + +She was prettier than he remembered--or was it merely that the new hat +(trimmed but yesterday) was more becoming than the old?--and her gaze, +though not reproachful a bit, had for him a quality subtly appealing. Of +the lives and loneliness of young womanly women--of that forced +_waiting_ which dams up all energies unused, and hangs the spirit to +thrash about in a void, working over each small event to a towering +importance--of such matters, a man, even Charles, the authority, knew +only through the powers of his imagination. Charles did observe, +however, that this girl seemed very glad to see him. And he felt that he +now reciprocated these feelings. + +"But," said he, with a hypocritically pleasant look at the vehicle, +"Santa Claus seems to have remembered you, too! This is something new, +isn't it?" said Charles, though feeling that new was hardly the word. + +"Yes,--aren't you surprised? My brother in Pittsburg gave it to me. I've +just learned to run it! It was so exciting!" + +And then, in a pretty, hesitating way, she said: "Won't you let me drive +you--home, or wherever you're going? I'd like to, so much. I--want so to +tell you all the news." + +He protested that he could not think of using Miss Flower as a taxicab. +But when she urged it, in pleasing, ingenuous sentences, and explained +that she was out only to drive about anywhere, for practice, it did not +occur to him to maintain the churlish negative. And, indeed, this was +exactly what he had desired from the moment of reading her perfect note +last month--sweet reconciliation in just such a casual way, admitting or +entailing next to nothing. + +So the returning author of the write-ups was to be seen carefully +squeezing himself, and "Willcox's," into the seat of Tommy's delightful +gift. + +"Let's see--the engine's still going--isn't it?" said she, rather +superfluously, it seemed, in view of the uproar. "Then I have to kick +that and push this over...." + +As the girl said, so she did, her look a little anxious, her young face +flushed with excitement. And, sure enough, the vehicle, of a +self-propelling type, suddenly shook itself with a few loud snorts, and +jumped forward with a jar. + +"And what sort of car is this?" resumed Charles, dissembling intense +curiosity as mere sympathetic interest. + +"It is a Fordette," replied Angela, not without pride. + +As they wobbled round the corner, narrowly missing the sidewalk, she +added in the same proud manner: "And this is my very first drive by +myself." + +The taking of the corner (she explained that she could not turn round +alone yet) meant that he was not going to pass the Wings', after all; +but Charles hardly noticed that. He had himself to look to, in his +somewhat unusual position. However, the drive to the Studio, though +noisy, was very short; her completely feminine inefficience as a driver, +their snail's progress, could not extend it over many minutes; and the +whole thing proved as easy and reproachless as could possibly have been +wished. Light friendly talk was the note, flowing without embarrassment +now. Angela told of the two great happenings in her family, seeming to +count upon his interest, and getting it genuinely enough, too. He was +glad, sincerely, that Luck had smiled on this girl, who had seemed to +him not to be having much of a chance. But she was not one, even so, to +take all the conversation to herself; it was a trait that he had noted, +and liked, in her from the beginning. + +"Mr. Garrott," she said, at the first little pause, "aren't you going to +have some stories out pretty soon now? You know you told me you were +writing some--before you began your book?" + +How gladly Mr. Garrott would have reported a little luck, too! But no, +he was still known to Tables of Contents only as the author of +write-ups. Somewhat ruefully, he explained to Angela his position about +the editors; namely, that the sooner the lot of them came under the eye +of a lunacy commission, the better for all concerned. + +She became the comforter: "But perhaps they've accepted some of your +stories while you were away so long!" He, however, knew that there was +nothing in that. + +"Well, no--no. You see, my--my relative who lives with me, Judge Blenso, +looks after my mail when I'm away. And he's been sending me the casualty +lists from time to time." + +"But that story I liked so much--you told me a little about it one +day--about Helena and her husband, don't you remember, who went off to +the desert island--" + +"Oh, that? That's been declined--yes, declined three times, if I +remember rightly--" + +"_Really!_ But how _could_ they! I should think they would have _jumped_ +at it! Why, I thought it was just wonderful...." + +Her instinct for supplying charm was not amiss, it seemed. + +"By the way," said the young author carelessly, as they curved into his +own street, "have you happened to see this?" + +And he not only showed Angela his "Willcox's," with the write-up in it, +but bestowed it upon her, for her own. It developed that he had extra +copies in his pocket. + +Angela was very grateful for the magazine. Everything was as pleasant +and friendly as possible. And at parting, she said, with only the +slightest return of self-consciousness:-- + +"This has been a very short drive, Mr. Garrott! I hope we can have a +real one some day soon." + +To that the young man, standing on the sidewalk before his own door, +replied with a courteous generalization. Wariness was reflexive with +him, so to say. But then, as he looked at the soft young face, he seemed +to become suddenly conscious of the essential caddishness of his past +behavior, and of yet another feeling, too, less coolly judicial. Had not +the Kiss, in fact, set this girl somehow apart from others, remaining as +a subtle bond after all? + +Pressing her slender hand, he added: "Meanwhile, I've enjoyed this one +very much! You've been--extremely good to me." + + * * * * * + +"Willcox's" had given Mary the Freewoman a fine spread. The write-up +occupied all of one of its large pages, with three paragraphs "Continued +on Page 49," among the Men's Ready to Wear Clothing. Out of the middle +of the text, the best of the portraits supplied by Fanny Warder gazed +back steadily at the two relatives in the Studio. The famous Mary was +seated in a flowered armchair, and seemed just to have looked round over +her shoulder. Her delicate, quite girlish, face wore her characteristic +look of faint, grave interrogation; her eyes were intent and fine. + +"Gad, you know!" said Judge Blenso, who had seen Charles's name in print +for the first time with an exclamation of pride and pleasure. "Why, it's +stunnin', my dear fellow! Simply stunnin'!" + +But the mind's eye of Charles, looking down at the life-like +presentment, was seeing that confident gaze averted; the ear of his +fancy was hearing the low sounds of womanly emotion in this quarter at +last. That, of course, was just after he had gently said to her--why, it +might be next week!--"Do you remember telling me one day that I couldn't +help you at all? Why, Miss Mary, did you really suppose I'd let you go +on as a Grammar School teacher till _May_!...." + +"Bring 'em out as a holiday book--that's what I say! Why, good gad, +Charles!--we only got twenty dollars for that piece there!" + +The young man laughed absently, and removed his overcoat. A glance at +Big Bill showed that it was just four o'clock. He had examined the mail, +heard the secretary's unfavorable reports. The Studio, after nearly +three weeks' holiday, suggested the necessity of work undoubtedly; he +was as far from settling upon his Line as ever. But it seemed that he +didn't feel like plotting scenarios to-day. + +The "Post," the "State," the "Chronicle"--why shouldn't he go down there +now, get the thing started at once?... + +"Oh, Judge, by the way! Do you know whether Miss McGee ever brought back +that book I lent her?--fat red book, called 'Marna'?" + +"'Marna,' 'Marna'? Never heard of it. Yes, that's so, she did! Here it +is!" said the Judge, and forthwith plucked Miss Angela's long-kept loan +from the bookcase close by. + +"That's it! Let's lay it here on the mantel. Then maybe I'll remember--" + +"And borrowed a lot more, too!" exclaimed the Judge, suddenly laughing +loud and long. "Gad, I lent her an armful, fact!--night we had the +sleet-storm!" + +"You did?--good! We'll convince her we're her true friends yet." + +His secretary, having gazed at him a moment with brilliant blankness, +suddenly exclaimed: "Why, Charles, my dear fellow, you're looking like a +fighting-cock! You must have put on a stone--fine! Here, let me feel +your muscle!" + +Charles tried to evade that ceremony, but it was, of course, no use. +Having caught him going through certain setting-up exercises one night, +and being misled by the light remark he let fall, Judge Blenso was +irrevocably convinced that the sedentary Charles had an affair of honor +on his hands. The night he made this discovery--the very night Charles +secretly began the exercises, of course, the night of the day he had +seen Mysinger on the street--the Judge had become almost dangerously +excited, springing from bed and walking about a long time in his +pajamas, saying over and over: "The old blood'll tell! Gad, you know! +It's the old blood!" All attempts to explain, then and since, had been +utterly without effect. + +However, a knock on the door interrupted the proceedings, and Mrs. +Herman came walking into the Studio--a dark, round, rosy little body, +beetle-browed but beaming. + +"Such a popular man I never saw!" said she, roguishly. "One lady meeting +him and driving him up from the station, another calling him up before +he's hardly arrived, and goodness knows who'll be next!" + +"Why, who's calling me, Mrs. Herman?" + +"It's Miss Wing!--waiting at the phone! And no wonder, with all you and +the Judge have done for her, I'm sure! Judge, I hope you find your new +chair comfortable?" + +Having received the unexpected summons with a peculiar start of +gladness, the young man descended the stairs with the most agreeable +anticipations. To do a valuable service for a friend is, with some +natures, to become fonder than ever of that friend; and Charles, from +the moment of reading her unprecedented letter, was aware that his +original services to Mary had distinctly had these sentimental +reactions. (For of course such natures _are_ sentimental, disgustingly +so, and real Men--not to say realistic men--invariably hate and despise +their friends, and speak to said friends at all only with a view to +taking away their money or their wives.) + +So, sitting down at the little telephone-table in the dark rear-hall, +Charles smiled to himself and said, in a false voice:-- + +"Pardon me, but is this the famous Miss Wing, who--" + +And Mary's voice seemed to spring toward him through the receiver, like +an embrace: "Oh, _King Charles_!" + +It was a little name she had made long ago by turning his first two +names about, but reserved for rare occasions only. Rare also was it to +hear this commonly contained voice so deeply stirred. + +"Welcome home! I hope I didn't interrupt your work, but it seemed I +couldn't _wait_! And, of course, I haven't _half_ thanked you yet, +haven't begun to tell you how much--how much--I appreciate all you've +done for me...." + +Once more, the fortunate Charles was brushing aside a lady's +gratitude--rather generously, considering the infrequency of grounds of +gratitude here. He laughed gaily into the receiver. + +"The real point is, why under the sun did you connect me right away with +the remarkable outburst of popular admiration? Hartwell went gossiping +about, I suppose?" + +"I didn't need Mr. Hartwell to tell me anything about that! But--" + +"Aha! So Fanny told you about the photographs--" + +"She never breathed a word--" + +"Good-evening, Miss Holmes!--old Watson speaking! Will you kindly +explain your--!" + +"Why, of course there wasn't but one person on earth who could have done +such a beautiful thing for me!" + +All alone in the hall, Charles felt himself coloring with pleasure. +However, the unwonted flush was not for long. + +"I have to pinch myself," the girl's eager voice rushed on (did it sound +just a thought more triumphant than even the author of the write-ups +could have expected?),--"for every magazine I pick up is full of nothing +but Me! I've just seen 'Willcox's'--oh, you don't know how much I liked +that! You've simply taken my breath away! And then to come in and find +_this_!--everything beautiful happening to me at once! I--" + +"What? _More_ honors, celebrity?" + +"The greatest!--the most wonderful! Mr. Garrott, what DO you suppose?" + +Mr. Garrott hardly liked the slant the conversation was taking. The +understanding was that whatever beautiful things happened to the Career +were to happen exclusively through him now. + +"Why!--I can't guess! Not--Has the School Board--" + +"Pish for the School Board," cried the voice that was wont to be so +calm. "You're talking to _the new Secretary of the League_!" + +"I'm.... _What?_" + +"The person you're conversing with, if you please, is the General +Secretary of the National League for Education Reform!" Her happy laugh +rang on the wire: "Are you _staggered_? Well, I am, too! I simply can't +begin to take it in...." + +Had Mrs. Herman's house fallen about his ears, the young man at the +telephone-table could, indeed, scarcely have been staggered more. His +sense was of one falling headlong through space. He gripped the edge of +the table with a large left hand, and for the instant there was no +speech in him. + +"I found the letter from Dr. Ames when I got in just now--oh, the nicest +letter, explaining everything! And of course I wanted to tell you right +away--you've been so good about wanting to help! Don't you remember, it +was you who spoke of this as my brilliant revenge? We little thought +then ..." + +_Wanting to help!_ Doubt not, that was the body blow. "No--no! And I--I +really don't take it in--even now," he was saying, struggling +desperately for his mask. "I--ah--I'd given up all--idea, you see! Why, +I understood that was _all off_! I--" + +"Of _course_--so had I! That's what makes it such a wonderful bolt from +the blue! There was another candidate, you see--a college president, +imagine!--and Dr. Ames says he felt he ought to be very discreet and +reticent till it was all settled. But I was elected unanimously, and +must be in New York to take charge of the office on March 1st...." + +It was the complete collapse of his triumph and his hope: he would not +be going to the newspaper-offices now. But that sentence, that concrete +date, took the whole matter deeper still. Charles Garrott took a firmer +grip on Mrs. Herman's little table. Now his voice came firmer, too:-- + +"The first woman secretary they ever had!... Why--it's _immense_!" + +In the ensuing dialogue, in which, for pride's sake, he sought to strike +just the right felicitatory note, there was an instant when the +possibility flashed upon him that the stunning event was itself but the +unimagined by-product of the write-ups. The directors had decided not to +give the distinguished post to an obscure provincial teacher, when all +of a sudden his great broadside of fame for Mary had come roaring in +among them. The thought, in this moment of utter frustration, seemed +actually welcome to him. But it had hardly fluttered before Mary struck +it dead, in the most incidental manner: incidental--since, to be just, +she, having no knowledge whatever of his secret plans, could hardly +guess what annihilation she was dealing out to them. It developed, in +short, that her election, though held back a few days to be ratified by +the trustees of the League's endowment fund, had actually taken place on +December 27th. And it was too readily recalled that the first of the +write-ups had not appeared till the following day. + +"Yes--yes!... Fine holiday, thank you!--fine! But of course--no triumphs +like this to report!..." + +"Well!--I mustn't keep you now, of course!" said the victorious voice. +"I'm looking forward to seeing you ..." + +No, it was sufficiently clear that he had but labored to heap coals in +Newcastle. It was just the case of the old write-up, last year; only now +a thousand times worse. Often before, this desire in him to help, this +spontaneous protecting instinct which seemed to be always flowing out +here, had been rebuffed and defeated. But this time, his defeat seemed +to be final. And, hanging up the receiver at last, the young man sat +silent with the feeling that something valuable and important had +suddenly departed from his life. + +He felt that he had been rather imposed upon, but that didn't matter +particularly. He felt beaten, as he had never been beaten before, and +that seemed to matter a good deal. With an odd and profound sense of +blank chagrin, he recognized, at last, that when Mary Wing had said that +she didn't need his help, she had been merely stating a literal and +obvious truth. How he had been such a fool as ever to think otherwise? + +But deeper than all this, it seemed clear from the beginning that he was +disappointed in his friend, personally. Had he not read into her all +along, and put into the write-ups, a rather finer quality than she, in +fact, possessed? Spinsters were entitled to a man's freedom to follow +away their work--of course. But it seemed that he had never been able to +imagine Mary as actually seizing this Right. And now, here she was doing +it, with joy--the end of next month. Now behold her, whose praises he +had so superfluously sung round the world--just an ordinary Redmantler +after all, it seemed, exultantly striking off mother, home, friends; a +female Egoist, no more, visibly engaged in "fiercely hacking away".... + +He could, indeed, scarcely take it in. And stoutly he assured himself +that his whole feeling about the matter would have been different--if +only she had showed, at once, that this would be a wrench for her, that +her thought was colored by a sense of values not connected with her +Self. But no; it seemed that the new General Secretary had no thought to +spare for the immaterial business of being a sister and being a +daughter. + + * * * * * + +So Charles's call at the Wings' on the evening of his homecoming wore a +complexion not contemplated by him when he had arranged the matter. + +He had made this engagement, under the general misapprehension, in his +reply to Mary's grateful letter last week. And now he had to keep it, +however malapropos, resolved as he was that she should never sense any +criticism or disapprobation in him. To seek to "influence" her, +naturally never entered his mind. No, he was her casual spectator now +and henceforward; he had dipped his oar in her affairs for the last +time. + +But the call was hardly much of a success, despite all efforts. Mary, +having now had time to recapture her usual poise, no longer impressed +one as being so unreservedly overjoyed with herself. It was noted that +she kept referring to the write-ups, kept assuring him how delightful +she found it to be a celebrity as well as a Secretary, etc., etc. The +caller's intellect coldly gave her credit for "being very nice." +However, no niceness could help much to drape the stark obtruding facts; +no civilities seemed fitted to cope with the intangible wall suddenly +sprung up in the old friendship. And if there had lingered in Charles's +mind some revolting incredulity, some reactionary insistence that Mary +could never really carry out the typical exploit of the Egoette, the +talk this evening finally killed it. The famous educator's sentences +made it clear, once and for all, that she was Leaving Home for good--for +her own good, of course--on the 1st day of March succeeding. + +Charles was determinedly "sincere" throughout the brief call, +continuously and spuriously hearty. Inwardly, his resolve grew more and +more fixed that this young woman, who was so rarely competent to Lead +Her Own Life, should be permitted to lead it quite unassisted +henceforth. For himself, he decided that his life should go to the +unremitting service of pure Letters. But of such matters, of course, he +permitted his agreeable chatter to yield no hint. Taking his departure +upon a new wave of felicitations, he could but congratulate himself upon +the trained adeptness of his mask. + +And Mary, having shut the door upon her caller, stood leaning against +it, her arched brows drawn together in a faint frown, her fine eyes +faintly bewildered. + +"Now what," she said, half aloud, "have I said or done, or left unsaid +or undone, this time?" + +And then she went slowly back to her mother's bedroom, where she found +her mother with stockings to darn, and (taken unawares) her eyes a +little red. + + + + +XIV + + +In the Home on Center Street, the shrunken curtain was rarely hooked +back on the nail now. And on the ledge of the little window that gazed +toward the Blest, the shabby opera-glasses gathered dust. + +As is perfectly understood, Careers in the making are the stuff to make +conservatives of others. Observing Egoettes, an authority, if male, +inevitably reacts, thinking better and better of the gentle business of +supplying beauty and supplying charm. Charles Garrott, in short, having +repudiated all connection with the life of Mary Wing, was in just the +proper frame of mind to applaud the life of Mary's so different cousin. +And Charles did applaud it--certainly. But, of course, such purely +scientific endorsement did not controvert another established known +truth, namely, that, under certain circumstances and as applied to +certain individuals, the supply of the soft commodities referred to may +very well prove a little in excess of the demand. + +The well-known thought first flickered back into Charles's mind on the +third day of his homecoming. At the moment, he stood on the corner +nearest Berringer's, having just dismounted there from Miss Angela's +conveyance. On the fifth day of his homecoming, at the same corner, his +reflections on supply and demand were assuming an increasing +definiteness. + +"Well, then--good-bye!" he was saying, with his fatal pleasantness. "And +thank you very much for the lift." + +From the seat of Tommy's valuable donation, Angela was gazing up at him. +And he saw that her face, which had been smiling, was touched with a +brief seriousness. + +"Oh, you know I've enjoyed it--so much! But--we never seem to have +anything but these little bits of talks. I'm sorry.... Perhaps I'll see +you to-morrow?" + +"Ha!--quite likely!--yes! Thank you! Well!--_good-bye!_" + +And he turned away toward luncheon and the good man-talk with a crescent +uneasiness, having failed to point out--possibly failing to +remember--that to-morrow was Saturday, and he would be off to the +country again. + +Day before yesterday, he had encountered the conveyance as he left the +Demings' at one o'clock. To-day, he had overtaken it on his walk +downtown--literally that, for he was a fast walker and a little +absent-minded besides. Thus he had now enjoyed three peace-making drives +with the girl he had once parted from forever, all in the course of his +first five days at home. And now at the end of their third pleasant +talk, particularly after these last prospective remarks of hers, Charles +could not but feel that the true object of these re-meetings had been +satisfactorily accomplished. Now the reconciliation was complete; now he +felt no lingering shadow of doubt of his forgiveness for having once +been a brute. + +He did not regret the drives; he was very glad, indeed, to be good +friends again; but his subtle instinct seemed to warn him that he and +Angela would do best, would get along with the fewest misunderstandings, +without a rapidly developing intimacy. And, taking the higher view, it +clearly was not right, it was not moral, that a confirmed bachelor like +himself should go on indefinitely monopolizing a nice young Spinster +Home-Maker's time. + +Returning to town on Monday, Charles, though in the kindest way, went to +Berringer's by the Center Street car-line. He felt, indeed, that he was +really looking out for the girl's higher good more than for his own: she +lacked that competence to manage her own life, so harshly flaunted by +others. All passed off well. On Tuesday he utilized the traction system +again, with equally satisfying results. And then, on Tuesday afternoon, +as he trod professionally from the old lady's who was studying French to +Miss Grace Chorister's, he suddenly ran upon the Fordette again. + +By an odd chance, the quaint little vehicle was standing still, directly +in front of the Choristers'. His reconciled friend was out of it, +standing by, bending well over the car, peering into it. Nevertheless, +by some sixth sense, she saw him at once and, straightening up with a +pleased smile, she waved and called:-- + +"Oh, Mr. Garrott!--how glad I am to see you! Do you know how to crank?" + +He approached with the gallantest air, the most civil speeches. All the +same, as he bent to his hard labor--for the Fordette proved dangerously +stiff in the crank--and politely sought to explain how to avoid killing +the engine for the future, he was conscious of a certain sense of +rebellion.... Excellent, laudable, justifying things, beauty and charm; +but the plain fact was that he, Charles, was simply not in the market +for them at present, that was all. + +The friendship, indeed, was well cemented now; the talk characterized +with a growing confidence. + +"Oh, how strong you are!" said Angela admiringly, as he finally got the +old engine to spinning. "I do wish I could do it like that! Now you must +let me pay you for your trouble!--won't you? I'm just driving around, +really, so don't think--" + +"Oh, thank you, but I go in here. Business hours, you know! Well! Now +you're--" + +"Oh, is this where you teach every afternoon?" asked Angela, with +interest, gazing past him at the handsome stone "front" of the +Choristers'. "Oh, yes, Miss Chorister.... How long does the lesson +last?" + +"Oh, an hour--usually. But, of course," added the young man, his eye +wavering slightly, "that depends somewhat--on circumstances--" + +"You don't get out till about half-past four, then? I do _wish_ you +weren't so awfully busy! Mr. Garrott, have you been away again? I don't +seem to have seen you at all for a good many days now." + +"Yes! That's it!--been away again! I go away all the time--practically. +And when I'm here, why, it's nothing but work, work, work, from morning +to night, for me! It's a wonder to me I have a friend left, I have to be +so horribly unsociable--_always_. But," continued Charles, "I'm glad I +happened by in time to be of some help. By the by, hadn't you better get +in and try her out? I don't like to rush on to my lesson till I know +you're all right." + +"Yes, I suppose I had. I oughtn't to stop you now." + +His suggestion, indeed, had a striking reasonableness. Fortunately, the +try-out proved quite successful, after only a little pushing and +kicking. But the Fordette snorted from before the Choristers' very +slowly, Angela looking back over her shoulder, smiling at him, a pretty +and appealing look on her entirely feminine face. + +Charles went up to his daily hour with Miss Grace, in a brown study. + +Miss Grace, it must be known, was a Temporary Spinster, verging toward +Permanence; she was round, gentle, blonde, by no means displeasing or +ill-looking. Had the world been the normal place Old Tories took it to +be, Miss Grace would undoubtedly have been one of those happy women who +find themselves, at twenty-five, with a home, a husband, and three +darling little curly-headed children; and there were a hundred signs +that so she would have found full happiness indeed. But the world being +not normal now, but, on the contrary, in Unrest, something remote had +gone wrong with Miss Grace, parting her from her manifest destiny. +Perhaps the panic of 1907 was to blame, or a decrease in the visible +gold supply; perhaps the trouble was in that hard saying of the +Redmantlers, that Love was going out. At any rate, here hung Miss Grace +on the parent stem in Washington Street, a Waiting Woman: the +non-understanding and unaccounted-for Anomaly in a disordered social +system; an adult human being thirty-two years old, with nothing upon +earth to do. + +Miss Grace's subjects were Sociology and the History of the World. An +agreeable soul herself, she noted that her tutor's manner this afternoon +was taciturn and distrait. As he was concluding his remarks upon the +thirty pages of Lester Ward that made her lesson, she noted that he lost +his thread suddenly, and left a sentence permanently hanging in mid-air. +Back into the tutor's head, in fact, the artless questionings of another +had popped with arresting force: "_Is this where you teach every +afternoon? You get out about half-past four?_" From taciturn, Mr. +Garrott's manner became restless and rather irritable. And when the hour +of four-thirty arrived, he did not snap his watch at Miss Grace and +depart at once, according to his almost invariable habit. No, he moved +in a novel manner, to the drawing-room window. And he stood there, oddly +and irresolutely, gazing out, first up the street and then down. + +Why had he mentioned that the lesson lasted an hour usually? Why hadn't +he said, frankly, that it lasted till five or six o'clock, and often +later? + +Slowly but surely the idea was being established that it was the natural +and usual thing for him and Angela to drive in the old Fordette every +day. It was time for him definitely to break up this idea. Otherwise, +what was to be the end of it all?--that was what he wanted to know. More +and more he seemed to become aware of a gentle claim, an indescribable +pressure, very soft, yet rather alarmingly sure. Why on earth couldn't +she be satisfied just to be pleasant friends once more? Why all this +talk of future meetings, of seeing you again all the time? + +Miss Grace stood some distance behind her tutor, observing his strange +behavior. Somehow her attitude wore the air of a typical expression of +character. Miss Grace had flutterings, as witness her growing knowledge +of the Merovingians; she even pretended to nibble fearfully at her +tutor's occasional exhortations, that she cease her parasiting and go to +work. But beneath such vague symptoms of Unrest, it was clear that she +remained as her tradition and environment had fixed her, a Woman of +Romance: that is to say, a being gladly content to serve as the +spectator and audience of Man. + +"Mr. Garrott," she said suddenly, in her rather childlike voice, "I +don't believe you are a bit busy this afternoon. You really must stay +for tea. Nobody's coming in, sister's out, and you know you haven't +stayed for perfect ages." + +To her surprise, the unsocial tutor accepted at once. He remained with +his pupil till quarter past five. Thereupon, he reached his Studio +without interruption, entirely on foot. + +Charles (thinking for the young girl's highest good) was rather pleased +with this development. By accident, he seemed to have hit upon quite a +satisfactory sort of _modus vivendi_: street-cars to Berringer's, and +tea at Miss Grace's till dark. Next day he tried the programme again. + +This time, it did not work out quite so well: the secret truth of the +matter being that, at bottom, all Spinsters have certain well-defined +points in common. That, in fact, is what makes them a class. And, +speaking in the large, you may say that there is no such thing as a +Permanent Spinster. + +Lessons at the Choristers' took place in the library, a stately room, +yet charming, too. Into it, a dusky maid wheeled a double-tiered +tea-table, all mahogany and glass, silver and china atop, little cakes +and small enticements on the deck below. Talk of historical matters +ceased. There sprang up light prattle of the little things Miss Grace +knew and liked best. + +The tutor, basking by the fireside and waiting for night, was not +unhappy. Though he frequently lectured Miss Grace, through long use he +really liked her. Now, he was also consciously grateful for her haven +from the too social life of Washington Street. That he could not go on +taking tea with Miss Grace every day for the rest of his life he, of +course, knew well; but he would just take each day's problems as he came +to them. Meanwhile, this Spinster supplied a quiet charm. Her hands +hovered ministeringly over the tea-table. For a plumpish woman, she had +noticeably small hands, graceful and white. When the tutor made her a +civil compliment, she colored like a school-girl. + +[Illustration: THIS SPINSTER SUPPLIED A QUIET CHARM] + +Following the compliment there was a moment of fire-lit silence. And +then Miss Grace's voice said softly and sweetly: + +"You are looking at my ring. I'm wearing it--" + +So that ended _that_. + +The tutor was on his feet so abruptly as to set the tea-things shaking. + +"No! No, I wasn't--I swear! I must go at once," said Charles. + +Unaware of the painful memories her womanly words evoked, Miss Grace +naturally looked very much surprised. + +"But--_what's_ the matter? Why, you act as if it were something improper +for you to look at my ring!" + +"Absurd," said the tutor, with a gesture. + +He had merely remembered, all of a sudden, something very important he +had to do, that was all. Pardon his haste, but he had already stayed too +long, he feared. + +Indifferent to Miss Grace's bewilderment, he left at once, wondering if +voluntary celibacy could not exist, and be respected, upon this earth. +And next day, as he stood on the corner of Center Street awaiting his +good, safe street-car--indeed, as he was in the very act of boarding the +said safe car--the little Fordette chugged up behind and nipped him. + +It was a pure accident, and he knew it. But he saw at once that no +accident could well have been less opportune. It involved a discovery +highly prejudicial to his future. + +Angela, indeed, had not even seen Mr. Garrott. She had merely perceived, +rounding the corner into her own street, that she was about to run over +somebody, and had awkwardly clapped on her brake, just in time. +Recognizing her friend in the person she had so nearly bumped, she gave +a little feminine cry of mirth and excitement; and, while she apologized +and laughed over the strange coincidence, Charles's car, of course, +suddenly clanged away and left him. The rest followed, as the night the +day. + +Almost the first thing she said was: "Oh, is _this_ where you take the +street-cars, when you haven't time to walk?" + +Charles's reply indicated that he was very erratic and uncertain in +these matters, taking the cars now at one point, now again in a totally +different quarter of the city. + +So the two friends, no longer constrained by misunderstanding, started +off on the slow mile drive to Berringer's. In the course of this drive, +Charles had his first justifying thought of Mary Wing in ten days. + +He recognized, with deep misgivings, that this girl's attitude toward +him was wholly ingenuous and natural, the "claim" he complained of but +the spontaneous expression of her girlish conception of their relations. +That, of course, was just the worst of it; in that naïveté (oh, surely +this was the Naïve Sex!) was her soft strength. He, with his cursed weak +politeness, knew not how to withstand her maidenly theory; she, on the +other hand, had new means of putting it forward constantly. All was +changed, he saw now clearly, from the instant when she came riding back +into his life at the wheel of the ancient Fordette. + +How was he to have any privacy of movement henceforward; how get from +place to place? + +Beside him, the girl was talking, with simple pleasure, of bridge. It +appeared that she was thinking of having another party next week, in +honor of Cousin Mary. Mr. Tilletts was very anxious to improve his game, +she mentioned. + +"And I think I'll invite you too," she said, with becoming +coquetry--"even though you've never paid your party-call--for the other +one!" + +But why wasn't she sometimes at home, home-making? That was what he +should like to know. + +And aloud, he spoke with hard brightness of the weather. + +Through her seemingly incessant practice, Angela drove better now; not +efficiently or rapidly, but no longer with her first anxious air, +stopping short when she saw a wagon a block away. This left her more +freedom and enterprise for conversation. Mr. Garrott's meteorological +comments soon petered out. Subtly, gently, her manner seemed to reprove +him for wasting their time, as it were, on trivialities. + +She said presently: "Did you ever read that book I lent you, Mr. +Garrott--'Marna'?" + +The young man groaned inwardly. He could not understand why he had not +returned the book last week as he had intended--with or without the +blossoms--instead of dilly-dallying along this way, till some point was +made of it. True enough, Angela interrupted his loquacious apologies:-- + +"Oh, it isn't that! I really don't want the book at all. But--" + +She drove a few feet farther--an appreciable interval at four miles an +hour--and ended, rather wistfully:-- + +"I wondered if you weren't keeping it--for another reason. I mean--just +because you didn't want to come to return it." + +"Why, what an idea! Ridiculous!--" + +"Mr. Garrott, you know you _have_ seemed to--since--" + +"You've no idea how overworked I am these days--never a minute to call +my own! Why, there's your cousin, Mary Wing,--one of my best +friends,--and I haven't so much as laid eyes on her--but once--since +'way before Christmas! Think of it! And that's--" + +"You used to be willing to take a _little_ time for pleasure," said +Angela, looking away from him, "before--we had that awful +misunderstanding." + +"It gets worse and worse all the time!" said Charles, hastily. "That's +what I say! That's writing!--yes, indeed!--inexorable--once let it into +your life, and it eats it all up--forcing a man to be a--a hermit for +life, you might say. But there was something I was very anxious to tell +you, Miss Flower. Let me see ... slipped me for the moment. Ah--oh, +yes!--did you know Donald Manford's back again?" + +"Oh! No, is he? I hadn't heard." + +"Yes, old Donald got back Sunday, full of pride and honors...." + +And then into the eyes of the worried young man there shot a faint +gleam. + +He had mentioned Donald absolutely at random, but the moment he heard +the youth's name on the air, an idea exploded in his brain, leaving +behind a dull hope. Unlike himself, Donald was a marrying man. Why, when +you stopped to think of it, wasn't Angela the very girl for him? And +why, then, shouldn't he, Charles, frankly reversing his purposes at the +Helen Carson luncheon last month, bring together once more these two +nice, simple cousins of the too-modern Mary, just as he had done that +night at the Redmantle Club, when all the trouble had begun? + +Of course, at the moment, Charles's "psychology" was not quite so +elaborate as this. The thought, indeed, flashed through his brain in +purely concrete form, thus: "_That's it! I'll put her on to Donald._" + +Forthwith, he launched upon a voluble talk, an address, at once +extolling Donald's character and throwing out suggestive commentaries +upon it: how Donald had come home in the vein of a boy let out of +school, seeming to feel that at last his playtime had come; how he (so +different from himself, Charles) openly sought and hungered for pleasure +now, was mad for some good times. And, observing closely, he thought +that Miss Angela looked interested in his exposition, too, though hardly +so interested as one might have liked, perhaps. + +"Why, I didn't think he was that sort of person at all," said she. + +"I've never seen a man change so--come out so--in my life! Landing this +great job, you know!--it's taken a great weight off him. And then the +thought that he has only a few weeks more at home, too--it's really +revolutionized his character! Why, Miss Flower, the man's all but quit +work! Really! He ..." + +A knocking sense of disloyalty--to Mary's known plans--checked him, but +briefly. What was that to him now? Had not Mary convinced him, once and +for all, that she was more than competent to manage her own affairs? +Deliberately, the young man released his valuable information:-- + +"Why, he leaves his office every afternoon at four o'clock--rain or +shine--and walks up Washington Street, absolutely hunting for somebody +to come and give him a little fun! But who is there to do it? He's been +out of things so long, he hardly knows anybody! And then, too, Donald, +beneath that--ah--standoffish manner of his, is really a shy man. What +he needs most, really, is encouragement...." + +To all of which Angela's final reply--delivered after a slight +silence--was: "You seem to love to talk about Mr. Manford to-day, Mr. +Garrott." And then she took the wind out of his sails completely by +saying:-- + +"I don't think of Mr. Manford really as a friend of mine. You know--I +often think you're the only real friend I've made, since we left +Mitchellton." + +During the remainder of the drive, Charles thought it best to affect an +amiable absent silence. But that gained him nothing, any more than his +treachery to Donald and Miss Carson. Before she released him at the now +too familiar corner near Berringer's, the girl said, simply and +seriously:-- + +"Mr. Garrott--aren't you really _ever_ coming to see me again?" + +Why again? When had he ever been to see her? And why all this talk of a +misunderstanding? _He_ had never misunderstood anything. + +"Why, yes!--yes, certainly!--when I ever find a minute to see anybody! +Ha, ha! But--when that'll be--" + +It was her great merit in his eyes that she had never really reproached +him. It seemed to cost her an effort to go on:-- + +"You've never forgiven me for--for saying what I did that night. You +know you haven't! But if you'd ever come to see me--so that we could +really have a talk--I feel I could make you understand that I--never +really meant it!" + +The maiden's gaze at once embarrassed and vastly depressed him. In it he +read, as if spread upon a bill-board, her soft certainty that, though he +himself might not realize it yet, he was her man.... + +In the restaurant, the four or five entirely masculine persons with whom +Charles commonly lunched took note of his peculiar gloom. It was their +whim to assume that a valued pupil had just discharged Charles without a +character. Theirs was a crude and noisy wit. But the tutor ignored, +hardly heard, their gibes. He sat withdrawn and silent over his chicken +hash (for which Berringer had no less than fourteen different names). +And before his fascinated mind's eye there unrolled an endless vista of +driving duets, with the gentle feminine pressure closing down ever more +and more irresistibly upon him. + +What to do, what to do? That was the question. There did not seem to be +a corner of the city now where the Fordette did not go poking its ugly +mug. + +All very well to say: Be bold, be cold. Refuse under any conditions to +get into the Fordette. That, to him, was simply not a possible line of +conduct. Inability to be successfully rude to people, even under the +most favorable circumstances, had long been recognized as the damnable +flaw in his character. And as to this very peculiar case--how could the +roughest boor, the most thoroughgoing cad, repel and affront a nice +young girl whom he voluntarily kissed but last month--one whose only +fault, after all, was a fatal constancy? + +Now he fairly confronted the two distinct and fundamental weaknesses in +his position: the moral and the mechanical, the Kiss and the Fordette. A +just thinker always, he would not deny, even now, that it was his own +free-will act that had first altered everything. If he took the ground +that he had kissed, with warmth, a girl he cared nothing on earth about, +what sort of person did that make him? No better than a Frenchman, daft +about La Femme. She, it could not be gainsaid, really paid him a finer +compliment, took the nobler view of him, when she assumed that those +salutes had signified something. She was not without right to her naïve +confidence. And now that she had this maidenly expectancy firmly mounted +upon a gasoline engine--do what he would, he could not escape a ripening +affection. She would get a call out of him yet. There would be another +bridge-party, and he would be at it. And after the bridge-party.... + +Alone with his thoughts among his noisy companions, Charles drew a +handkerchief across his brow. A Home was, indeed, a sweet and beautiful +thing. But the positive fact was that he, Charles, did NOT want one made +for him at present. And still, the soft advance that leads straight to +Homes pressed resistlessly on. + +Great Heavens, what a price to pay for one little kiss on a sofa!... +Well, two or three little bits of kisses, then. What a price! What was +the reason of it, where the justice? + +He spoke aloud, for almost the first time at his lunch, with sudden +heat: "I believe I'll move away from this town!" + +The remark elicited a shout of laughter. In the midst of it, the tutor +rose and stalked intently away. It had just occurred to him that he +might force a quarrel on Angela, on some trivial pretext: pretend that +she had hurt his feelings in some way--about not returning that book of +hers, perhaps--something like that. The old dodge: a million men must +have worked it. But even as he dallied with the notion, Charles knew +very well that the ruthless strength was not in him. Besides, his +thought now had taken a cold retrospective turn, interesting in its way: +the sight of Talbott Maxon, grinning there, had roused old associations +in him. Talbott was a good one to laugh! But the Oldmixon girls had had +him laughing out of the other corner of his mouth. + +How had he ever lost sight of _that_ little affair? + +People like G. B. Shaw might go about pretending that they had invented +the idea of Woman the Pursuer. But the fact was that he, Charles, had +personally discovered the elementary truth before he was out of his +teens. Experience, you would have said, had driven it home +unforgettably. All the way up to the old lady's who was studying French, +tucked away in an obscure corner of the street-car, Charles was soberly +going back over the instructive time he and Talbott had had with a group +of Temporary Spinsters--all of five years ago--and wondering how under +the sun he had ever allowed its lessons to grow dim. + +That old trouble had started casually, too--how sharply it all came back +now! At a dance it was, when Talbott, who was also fatally kind-hearted +(and was pushed by a chaperon from behind, besides), had invited Susie +Oldmixon to abandon the wall for the waltz. Of course, he had been stuck +for four dances for his pains: of course Miss Oldmixon--a womanly +girl--had misconceived the character of that long set-to; of course she +invited him to a party in a day or two. Then it was that Talbott, +sensing how things were going, had introduced him, Charles, much as a +cowardly conscript offers a substitute. But the base act had gained him +nothing; the Oldmixons produced a friend of theirs, Sarah Freed,--how he +came to loathe the sight of Sarah!--and upon the instant, he and Talbott +found themselves caught up together in a literally endless chain of +little engagements, usually thus: a party, a party-call, another party, +etc. Naturally, they had early had the bright thought of breaking the +chain by not paying any party-call; and at once, this very same kind of +soft pressure was put upon their weak chivalrousness: "Ethel thinks you +must be mad with her," one or the other of the loyal sisters would say. +"You know you've never paid your party-call." If they yielded, and went +and paid their party-call, it was not considered that they had then +discharged their duty like soldiers; no, by an inexplicable shift in the +point of view, the call was straightway viewed as a personal +"attention," and they were at once invited to another party. So it went: +these girls had reduced to an intuitive science the feminine instinct +for making one thing lead to another. Of course they were always +offering to teach him and Talbott something, as auction or the Boston; +always trying to lend them something--like "Marna"--which would have to +be returned. And even if all the regulation pitfalls were fairly +side-stepped, it really accomplished nothing, for in that case Sarah or +the Oldmixons were sure to have a Visitor. Even Sarah Freed, of course, +rather hesitated to ring you up on the telephone and say: "Please, +please, come to see me! You know I haven't a thing in the world to do +but sit and think about men, and you're the only man who has spoken +politely to me since 1908." But none of the virgins minded at all +ringing you up and saying, "Do come to see my Visitor." + +The worst thing in it all (reflected Charles, with worriment, in the +street-car) was that Sarah and the Oldmixons were far from being brazen +hussies; they were really nice girls, only sharpened a little by tedium +and the creeping fear of "failure." Odd though it seemed, they actually +remained almost completely unconscious of their own processes. And still +it had taken him and Talbott nearly a year to get out of the soft +vicious circle; and still he remembered distinctly that they had then +agreed upon the following as their invariable rule of conduct, +thenceforward: Never be polite to a womanly girl, unless positive you +want to marry her. + +A _year_! And of course he had never kissed Sarah and the Oldmixons, +either.... + +Charles went on his rounds in a humor of fatalistic despondence. The +mood proved premature, decidedly: while there is life, there is hope. +And it seemed that he, by too much thinking, had wrongly discounted the +promising aspects of his case. He had builded rather better than he +knew. + +When his lesson with Miss Grace was over, at four-thirty that afternoon, +the tutor said gloomily:-- + +"I can't stay for tea to-day. But I think I'll just stand here, and look +out of the window a little while." + +Of course, after yesterday, there could be no more tea-taking. Equally +of course, caution was more needed than ever. "Don't wait for me," +muttered Charles, reconnoitering, to Miss Grace. And then he forgot her +entirely as his eye, shooting out the window, fell upon Donald Manford +sauntering carelessly along, over the sunny street. + +From the Choristers' window, Charles gazed out at his young friend with +moroseness and moody envy. What he had told Angela about this youth was +(by chance) almost literally true. Donald--hitherto a hard worker, +through Mary Wing's unceasing influence--_was_ visibly relaxing the ties +he was so soon to sever; he _had_ come home in distinctly a holiday +humor. And a lot of good that did him, Charles! Donald walked Washington +Street there with utter free-and-easiness, with almost insolent +impunity. Dull, lucky Donald! He, of course, did not have the devilish +gift; Donald kissed no one. No one viewed Donald as her own true man; no +home-maker chased him all over the city in a Fordette. + +Behind him, Miss Grace pushed a flat button on the wall and said: +"Tea'll be ready in a minute, Mr. Garrott. You really might as well +stay, you know, as stand there looking out of the window." + +The tutor made no reply. In fact, he did not hear Miss Grace. By strange +luck, he was in the grip of an extraordinary, a truly fascinating +experience. Quite suddenly, his ears had been captured by a sound from +the street, a sound that had an arresting familiarity among all other +sounds, a peculiar whirring, a rumbling, and a snorting, insistent, +growing louder. Upon earth, was there but one noise like that? + +Swifter than a bullet, Charles's eyes had gone speeding down the +spacious street. And his heart leapt up within him as they lighted upon +the self-propelling conveyance approaching--but half a block away, +chugging steadily nearer.... + +Yes, his word to the wise had not been wholly wasted, it seemed. There +rumbled the good little Fordette after unconscious Donald, gaining on +him, gaining almost rapidly.... + +"Mr. Garrott, what _are_ you looking at?" + +"Oh!... Nothing," said the tutor in a muffled voice. + +But in truth, he was looking, with breathless interest, at the fairest +sight seen by him in many a long day. Safe behind the Choristers' +curtains, with general joy, with the acute delights of a born +strategist, Charles saw what had so often happened to him, happen now to +poor old Donald. + +By odd coincidence, it fell out that the re-meeting of Mary Wing's two +cousins took place within fifty feet of the Choristers' window. What +more natural than that Angela, in the moment of passing her home-come +friend, should look over her shoulder and speak a pleasant greeting? Or +that Donald, surprised and civil, should unconsciously take a responsive +step or two toward the sudden speaker of the greeting? What more +certain than death or taxes but that the Fordette should thereupon come +to a halt--which it did so easily and naturally? (Oh, how perfectly +simple it all was, as you stood off and watched, how gentle and friendly +and inexorable!) Casual talk seemed to spring up: how easily Charles, +peeping with starting eyes between the parted curtains, could imagine it +all!--"I'm so glad to see you back! I've wanted so to congratulate you +on your great success! I'm crazy to hear about Wyoming!" And presently +those crucial words, so innocent-looking, so sweet: "Mr. Manford, won't +you let me," etc. "Truly I'm just out for a drive." And--sure +enough--oh, by George! _Hooray!_ There was the poor fool grinning; there +he was compressing himself, clambering right into the jaws. _Ah, there, +Miss Mary!..._ And there the two young people went snorting away up the +street: perfectly normally, though something in Donald's cramped +position, his long legs hunched up to his chin, did oddly suggest a +captive, seized and bound. + +The tutor astonished Miss Grace by bursting into a wild roar of +laughter. + + * * * * * + +But of course, he understood, on cool analysis, that this really settled +nothing. That exciting spectacle, which seemed to make the whole process +so extremely concrete, represented a hope, nothing more. And the more +this hope was scrutinized, the less substantial it seemed to become. +Walking safely home in the golden afternoon, Charles suddenly recalled, +with cold annoyance, a remark Donald had made, after his second walk +with Angela in November: "Charlie, she worries me." And Angela, for her +part,--though of course womanly, and hence agreeably plastic in her +affections,--really seemed hardly more attracted to Donald, as yet. +Charles thought he knew the reason, too. With a fresh chill, he recalled +the look the girl had given him, on the corner near Berringer's, +to-day. + +Had he really "put her on" to Donald even in the remotest degree? Was it +not highly probable that she, patrolling Washington Street at +four-thirty, had been looking, not for Donald, but for another? + +Of course, there could not be the slightest doubt that--for the present, +at least--Angela preferred him to Donald, infinitely, unreasonably. And +Angela usually got what she wanted, too, it seemed. For example, she had +wanted to move her family from Mitchellton to this city, where he, +Charles, lived. And she had moved. + + + + +XV + + +He fell instinctively into a small manoeuvre, which was merely this: +that he quietly shifted forward his public itinerary by quarter of an +hour. Next day, he started rapidly toward the street-cars at quarter +before one, and shot out of Miss Grace's at quarter past four, sharp. +Ultimate detection was certain, of course; but for the moment the +trifling ruse did seem to win a hardly hoped-for respite in the headlong +courtship. Neither on Friday, nor again on Monday, was the Home-Making +Fordette so much as seen. And the next disturbance of the authority's +delicate social scales, and of the author's Line, came, as might be +said, from precisely the opposite direction. + +In the Studio, matters had continued to progress backward. Once here, +and the door safely shut, Charles had been steadily at work, the +hymeneal shadow put resolutely from his mind. No writer's time, he had +pledged himself, should go to somber meditations on the cosmic +consequences of a kiss, still less to fruitless bitterness concerning +wasted write-ups, the hardness of Egoettes, etc. Day by day, he had +wooed that subtle calm of the spirit which is the bread and meat of +authors; night by night, expended himself in the service of pure +Letters. And it had all been for nothing. + +Contrary to explicit resolve, in short, he had been making a fresh +attempt at his new novel, hoping--rather weakly--that his mind wasn't +quite so unsettled as he secretly knew it was. And, once more, he had +been well punished for his rashness. Symptoms of weakness having +developed increasingly through the week just past, on Monday evening +Charles took his medicine, just before supper. Ten thousand words of +brand-new manuscript lay in his drawer there; and he would be lucky if +he could save a thousand of them for the novel that should be. + +Of the "line" taken by this second abortive effort, the less said the +better. It suffices to suggest that if Mary Wing had been a totally +different sort of person, it might never have been undertaken at all. + +Of all ways of spending the time known among men, unquestionably the +most abominable, the most nerve-wrecking and devilish, is Thinking up a +Book. Charles smoked box after box of cigarettes, couldn't sleep at +night, talked in his sleep when he did, and was growing a scowl between +his brows almost as dark as poor Two-Book McGee's--the interesting Type +that was leading its own life and wished it weren't. The final +conviction of the worthlessness of his work was hardly calculated to +improve the young man's state of mind. He was, indeed, profoundly +discouraged and concerned. For ten weeks now he had been struggling to +isolate a point of view which would at once "carry" all his newer +observations on his Subject, and command the support of his unqualified +conviction. And to-night he seemed further away from his goal than he +had been the day he finished "Bondwomen." + +However, what brought Charles's humor to a sudden head this evening, +what precipitated the fury in which Donald Manford found him--Donald, +entering so happy and fine in the evening regalia which the match-making +Mary seemed to clap on him every night nowadays--by chance had not to do +with his own book at all, but with another's. + +In short, the young author, very injudiciously in view of his resolve to +think of Egoettes no more, had been dipping into "Marna." + +This book of Angela's had long lain as a plague on the mind of Charles. +For a space, he had not returned the book because of the estrangement, +or misunderstanding; for another space, because of the swiftly ripening +intimacy, compelling the general policy of lying low; and now a large +fresh obstacle had risen, in the girl's unfortunate remarks directly +connecting the return of her book with a call. Whether, after that, he +could harden his heart to slip "Marna" back to her by the hand of the +Judge--without any appreciative blossoms, needless to say--remained to +be seen. So long as the situation remained as it was, Charles had +decided simply not to take up the worry at all. + +Hence Angela's book rested, gathering dust on the Studio mantel. And, +chancing to come on it in his moody pacings after supper, the author had +picked it up, in mere resentment at its being there. Standing hostilely, +he permitted himself to skim a few pages of the stuff, toward the end. +Next, with growing intention, he looked into the middle. And finally, +he sat frankly down with "Marna" in the Judge's new easy-chair. + +It had occurred to him that it was probably his professional duty to see +what sort of line on the Unrest the other fellows were taking these +days. This book here was enjoying an immense vogue; every newspaper +reminded you that it was the Best Selling Book in America. What truth, +then, did it have to tell? Or--put more simply--it may be that Charles +had merely fallen a weak victim to the true writer's continual +temptation and longing, viz.: to clutch at anything, anything, that will +keep him from having to write, or think up. + +Angela's book (which was so strangely unlike Angela) had come from the +typewriter of a brilliant and industrious British Thinker. From the +"literary criticism" and publisher's advertising that he read--and he +seemed to read little else in these days--Charles had already gathered +that "Marna" followed that simple "ultra-modern" line which to him, with +his expanding knowledge, now seemed so oddly old-fashioned. In his +standing skim just now, he had noted, with quickening distaste, how +easily _Marna_ accomplished a glorious Career: as, indeed, a girl has +small excuse for not doing, when she has an able author working for her +night and day. In particular, he observed that her "demonstrating +experiment in freer forms of union" turned out far more happily than +poor unauthored Flora Trevenna's. As well as Charles could make out, +_Marna's_ swain not only had a wife living when she met him, but was +engaged to another woman besides. But when the splendid girl said to +him, on page 478: "What a joy, beloved, to strike back at the grubby +little people who're trying to fetter the love-spirit! Ah, but I'm glad +you're married!"--after this, every one knew that it was all up with _De +Bevoies_, who, being a poet, could hardly be expected to argue back at +agreeable talk of this sort. (_Marna_ had met him at an anarchist +"social"; he was stunningly modern, and borrowed two pounds from her the +first thing next morning.) Not long after the talkative but Higher +Honeymoon on the Breton Coast, _Mrs. De Bevoies_ died, with thoughtful +promptness, and it was noted that the New couple at once adopted the +old-established form of union, after all, and (of course) quickly became +the toasts of London. + +"_George!..._ How easy writing would be," thought Charles, with great +indignation--"if only the truth were as simple as that!" + +And then, seated under the lamp Wallie Flower had so skillfully +repaired, he turned to page 1, intent upon getting this other fellow's +heroine, and her Career, at the point of origin. The _Twexhams_, he +learned, lived quietly, thirty miles from London. (Their address, if it +is of the smallest interest, was Fernleigh Cottage, the Priory, Dean's +Highgate, Lower-Minter-on-the-Mavern, Essex.) _Marna Twexham_ had the +striking beauty conventional among the Freewomen of fiction. Having had +a year at college, attended several gatherings in the Redmantle Club +vein, and read three or more books in which unmarried women told the +truth about Life, she inevitably reached the conclusion that it was her +duty to make herself free. Put in another way, she saw that it was her +duty to go to London. For, of course, "young women of genius" understand +perfectly that freedom is a matter of geography, a metropolitan +consummation, as we might term it, and would properly smile at the +antediluvian who maintained that people can be free in the suburbs, if +they can be anywhere. Thus _Marna_ smiled at the old fogey, her father, +who opposed her going to London to be free. It seemed that the old chap, +for reasons Charles could not fathom, actually wanted to keep the girl +with him. "There are dangers in London that a good woman knows nothing +of," he said, warningly; but _Marna_ eyed him so knowingly that he +changed his tune at once. "You are all we have left, Marny dear," he +wheedled. "Don't go away from us--yet, at any rate." "Why is it assumed +that a woman who does not choose to marry is _left_?" asked the wise +strong girl; and while her father scratched his head over this poser, +she continued, firm but kind: "Really, you know, Dad, the idea that +people have got to spend their lives together merely because of an +accidental birth relation--really, you know, all that's jolly well +played out. We've proved quite too awfully much about the beastly +repressive influence of the family-tie." "But your sister!--poor invalid +Muriel!" pleaded old _Twexham_. "She loves you so much, she so dependent +on you! It will kill her to--" _Marna's_ smile, checking his maundering, +was a great credit to her self-control (the author said). To set up +playing checkers with a neurasthenic spinster, against a soul's sacred +duty to itself and mankind! "Can't you really see, Dad," she said, quite +patiently, "that a trained nurse can look after my sister much more +efficiently than I can?" "It isn't that--exactly," faltered the +moss-back parent. "It's your love she needs. And--I feel that you _do_ +belong to us, Marny dear! I feel that--" "No, father," replied the +glorious creature, gazing out the oriel window, over the terrace, +rose-garden, etc., and into the morning sun. "I belong--out there! Such +small abilities as I may possess," said _Marna_ with exquisite modesty, +"belong to the Race. Such small contributions as I may be able to make +to the thought of my time, I dare not withhold. I cannot be weakly +sentimental--and stay," she concluded, with some feeling. (And indeed +Dean's Highgate _was_ a quiet, dull place; Lower-Minter-on-the-Mavern, +also.) Presently, the old fellow broke down and wept, and then _Marna_, +repelled, eyeing him as if he were something odd and decidedly +contemptible, said firmly ... + +"Nasty little beast!" cried Charles Garrott, aloud. + +He leapt from Judge Blenso's easy-chair, and glared about like one +desirous of something to kick, and that right quickly. Then, with a +flashing understanding of his need, he went springing toward the Studio +window. And passionately he flung the window wide, and passionately he +hurled the best-selling book in America forth into the winter night. + +"Faugh!" shouted Charles. + +Down in dark Mason Street, the shooting "Marna" struck the limb of a +large tree, and caroming violently, bounded back against a passing old +gentleman in a black felt hat, who looked like a Confederate veteran. +The old 'un, starting with annoyance, clapped a hand to his shoulder, +and gazed round and up; then, suddenly catching sight of the young man +standing at the third-story window, he shouted something in a high angry +voice, and brandished an aged arm with menace. But the young man merely +continued to stand there, silently scowling down at him. So then the old +gentleman, composing himself but resolved that he should not be smitten +for nothing, picked up Miss Angela Flower's new book from the sidewalk +before him, dusted it carefully with an experienced handkerchief, and +hobbled away with it into the darkness. + +"Disgusting little Egoette!" said Charles, scowling after him.... "And +that's the sort of stuff that passes for _thinking_ nowadays! That's the +stuff our women are reading, forming their--" + +"Who're you cussing out the window, Charlie?" said Donald Manford's +hearty voice behind him. + +Charles wheeled sharply. + +He resented being walked in on this way; resented all companionship from +his kind just now; in especial, he resented Donald Manford's contented, +care-free face. At the same time, this face of Donald's awakened other +and different emotions, relative to the slim hope it embodied, and +enjoining tact, some cunning. + +So, controlling himself, Charles merely said: "Well? What're you horning +in here for?" + +"Dying for one glimpse of your sweet phiz. Nice welcome!" laughed the +young engineer, exuberantly. "But how'd you ever get into a street-row, +Charlie, out of your third-story window?" + +"Oh!... Just talking to myself. Bad habit of mine," he said, with an +effort. "You're rather flossy to-night!--out to give the girls a treat, +I gather. Let's see. German, I suppose?" Laying his tall hat tenderly on +the Judge's little typewriter-table, Donald acknowledged the soft +impeachment. + +"Well, who's the lucky lady, this time?--Or maybe you're stagging?" + +"Who, me? Not on your life! I've got Miss Carson again--lucky thing!" + +"Indeed," said the author, coldly. + +"And a pippin she is too! Talk about clever, Charlie! By Jove, there's a +girl that makes a fellow use his cocoa all the time, let me tell you!" + +Charles sat down heavily at his writing-table, and lit a cigarette. Mary +Wing managed her affairs well, indeed. He spoke with mysterious +bitterness:-- + +"You _are_ blossoming out! If anybody'd told me last year that you'd be +praising one of the new highbrow sisters, I'd have kicked him downstairs +for a liar." + +"When a girl can look like that, my boy--" + +"Developing into a regular man-flirt too, aren't you? Last I heard of +you, you were driving up Washington Street with Miss Flower." + +Instead of resenting the odious epithet, Donald's face was seen to +assume a pleased smirk. + +"Ho!--had your spies on me, have you? Why, did we pass you to-day?" + +[Illustration: "HO!--HAD YOUR SPIES ON ME, HAVE YOU?"] + +Charles's heart seemed to leap a little. "Why, no," he said, sweetly. "I +was speaking of one day last week. So you stole another drive +to-day--you sly rascal!" + +"Don't know that you'd call it driving, exactly. Where'd that brother of +hers dig the little four-wheeler, d'you s'pose? I thought that kind were +extinct, same as the Dodo--" + +"Why, I think it's a very nice little car, Donald! Small, old-fashioned, +yes--but very comfortable and--easy-going. I've--ah--had a--a number of +pleasant drives in it. The real trouble is," said Charles, with immense +carelessness, "she honestly doesn't know how to manage it very well as +yet. And I, of course, don't know how to teach her--unfortunately." + +Having seated himself in Judge Blenso's chair, Donald was lighting, with +a lordly air, one of Judge Blenso's cigars; the Judge himself being at +his club, through lack of interest in the Studio. Extinguishing his +match by waving it languidly back and forth, the youth said, with a +faint reminiscent smile:-- + +"Well, I gave her a pretty good lesson this afternoon, far as that goes. +Had a very fairish time, too. Nice little girl, she is." + +The author gazed, with a sort of nervous incredulity. He laughed +hurriedly. + +"Nice!--well, I should say so! She's--she's charming! You'll have to +look pretty sharp if you want any more drives there--too much +competition! But, of course, she may not be _bookish_ enough, to suit +your new taste--" + +"Oh, bookish, no. She's not that sort. I'll tell you what your little +friend is, Charlie," said the young engineer, with an air of +insufferable conceit. "She's what _I_ call a womanly woman." + +Charles averted his eyes. This simple fool's quick response to the +"putting on" treatment almost passed belief. Unquestionably, Donald was +far more receptive to feminine influences now, than he had been in his +industrious pre-Wyoming days; again, mere use, mere custom and +propinquity, were famous for accomplishing just these wonders. Still, +Charles's philosophic overmind, contrasting this grin on Donald's face +with that unflattering remark of his last November, threw out a +different concept, viz.: that perseverance in a woman is a marvelous +thing. + +But the hope, though it shot up delightfully, was a thin one yet. Dull +Donald went on knowingly:-- + +"But speaking of the competition, what's happened to you, old horse?" + +"How do you mean, happened to me?" + +"Your little friend says you used to meet her nearly every day for a +drive, but now you haven't been seen for days. I told her you'd probably +changed your hours a little, as I'd seen you at lunch earlier than--" + +"You did?" said the author, looking at the engineer with unconcealed +annoyance. "Well, you were mistaken, that's all! You had no business to +say anything of the sort. Of course, my hours may vary a little--in +fact, they vary a good deal. Great heavens, I--" + +"Well, don't get peevish about it!--friendly tip I'm giving you, that's +all. She thinks you're mad with her--do you get me? Says you've never +forgiven her for something she said to you once--some misunderstanding +you had--you know, I guess--" + +"Why, damnation, we never _had_ any misunderstanding! I'm _busy_! I +don't undertake to start to lunch at a certain particular second--" + +"Well, don't tell it to me!" said Donald, cheerfully. "Trot along and +explain it to her, that's the way.--I say, Charlie--change the +subject--did I tell you what old Gebhardt said to me the first day we +looked over the plans? About my concrete bridge over Sankey River?" + +And then the childish egotistical youth was off. It seemed, indeed, that +the monologue ensuing was what he had come for; it seemed that he had +dressed himself one hour too early for the German with just this most +agreeable of all purposes in his mind: to sit and have a good long talk +about himself. Charles received his boastings with restless boredom, +marking meaninglessly on the pad before him, moodily biding his time. He +could have kicked Donald for his stupidity in mentioning his trifling +change of hours; but of course his need was to get the conversation back +to Angela quietly, without arousing the slightest suspicion. His need +was that Donald should agree to give Angela regular lessons in driving +the Fordette, every day through the lunch-hour. + +But Donald, happening to note the face of Big Bill, came suddenly to his +feet: and then, as suddenly, gave the talk an unlooked-for turn. + +"I say, Charlie! How about you and old Blenso for the Wings' apartment?" + +Charles's head came slowly round. "How about what?" + +"Dashed sight more comfortable than up your two flights here!" + +"The Wings' apartment is for rent?" + +"Didn't you know that, old stick-in-the-mud? What's the matter with you? +Mary's been hunting a tenant for two weeks." + +Charles, finding it unnecessary to state that he had not seen Mary for +exactly that length of time,--barring one very transient meeting on the +street,--merely indicated, without any polish, that, not being a +gadabout ass like some, he made no pretense of keeping up with all the +latest tittle-tattle. + +He then asked, in a voice indicating no interest in the subject: "What's +Mrs. Wing going to do?" + +"Going to North Carolina to live with Fanny." + +"With Fanny!... I suppose she didn't consider going with Miss Mary?" + +"Couldn't stand the pressure. Why, New York would kill her off like a +fly! And besides, she doesn't want to get too far away from the Warders, +you know. Of course, Fanny can't make her very comfortable just now--but +we talked it all over and that seemed the best arrangement, all round." + +"I see." + +"Mary can't turn back now, of course. Well, Charlie," said Donald, +earnestly, "I don't hold with her fool notions, and all that but hang it +all!--she's no ordinary woman, and this is no ordinary job. Those people +are giving her two assistants and $5000 a year. What d'you know about +that for a poor little girl?" + +He was struggling to get into his overcoat without "breaking" his +shirt-front--going at once, evidently. But Charles had lost sight of his +strategic intentions. + +"Well, how about you two old chaps for the furnished apartment--February +fifteenth, if you want it?" + +Charles observed that he couldn't look at it. Donald, as if only +stimulated by his host's taciturnity, became sentimental. + +"First Mary, then Mrs. Wing, then me--this is going to be a break-up, +Charlie, do you realize it? I'm beginning to feel it, too, let me tell +you! Jove," said Donald, putting on his shining head-piece and bringing +the conversation back to himself simultaneously--"now that I come right +down to it, _I_ don't want to leave this good old town!" + +He departed, to his unconscious match-making. Charles, left alone, +merely sat on at his table. And all that he thought of Angela Flower now +was of an insignificant remark she had let fall, the first time they had +walked together: "Mr. Garrott do you know who _Marna_ reminded me of? +Somebody you admire a great deal...." + +And then for half an hour, his writer's mind insisted on working over +and over that detestable conversation between _Marna_ and her father, +and changing it a little, just a little touch here and there, to make it +fit smoothly upon Mrs. Wing and Mary.... + +"I tell you," said the lonely authority, suddenly, bringing his fist +down on the table with a thump,--"this whole Movement's a failure if it +lessens _woman's lovableness_! I tell you the whole object of this +Movement is to make women _more lovable_!" + +For he, of course, had never thought--like the author of "Marna" for +example--that passionate love was the only sort of love worth +mentioning. In that narrow sense, in her sufficiently cheap faculty for +stirring the senses of men, it was clear that woman, whatever she did or +left undone, would always remain "lovable." But as to love in broad and +human terms--well (to keep the subject wholly impersonal); could any one +in his senses call _Marna_ a lovable being? No, her creator, in his +determination to show how strong and "free" she was, had quite +unconsciously made her a harsh and vain self-worshiper, revolting to +decent persons. Had he, as we might say, thus inadvertently given the +whole thing away? Was it finally true that a woman could not claim and +lead her Own Life, except at a heavy price--paid down in her best +treasure? Was the ruthless Career-Maker but the logical other-form of +the waiting, the too pursuing, Maker of Homes? + +From his drawer, Charles presently pulled out the former exercise-book +which had enjoyed the great rise in the world. In this book, he had +written no sentence since his remembered Notes on Flora Trevenna. Now he +set down with a firm hand:-- + + What is called the Woman's Movement is seen, in the last + analysis, to be only every woman's struggle between two + irreconcilable impulses in her own nature. + +Having written that sentence, the young man stared at it long. To him it +was like a bright beam of light, turned upon the roots of his peculiar +problem. For if these two impulses were in truth irreconcilable, why +need he go on struggling to reconcile them in a heroine he could +unreservedly admire? + + + + +XVI + + +With the sun of a new noon, with the recurring need of obtaining +sustenance from one's environment, there came again the more practical +problems of this weary world. + +At ten minutes past one on this day, Tuesday, Charles went slipping from +the house of the little Deming boys to that of the old lady who was +studying French. She lived, luckily, but three doors away. She was a +very lively old lady, and possessed her tutor's high regard. But that +she might represent help to him, that she could personify the tutelary +god of Bachelors rushing at last to his aid, had simply never crossed +his mind. + +The old lady's regular lesson-hour was, of course, two-thirty o'clock. +But, as it happened, she had had her last instruction in the French +language for some time to come, it having popped into her head, and that +of the old gentleman her husband, to go to Palm Beach for a three weeks' +vacation. Hence her tutor's presence in her drawing-room at this +unwonted hour seemed to be due to mere chance (though who knows?). In +short, as he saw it, he had merely "stopped by" to deliver a list of +irregular verbs, which the old lady was to master completely while at +the Beach. + +Having stopped, Charles did not start again upon the instant: far from +it. Friday's and Monday's run of luck had not been expected to keep up +indefinitely, at the best. And Donald's blundering remark betraying his +ruse had inevitably suggested the idea of experimenting a bit with +opposite tactics, to wit: quietly turning his schedule backward, for +variety's sake, and starting to lunch very late. Thus it was that +Charles, having said all he had to say to the old lady, lingered to say +it all again, and again, clinging verbosely to his oldest living pupil +as it were, while one eye shot perpetually out the front window, close +beside which he had taken up his position. + +For the third time, the old lady promised to be studious on her holiday. + +"Don't you remember how well I knew the plurals of the _-ou_ nouns +yesterday?" said she, chipper as a boy. "Well, my husband had heard them +every one to me the night before!--that was how I did it! Well, don't +you see, I'll make him hear me the verbs every afternoon while he's +taking his nap--over and over!" + +"Exactly, ma'am. Do just that. Have him hear them over and over--every +afternoon. That's the only way really to master them--the only possible +way. And as I say--be sure to take along your dictionary and your +Fontaine's 'Fables,' and read three or four pages every day--except +Sunday. I said that just now, I know. But, ma'am, it's one of those +things that--ah--can't be said too often--" + +Here the tutor's eye, reconnoitering out the window again, fell upon a +motor-car just coming to a standstill before the old lady's door. He +started, nervously. But, of course, this was not the Fordette: it was +five times too big, at least. + +And he said, in a quickened voice: "Whose car is that standing out +there?" + +"Why, mine, of course! Eustace stops for orders before going down to +bring my husband up and I just sign to him out of the window if there's +nothing. Indeed I hoped you wouldn't make me read my 'Fables' while I +was away, but I will if you say so, for of course I'm going to learn +French. And you take care of yourself, young man. You haven't looked +well to me for several days." + +"I'm not quite well, ma'am, I fear," said Charles. "I was just thinking +I'd better let Eustace drive me down with him, if you don't mind. +I--ah--scarcely feel like walking to-day." + +"Of course. And have him bring you up again when he takes my husband +back, why don't you? My dear young man, I reproach myself. I'd have had +him call for you at the Demings' and take you down every day, but you +know you always said you loved to walk." + +"I did--I used to--but--ah--I rather think I've been overdoing it, of +late. I've been walking more than is good for me. Well!--thank you very +much. I'll go and get right in, shall I?" + +Having wished his aged pupil a happy journey once more, Charles started +toward the door, much pleased with his lucky stroke. And then, all at +once, a splendid idea burst upon him, a vast and brilliant possibility. +And in exactly the same instant, he heard the chipper voice of the old +lady speaking again behind him, rather thoughtfully:-- + +"I wish I could persuade you to use my car altogether while we're +away.... But I suppose you'd think that fearfully--fearfully _effete_!" + +"WHAT?" + +It must have seemed odd to her, the instantaneousness with which her +tutor sprang round. And then he began to move back toward her, very +slowly, round unwinking eyes glued upon her. + +"Ah--_what did you say_?" + +"You look astounded. I suppose you're offended at the suggestion. Now, +really--why not take my car while I'm away?" said the old lady. (What a +dear, what a darling old lady she was, to be sure!) "Why are you young +men so reckless with your health, breaking it down with all this foolish +walking, up and down--" + +"Oh, ma'am!" stammered Charles. "I--I hardly know what to say. I'm not +offended in the _least_--feeling as I do at present. But I--I really--" + +"Then I'll make you do it!" she said, with the greatest energy. "I'm +going to exert all my will-power--I'm chock full of it, I warn you!--and +make you use the car regularly from now on, and stop this walking. +Promise me! I'll have Eustace report to you every morning for his +orders, and you are to use him as your own ..." + +The tutor stood like a man entranced. Before his mind's eye there were +unrolling the most enchanting pictures: pictures of the same series that +had fascinated Angela's mind's eye when her brother had offered her the +Fordette, but of precisely the opposite intention; pictures of himself +whizzing securely from point to point, here or there at his careless +ease, all walking henceforth reduced to the mere hurried crossing of +sidewalks.... + +"But I--I'm afraid it would be an imposition! I don't deny it would be +a--a pleasure--a benefit--feeling as I--" + +"Then that's settled! Imposition, nonsense! As it happens, you will be +doing us a favor. Why, wasn't my husband saying only last night that +Eustace, having nobody at all to look after him, was certain to spend +these three weeks in one long spree, and be worn to a shadow when we get +back? His habits are so unfortunate, I warn you about that--" + +"It's so--_awfully_--kind of you, ma'am! I hardly know how to--" + +"Not another word!--leave all the rest to me. And you really don't look +well, young man. Now, shall I have Bruce make you something,--oh, very +nice,--before you start down? Oh, why, bless you, I take a julep myself +whenever I feel the least bit like it!" + +Then the ardor of his gratitude really touched the old lady, even though +it seemed excessive for her small courtesy. Later, looking out the +window, to sign to Eustace, she saw that the young man was actually +laughing to himself with pleasure, as he went down the front steps. She +thought him a very strange young man. + + * * * * * + +He gave his machine-god standing orders, which, after all, proved simple +enough. Eustace and the Big Six were to pick him up at the little Deming +boys' every day at one o'clock, and drive him to lunch; Eustace and the +Big Six were to call for him at Mrs. Herman's every afternoon at +half-past three, and take him to and from the Choristers'. Those, +positively, were the only danger-points, these the small arrangements by +which peril was to be circumvented. And he had not overrated the value +of his brilliant gift from fortune; the arrangements, being made, were +executed with the happiest success. In the fine big limousine of the old +lady (_la grande jolie limousine de la vieille_) Charles pursued his +daily rounds in complete security, and he hardly saw the shadow of +another meeting now. + +Or rather, there was the possibility of but one more meeting; and, that +scarcely seemed to matter, now that he had so clearly won back his +voluntary celibacy. + +At Saltman's bookstore, he had purchased a fresh copy of the odious +"Marna," and in his new kindness and good-will toward all, he finally +resolved to return the book in person, and to ask for Angela at the +door, to boot. Utter freedom of the city upheld his native dislike for +being a mere rude boor. And by one simple venture, he could honorably +liquidate all claims, pay at one stroke all the various calls demanded +of him: the book-call, the party-call, and the call in acknowledgment of +the Kiss. + +Even if Angela should happen to be at home when he called, the isolated +meeting could hardly lead to trouble. But, after all, of course, the +point was to fulfill rather the letter of a call than its essential +spirit. Charles thought it decidedly for the best that Angela should not +be at home at the time. Thus he further procrastinated, awaiting an +afternoon so sweet and balmy that every owner of a self-propelling +vehicle would be morally certain to be out in it. + +And then, while he so dallied about the Call, while his own days +continued to reel off smooth as clockwork, a faint new cloud began to +steal over his first careless happiness. Having finally saved himself, +the unheroic bachelor felt his deadened consideration for others slowly +and reluctantly stirring into life. + +The first time he in his speedy limousine passed captive Donald in the +Fordette, Charles was even more pleased than he had been that other +day, at Miss Grace's window. By chance, he overhauled the little +conveyance on the second day of the new era, as he shot away from the +Choristers' at half-past four o'clock; and, captivated by the sight of +the simpleton engineer in his own old place, he could not resist leaning +forward as he drew abreast, knocking on the window and waving gayly to +the two nice normal cousins of Mary. He saw that Angela, recognizing +him, gave him one swift surprised stare. And then the old lady's Big Six +leapt by her, as the limited leaps by a tank in the night, and he sat +back convulsed with a brilliant diplomat's delights. + +He, indeed, had put her on. Clearer and clearer it grew that he could +beat Mary Wing at match-making, if at nothing else under the sun.... Let +her look to herself! + +But the second time Charles had this interesting experience--just two +days later, on his drive to Berringer's--he did not knock on the window, +or laugh, or even smile. No, this time he sat still on his luxurious +seat, looking straight ahead. And presently he found himself arguing, +very earnestly and conscientiously, and somewhat as follows:-- + +While it might be true that for the moment Angela liked him best +(entirely owing to the tender feelings aroused by the Kiss) no one could +deny that a match between her and Donald would be a far more suitable +thing. In fact, such a match would really be very suitable, indeed, +whatever cold-blooded eugenists like Mary Wing might think. Talk as you +liked, Donald was not at all the man to be happy with a girl who firmly +and continually "made a fellow use his cocoa." On the contrary, Donald +was the mere simple, primitive male who wanted a woman that he could +"protect," feel superior to and be coddled and attended by. And any +fair-minded person must admit that Angela, whatever little faults or +foibles she might seem to have, was precisely this sort of girl. Harsh +nonsense about her Sacred Duty to the Race was not in her. + +Did she, indeed, have any faults--real faults of character, that is? +Womanly though she was, she was no idler, no parasite like Miss Grace, +for instance, but a genuine worker, accustomed to pay her own way by the +practice of a highly specialized and difficult business. This business, +at best, was a monotonous and grinding one; she herself was a stranger, +poor and lonely. Was it so wicked, then, that in her leisure-hour she +should wish to drive out occasionally, and meet her young friends? + +The Big Six, "Marna," the matter of the Wings' flat, doubtless each had +contributed in its way to put Angela back in her true light: the light +she had shone in before the days of the wooing. Admit, if you liked, +that for the moment her purely feminine, or pursuing, side might seem to +be just a little over-developed: that, argued Charles, was but a +temporary, and really a proper and necessary manifestation. The Home +that Angela was at present engaged in making was Dr. and Mrs. Flower's +Home. The Will in things had it that every girl should have a Home of +her own to make. There lay the momentary source of Unrest: considered +rightly, the Fordette was merely the ingenious instrument employed by +the Will for working out its high designs. Once that was accomplished, +once Angela was established in her own little nest as Donald's sweet +true wife, then, beyond doubt, her essentially womanly side would at +once spring into full possession of her. Then she would fairly settle to +her life-work of making her own Home, while supplying large quantities +of just the sort of beauty and charm that engineers appreciate most. + +Moreover (concluded Charles's argument of the case) marriage was clearly +a matter where quixotism was misplaced, and a man's first duty was to +himself. And, finally, of course he would never have put her on to +Donald, if he had known that the old lady was going to lend him her +limousine. But he had not known: and that was the old lady's fault if +anybody's. + +On the night of this day, by chance,--the day of Donald's known fourth +drive in the instrument of the Will,--as Charles lay prone upon the +Studio lounge, feebly thinking up, Judge Blenso suddenly opened the +Studio door and said: "Charles! A lady at the 'phone!" Instantly coming +to an elbow, Charles inquired who this lady might be; and the Judge +(whose manner toward his relative had markedly changed, since Charles +was known to have abandoned his exercises and foregone his affair of +honor) replied with great coldness: "It's Miss Rose. Come along!" "Miss +Rose?" repeated Charles, slowly beginning to rise. "Why, I don't--" +"Yes, yes, I said! Miss Rose! No!--let me see! Miss Flower--something of +the sort! Good gad, how long're you going to keep her waiting?" But +Charles, remembering the promised bridge-party in a flash, said: "I'm +sick, Judge," and lay back on the lounge forthwith. "Ah--just say, +please, that you found me lying down--not well at all. She might leave a +message, if necessary." To which the Judge replied, disgusted: "I don't +wonder you're sick, the sickenin' life you lead! By gad, sir!--can't +even _walk_!..." + +No message came back other than that Miss Flower was sorry to hear he +wasn't well. But the little incident, though nothing came of it, showed +clearly that she wasn't going to give him up without a struggle, Donald +or no. He could never feel completely safe until she was married, and +that was the truth. And he still had that cursed book to return, too. + +But it seemed that his higher nature, once aroused, would not go quietly +back to sleep again. The first glad selfish days were over. When, on the +Tuesday following, he again saw Donald as Angela's willing captive, +when, shooting by, he observed the fatuous youth ogling and smirking +over his predicament, as much as to say that there was no such person as +Helen Carson, then Charles's face became very grave, his look intensely +thoughtful. And when he reached Berringer's that day, he ordered--sure +enough--"Wait for me, Eustace." And when he emerged from Berringer's, at +a little before two, he said, in the face of all resolves:-- + +"To Olive and Washington Streets, Eustace. And then turn and go slowly +out Dean Street, toward Lee Grammar School." + + + + +XVII + + +Partly because she was not ready to resign her place in the schools, +partly, perhaps, to heighten the dramatic stinging quality of what she +called her "brilliant revenge," Mary Wing had kept her great _coup_ a +secret for the present. So she, famous wherever weekly periodicals were +read round the world, honored officer-elect of a powerful national +organization, walked daily, in sun and rain, to a grammar school as +before. + +As to looks and appearance, Charles had always recognized Mary as one of +the variable women. She was not indifferent on those subjects, he +judged, but the utilitarian supremacy of work in her life commonly +produced that effect. Mary rarely went to parties any more; but at her +flat in Olive Street she often enough entertained at dinner, +strategically, a person or two of consequence in the educational or +political world. Charles (being, of course, of not the slightest help to +anybody) had never been invited to but one of these little dinners. On +that solitary occasion, the look and air of his friend in evening dress +had considerably surprised him, and in several other ways, including the +dinner, he had absorbed agreeable impressions of Mary not tallying with +other impressions. However, pretty clothes and pretty manner were deemed +too good for every day, it seemed; for the realities, Mary dressed as +plainly as she acted. And now, trudging homeward along this slightly +squalid street, she looked, it must be admitted, not like a shining +celebrity at all, but just like an ordinary person, a school-teacher, +and rather a fatigued one at that. + +So, at least, thought the author of the write-ups, catching sight of her +through the glass over Eustace's shoulder, noting the somewhat droopy +manner of her walk. But he reflected, there was no satisfying some +people. And hastily clutching up the speaking-tube of the old lady, he +gave the order which brought his great car to a standstill; and so +stepped forth upon the sunny sidewalk, just in front of her. + +The General Secretary looked up, with a small start at finding herself +intercepted. She saw Charles Garrott, and her face changed perceptibly, +though under what impulse he could scarcely have said. That his recent +demeanor must have seemed slightly puzzling to her, the young man was, +however, sufficiently aware: and now he was all at once conscious of a +want of ease within himself, a rare and odd constraint. + +Hence he fell instinctively into his lightest and most mask-like tone: +"Well met! I was hoping I might run on you somewhere out this way. Do +get in and let me take you home." + +Mary accepted at once, with pleasure. + +"But whose beautiful car is this you're using now?" she went on easily. +"I was sure I saw you whiz by in it the other day." + +"Oh, this!--yes!--I must tell you about it." + +So due explanations covered the start of the drive. Establishing his +famous friend in the old lady's limousine, Charles told, in modified, +expurgated form, how he had got possession of it. For Angela's benefit, +he had lately informed Donald that he was unwell from overwork: that was +why he had to ride in a closed car wherever he went. Report of this had +unluckily reached Mary, it seemed, necessitating more explanation: that +he was not sick at all, unless you would count writer's sickness, etc., +etc. + +"And this saves such a lot of time, getting around, too--which is no +small thing." + +The conclusion of the explanation was followed by a small silence: +scarcely one of the golden sort, but rather a dearth of conversation +such as had once been rare between these two. But Mary, whose manner +seemed as usual, or perhaps only the least bit more polite, broke it at +once, saying cordially:-- + +"So you have an extra hour for your own work now? That's splendid! And +how's your new novel getting on?" + +"Oh!--not at all, thank you! I've made two starts, but both of them +proved false, I regret to state. So now I'm back at zero again. It's a +hard business, writing a book.... And as far as I can make out, I'm +specially handicapped by having all sorts of foolish theories as to what +a novel ought to be. If I were only a good plain realist now, how simple +life would be!" + +His tongue loosened; he found himself embracing the chance topic, so +hard and impersonal, so beautifully remote from everything that fretted +his mind. He had come, magnanimously, to give one fair warning about +Donald; but no doubt he planned it that his warning should fall +casually, half-buried in other talk. There was such a thing as being too +generous for self-interest, of course. Or possibly Charles perceived +that the sound of his own voice, running surely along on a subject of +which he knew everything, and she knew nothing, gave him just that sense +of easy command of the situation which his manly need demanded. + +Mary had said courteously: "You think realism is so much easier to +write?" + +"I've never tried, of course--but doesn't it impress you so? You +remember old Meredith said distinctly, that was the cue for little +writers. And I must say I think he had an idea what he was talking +about. In fact," continued Charles, with unwonted loquacity, while his +limousine rolled rapidly, "if I were old and generally recognized as the +dean of American novelists--kindly do not laugh--and was visited for +counsel by a young writing fellow who had no literary abilities except +industry--why, I should say to him at once, 'My dear young man, become a +realist, of course. That is really the only line where you will find +your want of abilities a positive advantage. If you possess any shred of +humor, charm, insight, sympathy, idealism, so-called,--above all, +idealism,--and if you are cursed with any sense of form and unity, and +feel that a story ought to have a beginning and an end, and be _about_ +something in the mean time,--why, trample on all this as you would on so +many snakes,' I should say to him. 'Get it fixed firmly in your dull +mind that life is dreary and meaningless, or has but a material meaning, +if you like, and that sound fiction must behave accordingly. Then,' I +should say to my young friend, 'if you will but choose as your heroine a +young girl with more looks than character--and not necessarily such a +lot of looks either--who comes up to the city to get on, it is +inconceivable to me that even you could fail to score a great realistic +success.'--'But,' we can imagine this fellow, this nonexistent admirer +of mine, saying, 'I don't understand you. What am I, as a creative +author, to put in to take the place of the insight, humor, unity, and +all the rest that I've eliminated?' 'My poor boy, I've just told you,' I +should reply. 'Industry and pessimism. That is all a realist knows and +all he needs to know. You tell me you have the industry. I tell you that +the pessimism is the easiest little trick to pick up in the world.' +But," said Charles, in his own voice, "I fear, Miss Mary, I 'm putting +you to sleep with all this musty shop-talk--" + +"Indeed, no!--it's extremely interesting," said the heroine of the +write-ups, very civilly, but looking straight ahead. "You don't often +talk about your work." + +"Haven't often had the chance," thought Charles. And if that was +considerably unjust, he did not seem to mind at all, but rather was +pleased by the knowledge that Mary observed his copious ironic manner, +and found it baffling and queer. + +"Well,--in conclusion, as you public speakers say,--I was only going to +add that I didn't know enough to swallow my own medicine. The trouble +seems to be--Well, take the horrible thing called sentiment now, that +makes a sophisticated realist so sick. I look about me and, try as I +will, I seem to see the disgusting thing very much alive and +kicking--not something made up by a fourth-class writer to tickle +shopgirls, but actually playing a prominent part in the hard world round +me, all the time, everywhere. I seem--" + +"I don't see how any one could deny that!" + +"It wouldn't seem so, would it?" said Charles respectfully, and a sudden +faint gleam came into his eye. "But really isn't that what they do, in +effect? Here am I, as an observer, seeing men and women all round me +doing things they don't want to do, giving up things they do want to +do"--did his voice, too, acquire a thin edge?--"for immaterial reasons +that can only be traced to some inner ideal--hated word! And then here +am I, as a writer, required to deny all these observations of mine--and +for what reason? Merely, as far as I can make out, to keep some sour +chap with a defective liver, probably a German to boot--why are Germans +so pessimistic, do you know?--from calling me a sentimental ass. Of +course we admit," he prattled on, taking note of the passing streets, +"that sentiment is weak and childish and Victorian, and 'idealism' is +the screaming joke on Western civilization. Still, isn't it my only +business as a writer to find out whether or not these contemptible +things do act and react in the life I see? And if they do--must I +represent the contrary, merely to please the peculiar taste of a small +sad school that has no God but a second-hand mannerism bagged from dear +old Europe?--By the way, are you in a special hurry now?" + +"Why, no. Not at all." + +"Good!--Eustace," called Charles through the tube, "drive more slowly." + +And then, feeling himself completely master of the situation now, the +young man said with quite a gay laugh:-- + +"And to add to all my other troubles, I've deliberately gone and taken +Woman for my subject! That will make you smile! You remember you warned +me in advance it was a theme I didn't know the first thing about." + +But Mary was not observed to smile. + +"I did say that, in fun once," she said, punctiliously, after a +perceptible pause--"but, of course, I didn't mean it--in any literal +sense. Indeed, I think--" + +"But you were right--absolutely!--that's just what I want to say! I 'm +finding out more and more every day how true that word was. This whole +Movement now--what is it? What's it for? Blest if I know! The last time +we talked about it, you may remember, I took the ground that the +Movement--or what I supposed was the Movement, that week--suffered by +confusing itself with another propaganda it hadn't a thing under the sun +to do with. But--" + +"No--what propaganda? I don't remember." + +"Oh!--Personal Liberty!... The Cult of the Ego, perhaps you might call +it. But, of course, for all I know," said the light masterful Charles, +"that is the Movement, and always has been. Only last week I lighted on +a new formula--sort of a definition--to-morrow I'll probably discard it +for another. It's very unsettling--for my writing, you know. By the +way--can't you help me out a little? What would be your best definition +of the Unrest--for literary purposes?" + +But Mary, with a carefulness not usual to her, eluded controversy, +merely saying it all depended on how you looked at it, or words to that +effect. And then she gave him a small thrill by neatly taking his bait. + +"But what is your new definition?" + +"Oh, that! Definition's too grand a word, of course. I merely wondered +if what is called the Woman's Movement was anything more than a +projection--don't you know?--of an everlasting struggle going on between +two irreconcilable elements in every woman's nature." + +The car rolled in silence. + +"There's a pessimistic definition for you! For I suppose," said the +friend of women, and could no longer keep the seriousness out of his +voice, "it must be true that every struggle implies the defeat--of +something.... Doesn't it? I suppose we can really never get away from +the sad discovery of childhood, that we can't eat our cake and have it +too." + +"That's interesting! But I don't believe I understand you altogether. +What do you symbolize as the cake?" + +She, the strong and successful, had turned on him her level arched gaze, +intent with its habitual interrogativeness. It was instantly clear that, +though she might be struck with his few remarks, she was far indeed from +being struck personally. And her sudden characteristic look was to him +like a hand held up, the banner of her independence flung out--and just +in time, too. + +Charles laughed mirthlessly. He was aware of the lameness of his reply. + +"Exactly!--what? It all depends on how you look at it, as you just said. +And I seem unable to look at it the same way two days running.... Number +6 Olive Street, Eustace." + +Mary's response escaped him. + +He sat staring through the glass, at the passing sights, a curious sense +of anti-climax within, a strange flat feeling of failure. He was like a +boy who, having run valiantly at a jump, tamely subsides and ducks under +the string. What then? Had he really been about to court a new +humiliation by _lecturing_ Mary Wing? Telling himself that he came +generously to warn her about Donald, had he actually been thinking that +he would discuss the personal losses involved in Leaving Home?--perhaps +by some frankness even bridge the gap in the old friendship? It really +did seem that some such thoughts must have lurked in his mind, judging +by this sense within him now. + +Then, out of blankness and frustration, the young man felt slowly rising +a deep exasperation, a mighty grievance. So he shook himself at once, +donned his mask quickly while yet he could, and said in quite a +natural-seeming voice:-- + +"But I'm afraid I've bored you horribly with these purely literary +troubles. And, by the way,--speaking of realism versus romance just +now,--how are Donald and Miss Carson getting on these days?" + +She appeared a little surprised at the change of topic, but replied +easily: "Oh!--very well, indeed, I believe. They're together somewhere +nearly every evening.--But why--" + +"Really! That relieves me--knowing your serious interest in that affair. +I was beginning to fear Donald might be wandering a little in his +affections." + +"Wandering? No--how do you mean?" + +"Well, he has seemed quite attentive to your pretty cousin of late, +don't you think?" + +Then the Secretary turned her head again, sharply. And it hardly +improved Charles Garrott's frame of mind to perceive that, of all he had +said in the strangely talkative drive, this alone had really touched +her: this, which affected her personal purposes, her Own ambitions. + +"Angela? Why, not that I know of! I didn't know he'd seen her at +all--except one casual meeting, perhaps!" + +"I've happened to see them driving together from tune to time, as I plod +about on my rounds. But no doubt it's all quite casual, as you say, +since you've heard nothing about it." + +"You have? But please tell me!--where have you seen them together--and +when?" + +He cited particulars from his collection, damaging ones, though perhaps +not so damaging as he could have made them had not self-interest +restrained. Still, something in him was not displeased as he saw his +old friend's concern steadily deepening. + +"I'm surprised, and--frankly, I 'm sorry," she said slowly, at the end. +"Of course Angela's a dear girl, very sweet and attractive, but--I +shouldn't like Donald to see too much of her--in view of my other hopes! +I've had good reason to think that he's really interested in Helen, and +she in him.--Well!" she went on, after a small pause, "this seems to +require some diplomatic management. Donald has engagements for every +evening this week--but--" + +"It's in the daytime that he meets Miss Flower. At least, I don't think +she takes the Fordette out at night." + +Beside him on the padded seat, Mary sat silent, a little pucker between +the dark brows which set such a question-mark in her colorless face. +Considering her formidable strength, it was odd how all but ethereal, +how sincerely girlish, she could look at times. + +"Well, Donald's going to New York on Friday," she said, thoughtfully. +"He's had a fine offer from Blake & Steinert--to go into the firm, had +you heard?--so fine that I think he'd have taken it, and thrown over +Wyoming, if I had let him! He'll be gone nearly a week. Then, about the +time he comes back, I've arranged to have him invited to Creekside, the +Kingsleys' place at Hatton, for a week-end party. Helen's to be +there--I've really been hoping great things of that. Meantime," she +rounded up efficiently, "there are the afternoons. Perhaps I could start +him to playing golf, or something of that sort.... I suppose, of course, +you're too busy to--" + +"I?" said the young man, hastily. "Oh, I fear I can offer nothing to +rival Miss Angela's attractions just now." + +"Does it look as serious as that? Well," she said, with a sort of +determined friendliness, "all the more reason that I should like to have +your help." + +He hardly repressed a sardonic laugh. "Are you asking me to help _you_?" + +"What's so extraordinary about that?" + +"Not a thing, of course. I wasn't certain I'd understood you, that was +all." + +But it appeared that the idea of helping this young woman had ceased to +have the smallest pulling power now. Rather, there was bitterness in the +thought that she still seemed ready to use him when she could. + +He said, with savage urbanity: "Perhaps you might get Donald a +motor-cycle, and encourage him to practice up as a Speed Demon." + +The remark was received in entire silence. It was probably true that she +literally did not understand him. All the same, his displeasure grew. + +"But really," he continued sweetly, "if these two young people are so +strongly attracted to each other--love at first sight, who +knows?--really, is it judicious to interfere? Don't you believe in +elective affinities at all?" + +"As a matter of fact, you know, Donald was greatly attracted to Helen, +at first sight. And as for Angela, I'm certain--" + +"You see," he interrupted, stung beyond all calculations, "my personal +idea is that Miss Angela would probably make him a more suitable wife." + +That unwisdom made everything worse at once; for Mary, after one glance +at him and a stare out the window, said in a changed, "diplomatic" tone: +"Well, I mustn't let you misunderstand me, at any rate. You know, I've +agreed with you perfectly, all along, that she's thoroughly charming.... +And, by the way, she likes _you_ so much, too!" + +Charles froze instantly. + +"In fact, she thinks you're much more attractive than Donald--or did, +just a little while ago. I have her word for it. So if she's seeing a +good deal of Donald just now, I don't believe it's from affinity, +necessarily!" + +"Indeed?" + +"She was inquiring about you the last time I saw her--saying that she +never saw you now, asking if you ever spoke of her to me, and so on. I +told her, of course, you did, and repeated some of the compliments you +paid her--" + +Again he interrupted her, now with some slipping of his mask. It was +true, to be just, that Mary Wing knew nothing of his long struggles to +elude the Fordette. Nevertheless, her patent desire to hand him back to +it, merely by way of furthering a little her plans for Donald, seemed +somehow the last straw. A friendly reward for magnanimity this! And it +may be some touch of purely male chagrin enhanced the philosophic anger, +that any woman should be thus eager to pass on him, Charles, to another. + +"I believe my remark was that I considered Miss Angela a suitable wife +for Donald. So far as I am aware, I do not come into the conversation at +all. If your suggestion is that I should step in and take her off his +hands--in order to help you--may I beg you to put such an idea from your +head, once and for all?" + +It was clear that he astonished her: made her indignant as well. Her +scrutiny of him was direct and sharp: but she did not speak at once, as +if weighing her words or firmly counting ten, and when she did speak, +her manner bore evidences of strong control. + +"You are rather puzzling to-day. I should like to know what you have on +your mind. 'Take her off his hands!' Do you really think that's quite +the way to speak of a girl who--" + +"I don't, indeed. But the idea was your own, was it not?" + +"Mine!--why, how can you! I only--" + +"Then why not let things take their natural course, as I suggested?" + +On that, turning her head away from him, she said quietly, too quietly +in fact: "I'm afraid you wouldn't understand now, if I were to tell +you." + +That seemed to bring the conversation to a natural _impasse_. And +then--as if no touch were to be wanting from this embittering hour--at +just this instant, as Eustace slowed down to make his curve into Olive +Street, the two estranged friends in the old lady's limousine found +themselves looking together into the eyes of their common and particular +enemy, Mary's former principal at the High School. + +Mr. Mysinger, her conqueror and his own, no less, was approaching down +the sunny promenade. He gave the two in the car just one full surveying +stare; then casually moved his gaze a degree or two away. But, as he +dropped back out of the range of vision, Charles could have sworn he saw +a smile springing under the glossy mustache he had once pledged himself +to pull off. + +But this time, he felt no such bitter hostility toward the victorious +foe as had shaken him on that other remembered occasion. There was a +transient flicker of the Old Blood toward his temples, a brief iciness +within, and that was all. Recalling the childish folly of the setting-up +exercises, he experienced a cold mirth: "Why, of course, she'd say she'd +have licked Mysinger herself, if she'd considered it worth the trouble!" +And, at his old friend's side, Charles had the most disloyal thought of +her that had ever knocked at his mind. Was Mysinger, perhaps, so +entirely to blame for the ancient friction? Had he, Charles, been +principal of the High School, did he think he would have found Mary so +acceptable, so perfect, a subordinate?... + +Assisting her to alight at her door, the young man inquired politely if +she had yet found a tenant for her flat. Mary replied, quite distantly, +he thought, that the John Wensons were going to take it. His comment was +that old Jack should make her a fine tenant. He courteously sent his +regards to her mother; he amiably wished her a good-afternoon. + +And then he shut the limousine door on himself so hard that the glass +shook. + + + + +XVIII + + +Finding himself unable to reflect with pleasure or pride upon this +interview, Charles resolved, within the hour, not to reflect upon it at +all. For the fourth time--or was it the fourteenth?--he determined to +think of Egoettes no more. At least, he had given his warning, +unthanked, and that ended it. He might rest upon the ground that the +match would really be a very suitable thing; or, conversely, he might +argue that Donald was just amusing himself a little with Angela, at odd +times, while at heart perfectly true to Helen, etc. But chiefly he stood +upon the warning which made all this Mary Wing's concern henceforward, +and no longer his. And, bent upon bringing his last relation and duty in +the case to a clear, honorable conclusion, Charles sallied from the +Studio next morning with the new "Marna" tucked under his arm. + +But there seemed to hang a curse over everything connected with this +unhappy book. Because he had brought it with him to-day, the azure +heavens became overcast at noon; at two o'clock, it was drizzling +dismally; and all that afternoon, and all the next day, the cold rain +poured in torrents. To call in such home-keeping weather would be a +wanton provocation: Charles hung off, yet again. The third day proved +well worth waiting for, a brilliant, blue, and tingling day, gloriously +inviting to all owners of vehicles. And now a new plague befell. When +Charles emerged from Miss Grace's on this day, his face firmly set for +his duty, the Big Six wasn't there. + +The discovery was most disconcerting. The young man stood irresolute on +the Choristers' steps, "Marna" clutched in his hands, gazing up and down +the street. + +Unfortunately, Eustace's habits had not been kept completely virtuous by +his light duties with his mistress's tutor. The grinning black rascal +had got himself pleasantly illuminated the first day, and had remained +in that state with considerable consistency ever since. However, being +kept excellently tipped, he had never failed to meet an appointment +before; and Charles, eyeing the spot where Jehu should have been, but +wasn't, was most unpleasantly struck with his own sense of helplessness +ensuing. It really appeared that soft custom had made him as dependent +on the limousine as if he lacked the means of locomoting for himself. + +He scanned the horizon. Many vehicles rolled up and down Washington +Street, but his own swift chariot was nowhere among them. + +Then, while he irritably hesitated between telephoning to the garage, on +the off chance that Eustace might be there, and tamely abandoning the +enterprise once more, a third alternative, ingenious in its way, quite +unexpectedly offered itself. Down the street came jogging a carriage for +hire--empty. Providence seemed to be directing straight at him, Charles. +And, by chance, he knew this old carriage well; Walter Taylor's +carriage, it was; many and many a time had it driven him forth to +parties when he was young and gay. + +On the first quick impulse, Charles went springing down the Choristers' +steps. + +"Walter!... Here, you old rascal! Where're you going?" + +"At libbuty, suh!" cried Walter Taylor, drawing rein with alacrity. +"Whar mout you wish to be druv, Mist' Garrott?" + +"Well!--Perhaps I'll let you--" + +The young man hesitated, fractionally, struck with the rattletrap's +supreme lack of dignity. Then, with decision, he plucked open the +weather-beaten door. + +"One seven East Center. And look sharp now!" he ordered, stepping +in--"I'm in a hurry. Mind you don't stop for anything!" + +"Yassuh! Sutney, suh!" said Walter Taylor, with great enthusiasm, and +gave his old nag a prodigious wallop. + +So it fell out that, for his first call at the Flowers' since the +bridge-party--his party-call, his book-call, and his call about the +Kiss--Charles Garrott fared forth in a closed livery hack. + +Inside the hack, Charles laughed briefly; and then at once began to +react. In the fine afternoon, numbers of people were abroad. Strangers +seemed to look with surprise at the apparently able-bodied young man who +liked thus to trot around in a hack; chance acquaintances were seen to +smile in passing; more than one called out derisive remarks. Charles +himself questioned whether his employment of the hack was quite +reasonable.... Seemed inconsistent till you stopped to think. Inasmuch +as he was going straight to see Angela, why, it might be asked, all this +elaborate precaution in advance? Well--there was really no inconsistency +there; no, none at all. He was _not_ going to see Angela; he was only +going to pay The Call, while she was out in her Fordette--a totally +different matter. But this raised fresh questions of consistency: how +was he going to hold his position that Angela was just the wife for +Donald, if he himself would only go to see her in a hack?... Well, the +answer to that was simple enough, too. Donald was a marrying man, while +he, Charles (though probably still liked best) emphatically was not. +Moreover, Donald was a primitive male, while he, Charles, was a +modern.... Or, no, perhaps he wasn't a modern, exactly--but--yes, he +_was_ a modern, a true one, while others he could name were only +self-centered extremists.... + +At Gresham Street, the hack turned south, at Center it turned back west. +Walter Taylor, up aloft, began to look for his street-number. And then, +while Charles still argued uneasily about the spiritual differences +between Donald and himself, his eye all at once fell on Donald in the +flesh, close by--striding up Center Street homeward on his way from the +office he left so early now. + +The sight of the youth at this moment was unwelcome to Charles. +Instinctively, he sat far back in the hack. But Donald, unluckily +turning at the sound of wheels, had caught sight of him; and he stopped +stock-still on the sidewalk at once, staring with unaffected interest. + +"Well, I'll be darned!" he said, as the carriage came up with him. +"Whither away in the sea-going, old top?" + +Unwillingly appearing at the window, Charles said: "Well, Donald.... +Just driving around." + +"Driving!--Thought you must be going to a funeral, at least," said +Donald, stepping along to keep up. "Here! Stop the blamed thing! I want +to look you over." + +"You don' want me to stop, does you, Mist' Garrott?" bawled down Walter +Taylor from the box. + +"No, I told you! Go on!" + +Walter cut his nag a mighty crack, and with the same movement drew rein +sharply. + +"Here's yo' number, suh!" he cackled, with great merriment. "One seven, +like you said! Yassuh!" + +So the hack halted, and the fare reluctantly discharged himself. His +friend, having come up, halted, too, a few feet away; it was noted that +his gibing expression had suddenly altered. And then Charles understood +instantly that this fool's destination was no other than his own. + +"Oho!" said Donald, slowly and suspiciously. "So this is where you were +driving around to?" + +Controlling an immense complication of sensations, Charles said coldly: +"You mean you're going to--the Flowers', too?" + +"You've guessed it!" retorted the engineer, with a slight touch of +consciousness. And he added, assuming an indifferent air: "Just got to +stop by and leave a book Miss Flower lent me." + +And then, for the first time, Charles noticed the volume in a gaudy +wrapper protruding beneath Donald's sturdy arm. The coincidence was +remarkable, to say the least of it. It was also exceedingly annoying. + +"Time, too," quoth the primitive male. "I've had it since before I went +to Wyoming." + +On Angela's sidewalk, the two young men stood gazing hard at each other. +Whatever the argument in the case, it was surely Charles's higher nature +that spoke at last, icily but firmly:-- + +"I am going here to return a book, and also to pay a call--on the +family. If you wish, I will return your book for you." + +"Couldn't think of troubling you, Charlie, old top." + +"As you like, of course--" + +"But as I'm going in, anyway, why need you stop at all? Glad to take +charge of your book for you. Save you a little hack-fare." + +To this, Charles disdained reply. So the two members of the coterie, +with their books to return under their arms, stepped up the bricked +walkway side by side. + +Charles rang the Flowers' loud little bell. Having done so, he turned on +the shabby verandah, with the intention of looking Donald hostilely up +and down. But he found that Donald was already looking him up and down, +in the most hostile manner conceivable. Then the youth's dullness, his +grotesque conception of a male rivalry here, his impervious blind +asininity,--all this acting upon the original concern about the Call, +produced a sudden infuriation. Speech flowed from Charles:-- + +"Of all the laughing jackasses that ever broke loose from a zoo, I do +think you take the cake, Manford. How you keep from falling off bridges, +or butting out the pan where your brain ought to be on stone-copings, +passes all understanding. If I didn't have you to look at, I wouldn't +believe it possible that an ordinary well-meaning chucklehead could +deteriorate so horribly, just in a week or two." + +Donald seemed slightly nonplussed by this attack. All that he could +muster in reply was some very poor childish stuff, introduced by +shakings of his head and "significant" tappings of his forehead. + +"So that's why they sent him around here in a closed carriage--oho! Old +Doc Flower's an alienist--forgot that! H'm! Funny how it runs in the +family. First old Blenso, now poor Charlie-boy ..." + +Then a servant opened the door, and relieved the high tension instantly +by saying, in reply to two simultaneous questions, that Miss Flower was +out. + +Donald looked slightly crestfallen. Charles's look was the opposite. The +youth's presence here had strongly suggested that Angela was known to be +in, despite the fine weather. When the Flowers' servant--answering +Donald's "Oh, she's out, is she?"--said further that Miss Angela had +gone driving with a genaman, his relief rose to genuine thanksgiving. +And then Donald cleared the air completely by cavalierly handing in his +book, with only his card for acknowledgment, and clattering away down +the steps. Evidently, he sought a little amusement here, and nothing +more. + +Charles himself hesitated on the veranda. The thing was over and done +with. The Call was formally and honorably paid. Perhaps he only wanted +to do something different from Donald; perhaps he thought to mark +signally his revised good opinion of Angela; or perhaps mere revulsion +of feeling swung him into exuberant excesses. At any rate, in the very +act of extending his book, he recalled a long-forgotten promise, and +said suddenly, but tentatively:-- + +"And Dr. Flower? I suppose he's out, too?" + +"Him? Naws', he's in," said the slatternly and ill-favored woman. + +"What!--he is? Are you sure?" + +"Ef yo' want to see him, walk in." + +"Ah--well, I'll just stop and see him for a few moments. That is, _if_ +he happens to be at leisure." + +So the hack waited in front of the Flowers', and Charles stepped (for +the first time on his own motion) over the threshold of Angela's Home. + +He felt that this was a superfluous proceeding; it turned out +considerably worse. Having entered the Home, he found himself abruptly +plunged into the middle of it, as it were. In fact, the impromptu +extension of the Call to Dr. Flower, besides everything else that could +be said against it, proved as inopportune as could well have been +imagined. + +The _contretemps_ indicated was due to the servant (Luemma, in short), +who apparently did not believe in announcing visitors, or perhaps had +never heard of the civil custom. She merely stood by, in a disapproving, +suspicious sort of way, while the caller deposited his book on the +hatstand beside Donald's, and removed his overcoat and gloves. And then +she said, with a manner no whit better than her appearance:-- + +"Walk this way." + +Charles, necessarily assuming that this was the rule of the house, +walked that way. + +The hall of the Home was narrow and dark, the pervading atmosphere noted +as somewhat cheerless. It was not lighted and decked for festivity now, +as on the famous night of the bridge-party: parlor and dingy little +dining-room, glimpsed in passing, wore (to the author's sensitive eye) a +depressing air, vaguely suggestive of failure, incompetence and the +like. But that, of course, is the front that poverty so commonly wears: +all the more reason that a hard-worked Temporary Spinster, or vicarious +Home-Maker, should wish to get out sometimes, and go and meet her +friends.... + +However, Charles also was conscious of a wish to get out. Why was he +doing this, exactly? Really, now, what was the sense of it? + +The black worthy was leading him toward a shut door in the dusk beyond +the dining-room: the office, clearly, of that patientless provider, +Angela's father. Now the young man was aware of voices behind that door, +or rather of a voice. It was a woman's voice, pitched in rather a +complaining key, and for the first second Charles thought, with a start, +that it was Angela's. It wasn't, of course; but his steps instinctively +slackened. + +"Ah--the Doctor seems to be engaged--after all," he threw out, in +lowered tones. "Perhaps I'd better come another day." + +"Naws', he ain't engaged. Just him and Miz' Flower talkin'." + +Charles, truth to tell, was scarcely reassured by that assurance: he did +not like to run in on a strange couple this way, in particular when the +lady was speaking in that tone. But his sour guide had not paused. And +now there came a different voice through the thin door: a man's voice, +faintly humorous, faintly sarcastic, and considerably weary. It was +recognizably the voice of the esteemed Doctor, and it said, with fatal +distinctness:-- + +"Is it possible you forget, madam, that you're speaking to your husband +and the father of your children?" + +If the feet of the reluctant caller had lagged before, they now stopped +short. One of his overminds perceived instantly that the strange words +he had had no business to hear possessed a sort of distorted +familiarity, like a horrid parody of a sentiment known and established; +but as to that, there was not time to speculate now. What was only too +plain was that something like a domestic scene was afoot in the office +of the home, making the intrusion of a stranger peculiarly inapropos. + +"Don't!--I'll not stop now!" he murmured hastily and sharply. "Just take +these cards here, and--" + +But the maladroit blackamoor was already opening the door; and the young +man's last stand against the Call was put down with a brief and surly:-- + +"Genaman to see Doctor. Walk in." + +That settled the matter, beyond any undoing. Charles Garrott was a +caller now, whether or no. With an embarrassment such as none of his +many calculations about this hour had anticipated, he stepped blundering +in upon Angela's unwitting parents. + +Dr. Flower's small office was dark; its light came only through a single +window from a narrow air-well. Hence, the forms of the lady and +gentleman in it were at first but dimly apprehended. Having turned in +their seats at the sound which disturbed their privacy, they seemed to +be peering together, in silent inquiry, at the intruder. It was the +intruder's move, obviously; and, being in for it, he did his hasty best +to pluck a hearty calling manner over his decided malease. + +"Oh!--good-afternoon, Dr. Flower! It's Garrott, Charles Garrott--perhaps +you may remember--" + +Now the dim forms were rising together, the tall Doctor's with a jerk:-- + +"Ah, yes! Howdo, Mr. Garrott! Quite--" + +"I hope I'm not interrupting! I stopped to return some books, +and--ah--finding that Miss Angela was out, I thought I'd take the +opportunity--" + +"Quite so--very kind! Come in! But I'd better make a light? Take seat, +sir. Mrs. Flower?" + +The Doctor's manner, of course, was natively too queer to betray +anything, even astonishment at the Call. But it was not observed that +Angela's mother bore any of the marks of a lady surprised in the middle +of a "scene," and this was a relief, unquestionably; the parents didn't +know him for an eavesdropper, at any rate. Agreeably accepting his +introduction of himself, Mrs. Flower was bestowing upon him a dim but +comforting smile, and a limp hand to shake. + +"I feel that I already know you, Mr. Garrott. I've so often heard my +daughter speak of you," she said, in the slightly plaintive voice he had +heard through the door. "She'll be so sorry to miss you...." + +The hearty Charles spoke his little mendacity. + +"But a friend of hers from Mitchellton is here to-day to see her--Daniel +Jenney--and Angela has just taken him out for a little drive in her car, +to see the town. I feel sure she'll be in soon, though." + +Mr. Jenney's presence in the city was the best news heard by Charles in +many a day. All in all, things weren't going off so badly. And, if he +knew Angela in the least, she would not be in soon, either; he had +thought of all that on the verandah. + +Then the Doctor's match caught the gas with a faint _pop_, and the +little room filled with a high white light. In the sudden brightness, +the caller's eye noted two unrelated matters almost together. One was +merely an ash-tray upon the mantel. The other was Mrs. Flower herself, +and her unexpected resemblance to her pretty young daughter. Line for +line, the two faces were different enough, no doubt, and this one was no +longer young. But to a stranger's eye, the general likeness was rather +remarkable; Charles was much struck with it. + +"Sit down, sir," said the Doctor, and contributed his match to the +ash-tray. + +"Ah, thank you." + +But of course he could not sit down while Angela's mother remained +standing and conversing with him; and she did so stand and converse a +moment or so, rather idly, seemingly uncertain whether she intended to +stay or go, and trying to make up her mind. Once or twice she glanced at +her husband undecidedly, as if he might have something to do with the +matter; and no wonder. But her final verdict was that she was to go; and +Charles was rather glad that it worked out this way, though why he +hardly knew. + +Mrs. Flower's decisive remark was that she must get on with her +household duties. She gave Charles her limp hand again, again mentioned +her daughter's distress, if she missed him; she bestowed upon him +another pretty and somewhat significant smile; and then faded out of the +Call, leaving behind a vague impression of feminine inadequacy and a +button missing from her black waist. + +So the young man was left with the worthy Doctor, who could speak so +sarcastically to a defenseless woman, his wife. And for a space he found +the tête-à-tête heavy going, indeed, and was more oppressed than ever +with the essential meaninglessness of it all. + +Angela's father did not look like a brute, but only dryer, queerer, +shabbier, than before. He jerked his neck more, looked more unrelated to +his environment. He was very civil, but he cocked his eye too much +toward the ceiling, felt too little responsibility as to keeping a +conversation going. Charles's efforts (hearty enough, despite the +counter-feelings going on within him) seemed to bound off dead from that +juiceless, withdrawn manner. Having refused a cigar (there was a little +talk about smoking, but he couldn't keep it going), he proposed for +discussion the Doctor's son Wallie, his education, abilities as a +chemist, skill as a lamp-repairer, etc. The topic promised well, and did +well for a couple of minutes, but petered out mysteriously and beyond +resurrection. The Doctor's work out at the Medical School yielded almost +nothing; the weather enjoyed but a brief and fitful run. Presently, +Charles found himself fairly driven to Mary Wing, and her imminent +departure to lead her own life; and this subject won a real success, +though not of a sort he could take much satisfaction in. It quickly +developed that Angela's parent held ante-bellum views on Woman, which he +put forward with some dry zest, in the strange backhanded fashion noted +by Charles in their previous meeting. After a very few exchanges, the +old eccentric was delivering himself of paragraphs like this:-- + +"Ah, you throw out that suggestion? An interesting idea!--quite so!" +(Charles had thrown out no suggestion of any sort.) "Your observation is +that the Lord has formed woman specifically for the needs of family and +the home--quite so!--and that efforts to change her destiny seem to +result in constitutional perversion? Well, sir, I dare say the +physicians would support your contention there, too. Who knows?" + +Even "Marna," even Mary Wing, had never made Charles so conservative as +this. Oddly enough, he found the Doctor's criticisms unwelcome; it was +his turn to let a subject die from malnutrition. In the pause, he +considered whether he had not called long enough now. About to rise, he +chanced to note a worn volume of Henderson's "Stonewall Jackson" lying +open on the table, and asked, with little hope, if the Doctor had read +it. The old codger replied: "I am reading it now for the seventh time, +sir." And to the young man's agreeable surprise, he at once uncocked his +eye from the ceiling (where he seemed to have meant to leave it +permanently), and began to talk along almost like a regular person. + +During the remainder of the Call, conversation flowed very +satisfactorily. It appeared that the War was one of this old codger's +subjects, even as Woman was Charles's; and he talked well, too, now that +he cared to, criticizing strategy as one having authority, revealing, +behind that spare, intensely conservative manner, flashes of broad +outlook and incisive speech which might have helped to explain why the +Medical School had been glad to draw this man from Mitchellton to its +staff. But the truth was that Charles Garrott heard scarcely a word of +this excellent discourse. Once he had got Angela's father fairly going, +he became captured and fascinated by a totally independent line of +thought. + +In short, the young man's gaze had returned to almost the first thing he +had definitely noticed in the Home, to wit, the ash-tray on the Doctor's +mantel. + +The ash-tray was really a large saucer, or small plate, and the +intriguing and really exciting thing about it was that it contained the +remains of scarcely less than a dozen cigars. Just before he made the +lucky remark about Henderson's "Life," the caller had inadvertently +discovered two more cigar-ends, poised perilously on the mantel's edge; +this it was that had started him reacting yet again. For, considering +that the Doctor was out a large part of the day, lecturing, it appeared +incredible that he could have achieved such astonishing results since +morning. Rather, the mantel had the air of having stood undisturbed for +some little time.... + +"If those men," he was saying, "had but shot another way, that night at +Chancellorsville--" + +"Ah, sir! the vast 'ifs' of history. And none bigger than that, it may +be. Yet, as I say ..." + +From the large heaped saucer, with its ring of spilled ashes, the +detective eye flitted over the room, briefly, somewhat guiltily, yet +uncontrollably. It received an impression of dust on the table, dust on +the bookshelves, disorder pervasively, and a waste-basket brimful of +trash. Finally, the eye rested anew on the Doctor himself, with his +frayed collar and joyless mien. And all the time, under the mask of the +caller, a question was irresistibly rising and thrusting itself upon the +attention of the authority: What housekeeper had charge of this untidy +little room, what home-maker was in the business of supplying beauty and +charm to this jaded gentleman? + +Unaware that he was being thought of in these terms, Angela's father +reverted austerely to the Seven Days' fighting around Richmond.... + +The scientific inquiry had a perfectly proper answer, of course. In the +truest sense, Mrs. Flower was the housekeeper in question; that faded +belle, with the button off her waist, owed the beauty and charm due in +this quarter. Not for nothing did she have that distinctly inefficient +voice. And the moment Charles thought of that voice, his mind, with a +sort of jump, made a link, and he understood at once why the Doctor's +strange speech, eavesdropped by him outside the door, had seemed to have +the quality of a parody. Of course! This dry husband, with the +sick-man's face, had merely been giving back, in a masculinized version, +a reminder not infrequently heard on the lips of womanly women, when +married. Before he had invented that ironic retort, how often had +Angela's father heard it said: _I'm your wife, and the mother of your +children...._ + +"And what," the civil caller said, "do you think of Mary Johnston's +picture of Jackson? I assume, of course, you're familiar with--" + +"A brilliant achievement, sir. Indeed, astonishing--for a woman," said +the conservative Doctor, jerking his neck; and resumed. + +But the young authority found his reactions oddly and increasingly +disturbing, and shortly rose to go. He had become certain, abruptly, +that he had party-called long enough. + +His eccentric host, who had appeared so dryly indifferent to his coming, +seemed, on the whole, to regret his departure. And Charles, perceiving +this, found himself feeling rather sorry for him. But he showed his +sympathies, not by offering to stay longer or to come again, but by +inviting Angela's father to lunch with him at Berringer's, one day very +soon at his convenience. + +"I feel that we should further the acquaintance," he said, as they shook +hands, "because of--ah--my long friendship for your--that is, for your +wife's cousin." + +And then he had a new surprise; for, though the Doctor's lips twitched a +little at his correction, showing that he was not altogether devoid of +humor, it was with instant seriousness that he said:-- + +"I do insist upon the distinction, you allege? Well, I'm free to say to +you, sir, that I have but scant sympathy with these fantastic modern +notions. If all women did as my wife's young cousin does, what, pray, +would become of the Home?" + +"Ah, what?" said Charles. + +And as he thought of Mary Wing's charming and beautifully kept +sitting-room, he seemed to feel his head going round. Surely, he had +never before seen conservatism so magnificent as this. + +"Meanwhile, come in again, sir, when you find time. I have few callers, +and have appreciated your visit--" + +"Yes!--thank you!" + +"My daughter will be sorry--" + +And then, as the Doctor opened the door, and his lusterless eye looked +out, he added with an approach to grave pleasure in his voice:-- + +"Ah, here is Angela now--just in time." + +The caller's eye went slipping down the hall; and so it was. In the +light of the open front door, her rural swain behind her, the young +home-maker stood by the hatstand, examining the two returned books she +had just found there. What chance had brought her back thus early, +cutting off his retreat? Had she passed and seen his hack standing +there, and wondered? + +But, curiously, Charles's bachelor shrinking from this re-meeting seemed +suddenly to have vanished. All his determined championship of the Type, +dating back to the Redmantle Club, all his personal sense of honorable +obligation, had mysteriously thinned to nothing in half an hour in Dr. +Flower's office. In some way that defied analysis, the interior of the +Home seemed to have wiped out Angela's girlish claim, the ash-tray had +overcome the Kiss. And Charles, bidding her father farewell, went +walking down the narrow hall with a tread firm as a soldier's. + +Angela had turned at the sound of voices; she stood gazing somewhat +uncertainly into the dimness (for she was a little short-sighted without +the opera-glasses, and perhaps this was only a patient). The instant of +recognition of her friend was marked with an exclamation, almost a cry, +of pleasure; and she started toward him with the happiest surprised +welcome. + +The re-meeting was effected by the hatstand, where Charles had stood on +the day he had borrowed the book he now came to return. Water had flowed +under London Bridge since then. Mr. Jenney, owner of the celebrated +ring, was presented. He was a long-legged, gangling, curly-headed youth, +with a face that was beautiful in its way, no less; and it must have +been a frank face, too, since Charles, the observer, immediately had the +fellow's whole secret. Here was Mr. Jenney's fair ideal, his high star +and lady of dreams; and his full reward for his pure devotion was to be +kept hanging on, a masculine anchor to windward--just in case, as they +say. Still, he might prove the _deus ex machina_ of the issue yet. + +At the moment, however, little was seen of Mr. Jenney, since, almost in +the first breath, his star said: "Oh, Dan, father's in now, and he'll +want _so_ to see you!"--and Mr. Jenney straightway withdrew obediently. +One gathered that obedience was his fatal quality. + +Thus the unheroic Charles confronted his Temporary Spinster at last, in +her dark home-hall. And she, not guessing the new philosophic resistance +within him, said, with the gayest confident air, and no little archness, +too:-- + +"Well, Mr. Garrott!... Did you decide to pay your party-call?" + +Charles smiled. + +"I've been promising myself to come in for some time," he said +pleasantly. "I had several excellent excuses, you see. For one thing, +there was your book, which I've appropriated all this time--" + +"Oh, that! I just saw it there--and thought I must have missed you! That +would have been too mean, after all this time!" She glanced toward the +hatstand, adding: "And--Mr. Manford gave you that other one to bring +back, I suppose?" + +"No--ah--we came together, but, of course, he left when he found that +you were out. I wanted especially to pay my respects to your father, +so--" + +"I'm awfully glad he kept you for me.... How are you now? You don't know +how I've missed you, since you had to stop walking entirely!" + +"I've been extremely well, thank you. Or--at least--I've been pretty +well--" + +"Oh, I know you haven't been well!--you just try to make light of it! +Mr. Manford told me you were breaking yourself down from overwork--you +oughtn't to do it! And then that night when I phoned, and your Secretary +said you were sick from not taking any exercise, I was worried, truly I +was! I wanted to write you a little note--but--" + +"A mere temporary indisposition, not worth a moment of your thought," +said Mr. Garrott. He was wholly recovered now. + +"I'm so glad. You really do look well! It's been ages since I've seen +you! But why," she said, laughing up at him prettily, "am I keeping you +standing at the door like this! Come in the parlor." + +"I'm sorry, but I really can't, thank you. I must be going." + +She stopped in complete surprise. "Going! Oh, you mustn't go +_now_!--when I've just come in! Why, you _couldn't_!--" + +"My time's up, you see, and more. Writing," said Charles sententiously, +"is a dreadful taskmaster. But I've explained all that--" + +"I know!--but you're here now! You can surely take a _little_ time, Mr. +Garrott--when I haven't seen you for days and days--" + +"I've already overstayed my scant allowance, you see, with your father. +But I'm glad to have had a little glimpse of you, at any rate." + +On the whole, he had sought to speak in his usual voice and air; but now +he saw that his new power of firmness had disclosed itself to her not +too sensitive ear. The liquid eyes under the becoming new hat regarded +him with sudden inquiry, puzzled and speculative.... + +To think seriously ill of this girl, because, perhaps, she was not an +enthusiastic cleaner of the parental home, was not in Charles, the man, +whatever the authority might have to say. Her soft and unlessoned +youthfulness, confronting him, disarmed all criticism. But the chance +resemblance to her plaintive mother had seemed, oddly, to strike him +much deeper. Looking down at this virginal sweet freshness, by the +hatstand and the books, the young man had been full of the elusive sense +that as the daughter looked and charmed now, so the mother had looked +once; and beyond her present air of alluring femininity, he seemed +persistently to be seeing Angela at fifty, sitting idle in an unswept +room and continually reminding a worn-out husband of her sacrifices and +her service.... Pure fantasy, was it, a fiction-writer's imagining born +of a superficial likeness? Or was there a deeper, a more romantic, +kinship between the girl who set so naïve an estimate on the value of +her kiss, and the woman who would plume herself through an indolent +lifetime on the ancient history of her maternity?... + +The girl opened her mouth to speak: but there came a welcome diversion. +A step was heard on the wooden verandah, and the two young people, +turning their heads together, saw a liveried servant at the still open +door, bowing, speaking:-- + +"Miss Flower, marm?" + +"Yes--I am Miss Flower." + +"Fum Mr. Tilletts, marm," said the servant, extending a note. "And he +say please don't you trouble to write, if you'd kindly send an answer by +me, marm." + +"Oh! All right." + +Having said, "Excuse me, Mr. Garrott," Angela opened and glanced +through her note, and then remarked: "Mr. Tilletts wants me to go to the +theater with him to-night. How nice!" + +Her back to the servant, she made a little deprecating face at Mr. +Garrott; but her voice seemed pleasurably stirred all the same, and her +answer to the chauffeur was:-- + +"Thank Mr. Tilletts, and say Miss Flower'll be very glad, indeed, to go, +and will be ready at quarter past eight." + +Charles wondered afterward if the opportune Tilletts had not subtly +assisted his own withdrawal; but for the moment it rather seemed +otherwise. While Angela spoke to the servant, he had turned hastily +toward his overcoat; and now her hand fell upon his arm, with just a +touch of the spoiled darling air, or at least with that added confidence +which comes to a girl with these concrete evidences of her success. + +"No, you mustn't! Don't go yet. _Please!_" + +"I'm compelled to, unluckily. I very rarely allow myself the pleasure of +calling at all, you know, and--" + +"But you _have_ allowed yourself the pleasure, now, Mr. Garrott! +Oh!--don't be so _firm_! Come in--for only a minute! You can surely +spare me a minute--when I ask you to specially--" + +"It is literally impossible." + +Angela had extended her small hand to lead him into the parlor. Now she +let it fall at her side, and stood looking at him with a conscious +expression on her face, a pretty expression, but one that he scarcely +liked. Of course both of them knew that it was by no means literally +impossible for Mr. Garrott to come in, for only a minute. But doubtless +a womanly girl could be trusted to find an explanation for his peculiar +speeches that plucked their stingers from them, as it were. + +"You're so strange. You're displeased with me, I can see that. +Why?--because I wasn't in when you called? Why, I'm nearly always out on +fine afternoons!" + +"I know that," ventured the young man. + +"If you'd just told me in advance.... Don't you know I'd never have +gone out with Dan Jenney, if I'd dreamed you were going to call?" + +He knew this also, only too well; but this time he only said: "A caller +must take his chances, of course. By the way, let me thank you very +much, again, for lending me that book. I found it immensely +interesting." + +"Oh!--'Marna'? I didn't want you to come just for that.... Did she make +you think of Cousin Mary at all?" + +He smiled distantly, turned away, and put on his overcoat. + +This was done in entire silence; Angela urged him to stay no longer. But +when he turned, hat in hand, to say good-bye, she stood confronting him +again, very near. There was a faint flush on her smooth cheek; her +woman's eyes were very bright; her look upon him was sweet, +self-conscious, and wistful, oddly appealing. Rarely had he seen her +look more girlishly desirable. + +"Mr. Garrott, why have you always been different to me since that +night--of my bridge-party?" + +"Different?" queried Mr. Garrott. + +"Oh, you know you have! You know you've never really got over what I +said to you--and all that dreadful misunderstanding!" + +And he knew then that this nice girl would go to her grave thinking of +him as a lover whose confidence in his suit had been reft from him by a +too sharp rebuke. Well, so be it. He was content that she should have +that satisfaction: let that stand as a further liquidation of the old +obligation, a bonus payment on the esteemed Kiss. + +"You know you've never forgiven me!" + +"I've never had anything to forgive you, Miss Flower." + +"Then you've never believed I've forgiven you! I've tried to show you +that I have, that I've truly appreciated all the nice things you've done +for me--but you've still been different." + +It was doubtless his imagination, but she seemed to be a little nearer +as she said, with a pink and winsome hesitancy:-- + +"Can't I make you believe that I--I've really always been the same?" + +Extending his hand, the voluntary celibate replied, with cheerful +reassurance: "I believe it now, Miss Flower. Absolutely. Positively. And +now I must run." + +Angela did not seem to see the hand he offered. She continued to look at +him, and something seemed to die out of her face,--a momentary +expectancy, was it, or the mere native optimism of youth? Her gaze +turned away from his face, turned back again; and then she suddenly gave +a little laugh, an odd laugh, half angry, half sad:-- + +"Oh, I do think you're absolutely--_obtuse_!" + +And Charles then knew that, whether she realized it or not, Angela was +giving him up. + +But still she did not see his farewell hand. Her eyes, going past him +again, had become fixed with a new expression, arresting him, and now +she said, in another tone, what he found perhaps the most interesting +remark in the duologue:-- + +"Here's Mr. Manford back!" + +Charles wheeled, with a little jump. + +And sure enough, there, beyond the glass of the door, was the form of +the young engineer, incredibly returning. Yes, there he came back again, +poor, vain, grinning, flattered fool, who only the other day had said: +"Charlie, she worries me." + +With one last look at Mr. Garrott, Angela turned to open the door for +Mr. Manford. The greeting smile succeeded the good-bye reproach. And +even in this disturbed moment, the writer's mind was subtly struck with +the symbolism of that gesture: and once again this girl was a type to +him, sister of a million sisters. Even so, must the womanly Spinster, +through all her seeking days, turn from the man who does not desire her +little offerings of beauty and charm, to the man who--well, possibly +may. And it really wasn't right, wasn't fair.... + +"Old Sherlock!--sees the Fordette outside--guesses who's at home now!" +the man who possibly might was saying, with a tone of buoyant intimacy +and a repellent smirk. "I thought you weren't going to forget me +altogether!... Oh! And there's Charlie-boy, too! Feeling better, old +top?" + +Charles looked through him in silence. + +But when Angela drifted by them into the parlor--for she avoided any +formal farewell with her former principal friend--and he was passing +Donald to the door, he bent and flung into the youth's long ear one +futile taunt:-- + +"Fool, I suppose she lent you the sequel!" + + * * * * * + +Before the dingy little house of the Flowers', there stood a line of +waiting vehicles. The passer would have said that a reception, or +perhaps a wedding, was going on within. + +To the left, Mr. Tilletts's shining sedan still stood at the broken +curb. The driver, having paused to exchange badinage with Walter Taylor, +was just mounting to his seat. Full in front of the house stood a +conveyance more in character with the unpretentious street: Charles +Garrott's aged hackney-coach, in short. On the other side, at the nose +of the hack-horse and properly leading the procession, stood the stout +little Fordette, resting now from its labors. There only lacked a +bicycle for Mr. Jenney, and something--a donkey, let us say--to stand +for Donald Manford. + +And Angela, indeed, had accomplished this; here was her true creative +work, here her self-expression made visible. She it was who, poor and +obscure, with nobody to help her, had drawn these vehicles and these +gentlemen thronging about her door. + +"Where toe, suh?" cried Walter Taylor, flourishing his whip. + +"Number 6 Olive Street." + +The fare spoke all but automatically, out of his new genuine disquiet. +However, he corrected himself at once: "No--wait a minute." + +If his position that she was just the wife for Donald lay silently +abandoned somewhere behind him: if the business could no longer be +viewed as Donald's idle-hour amusement, but all at once had come to look +decidedly serious: still, what under heaven was the use of giving Mary +another and more rousing warning? He had warned Mary once, and what was +the result? Two calls from Donald to Angela in the course of a single +afternoon. No; if the labor of taking off was now to follow "putting +on," it was clear that some hand far subtler than the too manly Mary's +would have to do the job. And he knew whose hand was plainly indicated, +too.... + +And then the young man remembered, with a surprising uprush of relief +and freedom, that this day was Friday, and Donald was off to New York +to-night, within an hour or two. And the foolish youth would be gone a +solid week, too, with Mr. Jenney and Mr. Tilletts left in possession of +the field. + +Thus, Walter Taylor, on his box, received a small surprise. Instead of +giving him a new number, Mr. Garrott unexpectedly produced a dollar-bill +from his pocketbook, and tossed it up to him with a sudden laugh. + +"That's all, Walter. _I'll walk!_" + + + + +XIX + + +Donald Manford's absence in far-away New York saw the calendar into +February. It was a month which for some time had held a fixed place in +Charles's thought, as Mary Wing's last month at home. Now the days had +brought him this new concern, by no means unrelated to Mary's impending +departure. That Donald was his concern now, as well as hers, he had +acknowledged, once and for all, in that moment of pause by the hack: and +none saw more clearly than he that the acknowledgment was a damaging +one, opening long vistas of annoying possibilities. Well it might be +that all he had once planned and worried for himself, and much more, he +would now have to plan and worry for his weak and amorous friend. And +suppose Mary Wing went off, leaving the whole business still unsettled? + +However, there was no use in borrowing trouble. For the present, +Donald's well-wishers enjoyed an interlude of complete repose. And on or +about the day of the simpleton's return to the danger-zone, it was +recalled, he was to be whisked off again to the Helen Carson +house-party, where all might end happily yet. Mary deserved her tittle +of credit for that arrangement, at any rate. Charles, making the most of +these peaceful days, reconsecrated himself to Letters and the finding of +his Line. + +Donald himself remained pleasantly unaware of the difficulties created +by his unreliable antics. The youth was known to possess a common +combination of characteristics: he had a novel-hero's chin and an +underlying soft streak. Donald was a little ease-loving; he +unconsciously slanted to the line of least resistance. As to work, Mary +Wing, who had caught him young, had pretty well ironed out his softness; +yet it seemed to persist even there. Witness his dallying for a moment +with an "office proposition" in New York, at whatever emolument, when +far larger professional opportunities awaited him in a Wyoming camp. As +to getting himself married off, Donald's traits were obviously at once +an advantage to his friends and an added risk: they seemed to indicate +clearly that he or she who had his ear last, and took the strongest hand +with him, would win the day. Doubtless his truest friends were most +resolved that such hand should be theirs. + +At any rate, the young squire's presentation of himself at the Wings', +on the afternoon of the day he got back from New York, was by +appointment strictly. It was Friday again, a week to a day from his two +calls upon Angela. Donald "stopped by" Olive Street on his hurried way +uptown. Having had a very strenuous part of a day in his office at Hoag, +Hackett & Manford's, and having a number of things still to do before +five o'clock, he designed to give, say, ten minutes to his call upon his +more than sister. He gave thirty minutes, and emerged into the sunshine +with a sobered face. And, on leaving Mary thus, almost the first person +he saw next was Mary's special friend, Charles Garrott, bowling by. + +The eyes of the young men met and Donald nodded gloomily. Charles, as it +happened, was but taking a last use of his car, prior to the old lady's +return on Monday. But Donald did not know that, and he thought, +absently, what a fool old Charlie was to ride around this way all the +time, when he had legs and could walk like a man. At the same moment, +Charles, inevitably, was thinking what a fool Donald was, for exactly +the opposite reason. Never again, it might be, would Charles Garrott see +a bachelor walking Washington Street alone, without some vague sense of +circumambient peril. + +Charles had not expected to take up the new worries until after the +match-making house-party; but the sight of Donald unprotected out there +made an irresistible appeal to his higher nature, especially as no +trouble to himself would be involved. Accordingly, he answered Donald's +distrait salute with demonstrative smiles and signalings, and +immediately fired an order through the speaking-tube. And the engineer, +surprised, saw the splendid car of the old lady stop with a jerk, back, +wheel, and come sliding up to his side at the curb. + +"Well, old fellow! Glad to see you back!" said Charles, hospitably +swinging open the door. "Hop in and let me drive you up! I want to hear +about your trip." + +Donald was faintly pleased by this unusual attentiveness. He was one of +those extraordinary persons who never ride when it is possible to walk; +on the other hand, he seldom turned away from the chance of a good talk +about himself. And he was very short of time now, too, owing to his +detention at the Wings'. + +So he stepped into the limousine, his manner abstracted and distinctly +consequential. + +Charles, smiling slightly to himself, gave the address, and prompted:-- + +"You're just back, aren't you?" + +"And off again at five twenty-two. And I've got two hours' unpacking and +repacking to do before then." + +"You _are_ a traveler these days! What's this," inquired Charles, +innocently--"another business trip?" + +"House-party at the Kingsleys', down at Hatton. Tell your boy to skip +along there, Charlie. I'm in a rush." + +Amiably, Charles spoke into the mouthpiece: "Skip along there, Eustace. +Mr. Manford's in a rush." And resuming he said, with an air of honest +envy: "At the Kingsleys'! By George, that sounds pretty good! Congenial +crowd, winter sports, dancing every night--you're in luck! Who's going +along?" + +Donald named the guests. It did not escape the observant Charles that he +named Miss Carson last, after a perceptible pause and in a manner +clumsily careless. Nothing escaped Charles, not Donald's sober face, +certainly not the fact that he had just come from the Wings'. Now, with +a thrill of satisfaction, he understood that Mary had been talking to +the young light-o'-love at last, giving him to understand plainly where +his duty lay. And this look of Donald's was precisely the right look, +too: just the intensely self-important, nervous, faintly complacent, +highly worried look of a man who has suddenly learned that he is going +to be married directly. + +He gave the strong Mary another large credit-mark, and continued: "Three +days with that crowd!--how I'd like to get in! As for poor old +Talbott--ha, ha!--he'll foam at the mouth when I tell him about this." + +"What's he got to do with it?" + +"Why, I thought you'd heard! Miss Carson knocked him flat with one +look--that lunch of mine! He can't see anybody else since, poor chap. +But he admits he doesn't make any time at all." + +"She's not the kind that takes to any whippersnapper that comes along." + +His odious smugness delighted Charles. So did his fidgeting about, his +hasty glances at his watch, his long solemn stares at himself in the +little mirror. + +"Poor old Talbott swears she must be interested in somebody else," +laughed Charles. "But he confessed he couldn't think of a man he knew +who'd be at all likely to interest a girl like that--I either." And +then, not to overdo it, he said interestedly: "But, Donald, what about +Blake & Steinert?" + +"Oh, I turned 'em down," said the coming fiancé, and briefly expanded. +Of the fine old firm, he said: "They were associated with me on Hog Bay +Breakwater." Old Blake was a prince; Steinert a crackerjack. They had +raised their offer, so eager were they to get him, and insisted on +leaving it open for him. He had seen all the shows, lunched at five +clubs, "closed up several important deals," etc., etc. + +Dipping up his watch again, Donald said suddenly: "Seen Mary lately?" + +This being none of his business, Charles replied with a monosyllable. + +"Anything wrong between you two?" + +"Not that I'm aware of.... Great heavens! I'm a worker, my good fellow! +I haven't time to fuss around house-partying--pop-calling--all the +time!--Not, of course, that I don't wish I were going--" + +"Well, you won't have much time to be pop-calling on Mary," reproved +Donald, with his new responsible soberness. "Drop around this afternoon, +Charlie, after your lessons. See if you can't cheer her up a little." + +The limousine reeled off half a block before Charles answered: + +"Seems I'm behind the times again. What does Miss Mary need to be +cheered up about, exactly?" + +"What d'you s'pose now, Charlie? Going off to New York to live, herself; +me off to Wyoming for two years at least; Aunt Ellen moving to North +Carolina; home broken up--why, I tell you the thing is the worst kind of +smash-up! I've just been with Mary--never saw her so blue in my life." + +Charles said, after another silence: "But she understood all that from +the beginning, didn't she?" + +"Understood--what's that got to do with it? Besides, you never +understand things till you get right down to 'em. Take me," said Donald, +recurring to his favorite subject with a frown. "I hadn't an idea how +much I was going to mind this business--ending it all here, moving off +to the back side of nowhere to--" + +"Well, don't be sentimental about it, for pity's sake! This is a +realistic story we're living, or I miss my guess entirely.--When does +Miss Mary leave?" + +"Oh, about two weeks, I believe, but--" + +"Two weeks!" + +"Wensons want the flat around the 20th, I understand. We didn't speak of +that just now--Mary'll tell you about it. Let's see," said Donald, +fidgeting about and looking first out one window, then another. "Going +to your mother's to-morrow, I suppose? Drop in this afternoon, +Charlie--or to-night. And that's so!--you can take around a package for +me, things I bought for Mary in New York--oh, neck-fichus, silk +stockings--that sort of stuff." + +But the thought of himself as Mary's cheerer-up at this juncture in her +Career was bitterly ironic to Charles, and, answering curtly that he +would be too busy to run errands this afternoon, he changed the subject +at once. In short, when did Donald go to Wyoming? Unable to resist the +opening, Donald said that he would probably start on March 15th; and so +began to talk fitfully of himself. At the other window, Charles relapsed +into thought. He did not speak again until the car rolled up to the +entrance of the showy apartment-hotel where Donald lived. Then, rousing +himself abruptly, he said, with a well-done air of negligent +sprightliness:-- + +"Oh, by the by, Donald--heard anything from our little friend in the +four-wheeler, as you call it? I haven't laid eyes on her since that day +you and I marched up like little soldiers to give back her books. Funny, +that was!--ha, ha!" + +Donald's face of a young man about to be married changed perceptibly. He +answered, quite stiffly:-- + +"I fail to see anything funny in it. Miss Flower's perfectly well, I +believe." + +"Good!--glad to hear it. She needs her health, all the driving about she +does.... Why, where'd she see you to-day?" + +"I didn't say I'd seen her to-day, that I remember. By Jove, I don't get +a minute to see anybody or anything, rushed about this way all the +time!... Well! Obliged for the lift." + +"And how do you know she's well, then?" + +"Because she told me so over the telephone, if you give a darn! What's +this about, anyway?" + +"Why, not a thing! Why, my dear fellow! Of _course_, I understand +perfectly! You don't suppose I suspect you of being old Tilletts's +rival, do you? Not likely--ha, ha! No, I think it's awfully nice of you, +old fellow, knowing as I do that you don't admire her particularly. +That's what I wanted to say," proceeded Charles, laying his hand +affectionately and detainingly on Donald's arm. "Of course you know she +doesn't have much of a time--attention and all that--oh, I see through +you perfectly! It's just Talbott and the Oldmixon girls over again--" + +"Oh, she told me about _you_!" said Donald in a blustering manner; and, +snatching his arm away, he sprang out upon the sidewalk. + +His remark evoked curiosity; but Charles's overweening interest was not +in Angela now. And he was thinking intently: "He's not engaged to Helen +Carson yet, by a long shot. He's not even at the station--that's a +mile--on Washington Street. I'd better keep an eye on you, my buck ..." + +Aloud he said: "She did?--nothing good, I fear. Here!--wait a minute! +That package for Miss Mary, Donald--I expect you'd better leave it for +me to take, after all. I'll find some way to get it around to her--" + +"All right--" + +"You bring it by as you start for the station, that's the best way. Then +we'll drive down together," said Charles, fixing his friend with a +compelling gaze. "I've--ah--got some things I want to talk to you +about." + +"I'll bring it by," said Donald, non-committally, and rushed away. + +He went up seven floors, telephoned for the "staff valet," and proceeded +to business. There was a period of the wildest activity. At the end of +it, the hour being then too late for hope that any expressman would make +the train with the trunk, Donald engaged the valet to secure a +carriage, take down and check the baggage, get him a ticket and a seat, +and be waiting for him with these things at a given point. In such +slapdash, inefficient fashion this young man conducted all his personal +life. + +"And mind you see the baggage on the train," he warned the fellow. "This +is an important trip." + +He shot down again, dressed to "kill" the house-party, but lugging a +large box, and strode out into the fading sunshine. Before the hotel +door, to his surprise, stood Charlie Garrott's borrowed car, empty, and +before the car stood Charlie Garrott's borrowed driver, greeting him +with all his teeth. + +"What're _you_ waiting here for?" said Donald, staring. + +"Goin' to drive you an' Mist' Garrott to the deepo--yessuh! Mist' +Garrott tole me to wait right here an' bring you round, suh!" + +Donald again was rather touched by the thoughtfulness of his friend. +Take him all in all, old Charlie was a pretty good fellow. However, he +would have ridden down in the hack with the valet, if he had wanted to +ride. Of course, he might send the box around by this fellow--but no, if +old Charlie was expecting him, that would seem pretty short, +particularly as Mrs. Herman's was right on his way. + +"I'm much obliged to you--er--Eustace--but I'll walk, I guess. I haven't +had any exercise to-day." + +"Boss, he say you mout not ketch yo' train if you was to walk." + +"Oh, I've got plenty of time for the train--plenty!" said Donald, +hastily, and shifted the box to look at his watch again. "I'll leave +word for Mr. Garrott myself." + +"Suh! Thank you kindly, suh!" + +Donald swung off toward Mrs. Herman's, but three blocks distant. Behind +him, unobserved, trailed the old lady's limousine, very slow. When he +was still a block from his destination, the hurrying young man was all +at once struck with an annoying recollection. "Curses!" he groaned. "I +forgot my sweater!" That meant that he would have to go back, without +doubt: for the sweater was a brand-new one, of brilliant Australian +wool, and specially purchased in New York for the winter-sports. Donald, +accordingly, felt unable to linger over his good-bye messages to +Charles. He said hurriedly to Mrs. Herman, who opened the door for him: +"How-do! Please give this box to Mr. Garrott, and tell him I decided to +walk. He'll understand." And on that, he sprang away down the steps, two +at a time, and started swiftly back to the Bellingham. + +But just as he reached the corner, he was suddenly arrested by the sound +of his own name, rolling loudly after him down the street. + +"_Donald! Hi, there! Stop!_" + +Donald halting, looked upward and all about him. Presently, through the +top branches of an intervening tree, he descried Charles Garrott leaning +far out of Mrs. Herman's third-story window. "Well?" called Donald. + +"What's the matter? Where're you going?" demanded Charles in a voice +that broke easily through the tree. "I said we'd drive down together!" + +He was heard continuing in another tone: "_No!_ Stop, Eustace! Don't go +away--I want you!" + +"Much obliged," shouted Donald, "but I'd rather walk." + +Charles said something out the window, which Donald failed to catch. + +"What say?" + +"You come back!" cried Charles, beckoning, while passing pedestrians +craned their necks upward. "Wait for me--just a minute--I'm all ready! +And I've got to speak to you--about several things! About the package!" + +But Donald, objecting to the attention they were attracting, shook his +head decisively. "Haven't time now. Forgot something ... back to my +rooms." + +"If you haven't time to wait, you certainly haven't time to walk back to +your rooms! You're going to miss your train with all this walking!" + +That was pointed enough to cause Donald to pause again, and look at his +watch for the twentieth time. He found that he still had twenty-five +minutes, time enough, of course, but then he might have to hunt for the +sweater, and there was the business of the luggage at the station, too. + +Down through the branches boomed the strangely insistent voice of +Charles: "Why, by George! You've only got twenty minutes. Here, take my +car there, quick! You can barely make it, driving fast ..." + +And in a lower voice he said: "After him, Eustace! Get him to the +station as fast as you can. Don't fail this time." + +Donald was hesitating, struck as Charles meant him to be, with the fear +that his watch might be slow. He now called, with evidences of ill-humor +and disturbance:-- + +"All right, then! But I can't stop for you." + +"Oh, that's all right, old fellow--my matters can wait! I'll look out +for the package! Just you catch your train, that's all!" + +Continuing to lean out of the Studio window, Charles watched the dullard +step into the old lady's tightly closed car, and whirl away--safe at +last. As the car shot round the corner, he suddenly laughed aloud: a +triumphant laugh, but charged with irritation, too. + +Then Charles, aloft, drew head and torso back into the Studio, banged +shut the window, and found Mrs. Herman just plumping the large white box +of things for Mary down on his writing-table. The spectacle brought +forward the other matter instantly. Of course, he had agreed to receive +the box purely as a means of keeping an eye on Donald. + +"Oh, yes--as to the package, Mrs. Herman, perhaps you wouldn't mind +taking it down as you go, and just leaving it on the hall table? +I--ah--shall probably call a messenger to take it--a little later." + +"Certainly, Mr. Garrott," said Mrs. Herman, picking up the box again. +"And oh, would you mind telling the Judge I'd like to speak to him a +minute before he goes out?" + +"Certainly, Mrs. Herman." + +The landlady, lingering, said: "He seems in poor spirits, don't you +think so, Mr. Garrott? His appetite is not what it was. And he goes out +and takes these long walks, alone, day after day, or sits here by +himself in the Studio. I don't think it's good for him. I think he +broods." + +"It's nothing serious, Mrs. Herman. He's annoyed with me, I fear, for +giving up some physical culture exercises which he hoped might make a +man of me yet. Also, for being such a continuous failure as a writer." + +"But it's not your fault, Mr. Garrott! You do the very best you can, I'm +sure. The Judge is unreasonable--that's what I say. Oh, I could coax him +into a good humor easily enough, but I scarcely ever see him nowadays, +except at meal times. I can't very well offer to go with him on his +walks, can I?--but I'm sure the solitude is bad for him." + +"Ah, you should get yourself a little Fordette, Mrs. Herman." + +"And what is a little Fordette, Mr. Garrott?" + +"Oh--simply a sort of wheeled device for going with people on their +walks. I'm explaining it in a story. But," said Charles, "I won't fail +to give the Judge your message." + +Left alone, the young man stood for a space in the middle of the floor, +gazing intently at nothing. Then he seated himself at his table and +produced manuscript from the drawer. Then he put the manuscript back in +the drawer, and stared at nothing again. Finally, he rose, opened the +bedroom door quietly, and said:-- + +"Judge, I find I have to go out for a little while." + +Judge Blenso, in the bedroom, received the friendly information, and +then his message from Mrs. Herman, with only a cold "Very well!" He +stood at a long board, balanced on two distant chair-backs, listlessly +pressing the trousers he didn't have on; his instrument being a patent +electric-flatiron, which consumed quantities of current, which indeed +fairly gave the measure of his landlady's adoration. Catch Mrs. Herman +letting Two-Book McGee use so much as an electric curling-iron in the +Second Hall Back! + +"And Judge," added Charles, conciliatingly, "please don't bother to take +that manuscript to the express-office--I mean 'Bandwomen'--unless you +really want the walk." + +"Very well! I hear you! Good gad, very well!" said the Judge. + +Charles shut the door, regretfully. It had been like this between them +for some weeks now. Even his generosity in quietly yielding the name of +his own only novel produced no softening effect on his secretary's cold +bored disapprobation. + +He put on hat and overcoat, descended two flights, picked up the box of +things for Mary, and went out upon his errand. He walked slowly, down +Mason Street to Olive, and at Olive turned south. + +For the second time, Donald had contrived to force his hand in regard to +Mary: he was conscious of resenting that. Still--of course he had never +meant to let the old friendship end in estrangement, and doubtless the +casual pretext of the box was better than the formal "call" next week he +had had in mind. To appear as Mary's cheerer-up now was, indeed, +considerably beyond him. Nevertheless, he was well aware that what +Donald had told him in this connection had made an instant difference in +his feeling, made him readier to be friends again. If only she had felt +and realized all this in the beginning, if only she had showed him so +that day over the telephone.... + +Still, feeling wasn't enough, unfortunately. There was this whole +business about Donald, for instance. In one way he could think of that +almost pleasurably. Mary seemed to suppose that if she but arranged a +house-party and gave Donald a sound talking to in advance, the whole +thing was settled, down to the orange-blossoms. It required him to +revise her crude plannings, put in the omitted _finesse_, and deliver +Donald safely at the station. But Charles, pacing gravely toward the +unpremeditated meeting, large box under his arm, found his thought of +the episode continually seeking deeper levels. If, two weeks from now, +Donald was still not engaged to Helen, whose was to be the +responsibility of pushing him on? Not Mary's, evidently. Was not this +youth, in fact, but one more of those countless intimate obligations +which strong women must "hack away," when resolved to lead their own +lives? Donald was the apple of Mary's eye. Normally speaking, she was +ready to do anything for him. But it seemed that even Donald, if he +crossed the trail of the Career, would have to look to himself. + +Or, more probably, he, Charles, would have to look out for him. + +At the corner of Washington Street, pausing, the meditative young man +consulted his watch; he shifted the box for the purpose just as Donald +had done a few minutes earlier. It was quarter past five, exactly. +Donald would be at the station now, without doubt, safe on the train. +Well, here was one thing he had done for Mary, at any rate, as he should +not fail to indicate to her. And thus, insensibly, his thought slipped +into the pleasurable vein again, the superior, masterful vein, and his +mind composed the light ironic sentences with which he should make known +to Mary her remissness and his own subtle services. + +Stepping down from the curb in this brown study, he all but walked into +a motor-car whirring by: a car that was stealing the wrong side of the +street, and cutting close to the sidewalk at that. Charles stopped and +stepped back, just in time. And then, all in the same breath, his ears, +his eyes, and his nostrils telegraphed his brain what car, and whose, +this was. It was the Fordette, none other, going at an unprecedented +speed, now curving back dangerously to the side where it belonged. On a +cloud of the dark smoke it sometimes emitted, Angela's girlish laugh +came floating back to him distinctly. But Charles's gaze was fixed on +the figure of the man who sat at Angela's side and held the Fordette +wheel; and his eyes all but started from his head as he perceived that +it was Donald.... + +Yes, it was poor Donald fast in the Home-Making conveyance: Donald, +snatched, she alone knew how, from his wedding-coach. + + + + +XX + + +The famous Secretary sat at her desk in the well-kept sitting-room. She +sat in the midst of documents and letters; large white sheets of her +Education League writing-paper lay before her, the topmost sheet nearly +filled with her neat chirography. Oblivious to small happenings in the +world without, the Secretary was deep in her distinguished +correspondence. But her desk, as it happened, stood in the window, and +the Secretary, after all, was not so immersed in her affairs but that +she looked out into the Park now and then, sometimes for whole minutes +together. She looked, too, into the quiet street before the house. And +so it was that her eyes, in time, fell upon the familiar figure of +Charles Garrott; striding all at once into her range, turning swiftly in +at her door, vanishing again into her vestibule, scarcely five feet from +where she sat. + +Though thus aware that she was about to have a caller, Mary did not at +once spring up to go and welcome him. She sat, entirely motionless, her +permanently questioning gaze fixed on the spot where the caller had +passed from view. The ringing of the bell scarcely seemed to penetrate +her consciousness. But then, in a moment, she dropped her pen quickly, +and rose. Standing, she locked her two hands together before her, very +tight, released them again, passed out into the hall, and opened her +front door. + +"Good-afternoon! This is an unexpected pleasure," said she, in her +natural voice, or very near it. "Come in!--or can you?" + +Her visitor looked full at her from the vestibule, unsmiling. + +"Oh, certainly--if you're not too busy! It's what I am here for. How do +you do to-day?" + +"That's nice! You don't often honor us, and--I feared you had merely +stopped to leave that package." + +"Ah, yes!--the package! Some things Donald got for you--I suppose you +know? He asked me--" + +"Oh! I'm afraid that was very much of an imposition--and I was really in +no hurry for them at all." + +She thanked him, relieved him of the pretextual box, laid it on the hall +table, and, with inevitable but extreme infelicity, continued:-- + +"You saw Donald to-day, then?" + +A small silence preceded his controlled reply "Oh, yes!--I saw him." + +"I've just packed him off to a house-party at the Kingsleys'--to make +love to Helen Carson. But perhaps he told you?" + +In the large mirror overhanging the table, the eyes of the once +excellent friends briefly encountered. She was puzzled by the quality of +his grave gaze. + +"He did mention a house-party, I believe. But--" + +Turning away toward the sitting-room, Mary filled the pause with a +little laugh: "But you think he won't make love to Helen, perhaps?" + +The grave young man, following her, did not burst forth, even then. His +restraint seemed curious, even to himself. Crossing Washington Street +just now, he had been full enough of plain speech, for this young +woman's good. "I've had quite enough of this!" he would say to her. "I +can't and won't give up my afternoons, my life, to playing nurse to +Donald. If you are satisfied to have him marry Miss Angela, well and +good. If not--" and then a last warning, far sharper, far more direct, +than the other. But then as he waited upon her steps, and then as he +looked at her in the door, the springs of this trivial anger had seemed +mysteriously to subside and dry up. No doubt the Career-Maker's own look +had something to do with that. Her face in the afternoon light was seen +to be thin and tired; he thought he detected faint circles under her +eyes, a slightly pinched look about her nostrils. But beyond all that, +beyond any question of "sympathy," or cheering-up, it seemed that the +affair itself had suddenly shrunk in importance. Donald's folly, +Angela's little foibles, seemed to matter less to Charles as he found +himself looking again at the departing heroine of his write-ups. + +So he discharged his bolt with restrained formality: "It isn't that. I +was only wondering whether or not you had packed him off, as yet." + +"Oh!--but haven't I?... I don't understand." + +"I happened to see him a minute ago, driving on Washington Street with +your cousin--Miss Angela." + +It was clear that the topic had lost no interest for Mary, at any rate. +She stopped short in the middle of the floor, utterly taken aback. + +"_Donald!_--as you came here?" + +And, instantly recovering from mere astonishment, her capable gaze flew +to the little watch on her wrist. + +Charles reassured her, as dryly as possible: "However, they were headed +toward the station, and going as fast as they could. I think he will +make his train." + +"But--it's not possible, I'm afraid! His train goes at five +twenty-two--it's just that now!... Ah, how _could_ he!" + +Producing his own valued chronometer, the young man compared it with the +educator's small trinket. + +"I believe you're a little fast, aren't you? I'm five-eighteen. And it +was just quarter past when I saw them, for I looked to see. That gave +him seven minutes--" + +"Yes--well!--but Angela's little car is so slow--" + +"Oh!--it can go fast enough for practical purposes--I've observed. +Besides, Donald may have telephoned and found that the train was late." + +"Yes--that's true." + +Mary Wing looked toward the window, characteristically composed again, +but evidently concerned enough. + +"Well, I hope so. It would be too stupid of him to miss it, after +all ... I can't think how he happened to be with Angela--at the last +minute this way." + +"How, indeed? But sit down, do, and I'll tell you why it seems +particularly--mystifying to me. I hope," the formal caller added, with a +glance toward the busy-looking desk, "I'm not interrupting?" + +The General Secretary said no, with some brevity. + +In sentences less copious and biting than he had sketched out on the +corner, Charles recited the history of his futile afternoon. He could +not, indeed, believe it possible that Donald, having donned the solemn +bridegroom look for Helen Carson, would deliberately throw it off again +for the sake of a short drive in the Fordette: which, to say the least +of it, could be had at any time at his desire. Nor was Donald really a +born fool, who would miss a train through sheer childish carelessness. +The inference was that, encountering Angela, accidentally (more or +less), just after his second start, the youth had calculated that he +still had time to spare; and so had consented to exchange the speedy +limousine for the Fordette: quite probably in no spirit more serious +than that of a venturesome lark. Charles's remarks, at least, took these +generous grounds, reassuring as to the moment. And still a tinge of +exasperation crept into his account of his wasted labors. And still +something in him seemed to require that he should bring these small +responsibilities home where they belonged, for once: leaving them on her +doorstep, as it were, for her to jump over when she went away. + +But his story, inevitably, was one of ungallant efforts to evade +impending pursuit. And when, to point up his lesson, he guardedly +suggested a connection between the natural ambitions of Miss Angela, and +the two complete transplantations of her family, Mary Wing seemed to +gather more of his purely private thought than he had intended. One of +her intent interrogative stares brought him to an unintended pause. And +she commented quietly, but rebukingly, he considered:-- + +"You seem to have changed your opinion of Angela since last week." + +There, of course, he hardly cared to justify himself. He could not well +explain what Angela's resemblance to her mother had signified to him, +and why he considered poor Dr. Flower the most magnificent romanticist +in the world. + +"I merely suggest," he said, with stiffening dignity, "that she does +seem to be much interested in Donald--and he in her--now. I happen to +know that he called on her twice the day he left for New York, and +talked with her over the telephone this morning. But you mistake me, if +you think I mean to criticize your cousin--personally. I hope I +understand better than that how--all this--is as logical and +mathematical as a natural law. How far in the other direction the +education of women ought to take them ... that, of course, is not for me +to guess.... My point is only that these--these perfectly logical +ambitions--are strong enough to be taken seriously by those who mean to +oppose them." + +"Do you doubt that I take this seriously?" + +"I have doubted it, I must admit.... Suppose this house-party comes to +nothing, what do you mean to do?" + +The former heroine of the write-ups did not answer him at once. She sat +in a straight chair, half-sidewise, a considerable distance away; her +arm was laid along the chair-back, her cheek sunk upon her hand. +Something in the pose made the caller think of Donald's exaggerated +statement, that he had never seen Mary so blue in his life. + +When she spoke, it was not again to suggest, offhand, that he should +save Donald by stepping in. + +"You are right, of course," she said with a certain dignity herself. "I +haven't been thinking of it as seriously as I should--evidently. Now--if +this doesn't come to anything--I'll need some time to plan about it." + +"It's going to be rather troublesome, I'm afraid. And you--I--" + +"I'll make it my chief interest, you may be sure." + +Then the stiff caller, examining his shirt-cuff as if he had never seen +such an object before, released his logical comment: + +"But I'm afraid you haven't left yourself a great deal of time, have +you? Two weeks may prove rather a small allowance--for a difficult +matter like this." + +"Oh, I--hope there will be time enough. Meantime, I--" + +"I hadn't realized you were going so soon, you see. That will add to the +difficulties, I'm afraid. Donald says you expect to leave on the 20th." + +He meant his rejoinders to be unanswerable, and she seemed to find them +so. Glancing up from his cuff in the silence, Charles found his famous +friend's eyes fixed upon him in a strange gaze, which her lids and +lashes veiled at once. Had that look struck him from any other eyes in +the world, he would have labeled it reproachful, without the smallest +hesitation. But Mary was never reproachful: she scarcely thought enough +of him for that; and, besides, the shoe was on the other foot, as she +should know very well. + +"I did say something of the sort last week, I believe--though no day was +really settled on. But it was very nice of you," she went on naturally +enough, but with too evident a wish to shift the conversation, "to take +so much trouble about it to-day. I do appreciate all your interest in +it--and I do believe it's going to turn out right, too. Donald certainly +left me with that feeling, this afternoon. So don't let's bother about +it any more now," said Mary. "I'd much rather hear--some more about your +writing. I hope you've gotten the book well started now?" + +But Charles, unique among the writers of the world, did not want to talk +about himself to-day. No, he had found the topic for him now. + +"No!--I haven't, I'm sorry to say. Your arrangements are all made, +aren't they? Judge Blenso tells me you're going to live with Sophy +Stein, who used to run the Pure Food laboratories here?" + +Again her brief look seemed to thrust upon him like a hand, and again +her reply glanced off:-- + +"Yes--I was planning to live with her. You knew her, didn't you, when--" + +"I was going to say--if everything is arranged, perhaps you wouldn't +need to start so early.... Of course, the idea of your friends here +would be that you should wait till the last day." + +As she neither approved nor rejected this amiable suggestion, Charles +said: "How does that idea appeal to you?" + +To his surprise, instead of answering his question, Mary rose abruptly +and went over to her desk. He then assumed that she wished to show him +some letter bearing on her arrangements for her new life. But it seemed +that her movement had no such object. She merely stood there a moment, +fingering her papers in an irresolute sort of way; and then, without a +word, she moved a little farther, and stood, looking out of the window. + +He said, at once with bewilderment and with increasing constraint: "Or +possibly you don't wish me to know when you are going?" + +Then Mary Wing turned in the dying light, and said, not dramatically at +all, but in her quietest everyday voice:-- + +"No, I don't mind your knowing. I'm not going." + +And still the authority on women did not understand. + +"Not going--when?" + +"I've decided not to accept the appointment." + +And, sitting down, suddenly and purposelessly at her desk, the young +woman of the Career added in a rather let-down voice: "I haven't told +anybody at all yet. I just decided--last night." + +Then came silence into the twilight sitting-room, surely a silence like +none here before it. In the Wings' best chair, the caller sat still as a +marble man, while the little noises from the street grew loud and +louder. And then, quite abruptly and mechanically, he began to rise, +exactly as if an unseen spirit were lifting him bodily by the hair. And +he could feel all the blood drawing out of his face. + +"Not going to accept the appointment," he echoed suddenly, in a queer +voice. + +And then, as if so reminded that his tongue possessed this +accomplishment, he all at once burst out: "Why--but--why! You _have_ +accepted it! It was settled!--long ago! _Not going!_--what do you mean? +Why, what's happened?" + +The young woman seated so inappropriately at the desk, gazing so +meaninglessly into pigeon-holes, made no reply. And now Charles Garrott +was walking toward her, walking as the entranced walk, fascinated, +staring with fixed eyes that had forgotten how to wink. + +"What're you talking about? I don't know what you mean! Why, what's +happened--what's gone wrong?" + +Mary Wing grew restless under his questionings; she spoke with obvious +effort: "Nothing's happened--nothing's gone wrong. I say, I simply +decided that I wouldn't--take the position, after all. I decided I would +refuse it. So I was writing to Dr. Ames--to explain ... That's all I can +say." + +But the man standing over her looked more spellbound than ever. + +"Explain!--explain what?... Why--you can't put me off like this--can +you?" said he, all his stiffness so shattered by her thunderbolt, all +his struggle but for some effect of poise. "You _must_ know--I'm +tremendously interested. And--I'm obliged to feel that something pretty +serious has happened to make you--" + +"No!--nothing has happened at all, I've said. I assure you--nothing." + +"But ... You can't imagine how absolutely in the dark ... Do you mean +you've found something else you'd rather do--here?" + +"I suppose that's one way of putting it--yes.... Why, I simply say that +when the time came--I wasn't able to do it, that's all.... No, I didn't +want to do it--that must have been it. Of course, people always do what +they really want most." + +"You didn't want to do what?... You know, that's just what I don't quite +understand." + +"But I've just told you," she protested; and there stopped short. + +She had overcome the brief weakness which had seemed to seize her when, +for the first time, she heard her intention declared aloud, the spoken +word, it may be, imparting to it the last irrevocable stroke. She, the +competent, would not be incompetent with her own great affair. And now, +as if she reluctantly acknowledged some right he had to understand, she +seemed to force herself to speak again, in a voice from which her +self-control had pressed all tone. + +"I mean that, when the time came, I couldn't pick up and go away--for +good--no matter what was at the other end. I mean I wasn't willing to. +I'd rather not." + +She took a breath; and then tone came into her sentences, but it was +only a sort of light hardness. + +"I suppose it all came down to this--that I wasn't willing to leave +mother--in the way I should have to leave her. I didn't want to. It was +not possible ... And I'm afraid that's all I can say." + +"But of course I understand you now," said the young man instantly, in +the strangest mild voice. + +"Then, if you will--please me--let's say no more about it." + +To that stanch speech he made no reply: perhaps he did not hear it. +Winter dusk had crept quickly into the pretty sitting-room. The tall +figure motionless by the little desk grew perceptibly dimmer. + +That understanding Charles spoke of had come upon him by successive +shocks, each violent in its way. His had been the mere mad sense of a +world too suddenly swung upside down, of the individual himself left +standing brilliantly on his head. That had been just at first; and then +perception had slid into him like a lance, and his feet had struck the +solid ground with a staggering jolt. It was as if, at a word, all the +supporting fabrications of his mind had turned to thin air, and out he +fell headlong, at last, upon the real and the true. And this real and +this true was Mary Wing, nothing else, standing where she had always +stood; Mary, his best old friend, whom he had given his back to, +belabored with harsh words, while she struggled at the crossroads of her +life--to this. Now contrition, now humbleness had shaken the young +authority, a poignant conviction of his failure, in understanding and in +friendship. And then she spoke again, making it all quite perfect with +simple words that he himself, in a dream, might have shaped and put into +her mouth. _I wasn't willing to leave mother._ And after that, it seemed +that nothing about himself could possibly matter in the least. + +"You know," he said, quite naturally, out of the small silence, "I think +it's beautiful that a girl like you can feel this way--a girl with your +abilities--your usefulness and splendid success--and now this +magnificent oppor--" + +"Don't!--please don't! I hadn't meant to speak of it at all. I--we +won't discuss it, please." + +She spoke hastily, pushing back the papers she had been pretending to +arrange, starting to rise. But that word or that movement seemed to +galvanize the still Charles into the suddenest life. + +"_Discuss it!_" he cried, in a new voice. "Why, we're going to have the +greatest discussion you ever heard!" + +For perhaps the strangest part of this destructive upheaval was that it +seemed to leave every idea he had ever had about this Career completely +reversed. One word from Mary Wing about not leaving her mother, and +nothing seemed to matter but that she, in her fine recklessness, should +not be allowed to sacrifice her triumph and her life. + +"No!--please! It's settled now. And it only makes--" + +But her friend, the authority, had flung himself into the chair beside +her, like an excited boy, and he seized her wrist on the desk-leaf in an +arresting grip. + +"No, it isn't settled till it's settled right!--don't you know that? Is +this your letter to Ames here? Let me tear it up for you now! Refuse the +appointment! Why, Miss _Mary_! You can't think of such a thing! You!--a +worker with a mission--and this your great call!--your big +opportunity--your _duty_! Yes, your--" + +She interrupted his flowing modernisms to say, quite patiently: "You're +hurting my wrist." + +"Yes, and I'm going on hurting it till I see that letter torn up! Now, +Miss Mary!--listen to me--for once--I beg! You won't suppose I don't +understand--now--what made you sit down to do this, and I--I needn't +say I admire you immensely for feeling so. But--don't you see--if life's +hard, it's not your doing, and if it's hardest on mothers, you can't +change the conditions by a hair's-breadth, no matter what you do.... +Why, if you were going to marry Donald, and go off to Wyoming, the break +here would be just as bad, but you'd never think it wasn't right--you'd +know that these were the terms and conditions of life. Oh, you know all +that as well as I! You know the duty isn't from children to parents--no, +I swear, it's from parents to children, every time. And your mother'll +be the first to say so--you know that, too! You know, when you tell her +you're thinking of doing this, she'll go down on her knees to beg you to +take your youth--and your life--and be free--" + +He was deflected by one of Mary's normal level gazes, turned upon him. +She said steadily:-- + +"How long have you been feeling this way?" + +"Ten years! And then--for about five minutes." + +"I had understood somehow--I don't know how exactly--that you always +thought I should stay here." + +The young man felt a flush spreading upward toward his hair, but would +not lower his eyes. + +"Perhaps I did have some such feeling--in a sort of--personal, illogical +way. But if it's the last word I ever speak--you've destroyed the last +shred of it." + +He rose abruptly, without intention. Nothing in the world was clearer to +him than that he and his reactions mattered little to her now; yet the +desire mounted in him to explain how it was never the thing itself, but +always the feeling about it, that had seemed so important to him. +However, the school-teacher, with a little definitive gesture of the arm +he had released, spoke first:-- + +"Well, never mind! Don't argue with me, please. It's as over and done +with as something last year--" + +But Charles, upon his unimagined task of persuading Mary to act as the +Egoettes act, cried out: "No!--no! Argue! Why, d'you think I'll stand by +and hold my tongue, while you sacrifice the great chance of your life, +your particular dream--for a mere notion of _duty_! I say, and I've +always said, that freedom--and the right to do your work--belong to you, +if to anybody in the world! You've--" + +"Do you really suppose I've lain awake all these nights without learning +what my own mind is?" + +Having stopped him effectually with this dry thrust, she went on in +another manner, not controversial at all, rather like one speaking to +herself. + +"And as for my freedom--that's not involved at all.... I was thinking +just now that maybe this is just what freedom--responsible +freedom--really is--means. It's having the ability and the desire and +the fair chance to do a thing--_and then not do it_." + +And then Charles Garrott knew, quite suddenly and finally, that this, +indeed, was no talk in a book, but the realest thing in the world; that +this incredible had really happened: that Mary Wing, the "hard" +Career-Maker, was tossing her Career away.... + +He stood quite silenced, while she spoke her last decisive word. + +"So you see you have a wrong idea of--what I'm doing, altogether. I +appreciate your--being so interested--I value it, you know that," said +Mary Wing in a controlled voice, hard even. "But I can't leave you +thinking that I'm simply sacrificing myself--to my mother, for instance. +It isn't that way at all. Of course, I'm no more to mother than mother +is to me. It's not a sacrifice.... Or, rather--I'm in the position that +people are always in--more or less. Either way, I've got to +sacrifice--and this is the way I choose. But it's getting very dark. I +must light the lamps." + +She rose as she spoke, and having risen, bent again, to snap on, +superfluously, her little desk-light. And as she so stood and bent, the +large hand of Charles Garrott reached out suddenly, and began to pat her +shoulder. + +She seemed but a slip of a girl, no more, that he, Charles, could have +tossed upon his shoulder, and so walked out upon a journey. But here, in +a wink, she had shot up so tall upon his horizon that he himself, beside +her, seemed to possess no significance at all. She might be right, she +might be wrong: but, to him, the authority, this crashing negation of +the Ego was the flung banner of a splendid trustworthiness, a fitness to +lead her own life, indeed, such as should not be questioned +henceforward. Never had this woman's independence of him spoken out to +him with so clarion a voice as now. And still, over and through her +unemotional firmness, the sense of what a giving-up was here swelled in +him almost overwhelmingly. It was the brilliant prize of ten years' +checkered struggle that his old friend to-day so stoically threw away. +Here was a refusal which would touch every corner of her life to its +farthest reaches.... + +So Charles Garrott's warring sensations, his humility and his pride in +her, had instinctively expressed themselves in the awkward mute gesture +of his sympathies. + +By chance, it was Mary's more distant shoulder that his novel impulse +had prompted him to pat and go on patting: so, from the accident of +their positions, an eye-witness might have been with difficulty +convinced that this man's arm was not actually about the slim figure of +his friend. But a jury, without doubt, would have accepted the friend's +attitude, her entire indifference to what was going on, as fair proof +that this was purely a modern proceeding, and no caress. To ask why he +did this clearly did not enter Mary's head. Had she been a man, indeed, +or he her father, she could hardly have seemed more unaffected by +Charles Garrott's unexampled ministrations. + +With what speech he meant to accompany and justify his pattings, Charles +had not stopped to think. He had, in fact, himself just become conscious +of them, when Mary, straightening up, said suddenly in her normal +voice:-- + +"There's the telephone ringing. Excuse me a minute." + +She gave him a brief look in passing, which may have been intended as +some sort of courteous acknowledgment of the pattings after all. And +then she disappeared into the hall, putting an end to talk: +inopportunely he felt; leaving him with, a vague sense of inartistic +incompletion.... + +The young man stood still in the silent sitting-room, in a duskiness +just punctuated by the small green glow of the desk-lamp. + +One of those many minds of his, which are at once a writer's genius and +his curse,--that completely detached, cool overmind which never sleeps, +never ceases to scrutinize and appraise,--was quite conscious that Mary +had held him off with a hand firmer than his own. There was a tremendous +lot that he really needed to say, it seemed, in sheer admiration, sheer +feeling; and, the truth was, she didn't wish to have him say it. No; her +strength, though so far finer and more sensitive than the strength of +the Egoette, was, indeed, not "soft." She would not sentimentalize even +her own suicidal renouncing. As for weeping--he himself had seemed +rather nearer tears than his iron-hearted friend.... + +But the intense thought of the central mind, of the net Charles, had +never wavered from its great stark fact, that Mary Wing was going to +stay at home--and be a school-teacher.... And why had he, who thought +himself as observant as another authority, been staggered so by the +revelation? Had not he himself divined just this subtler quality in her +long ago, when he found and named her as the best type of modern +woman?... But no, even in "Bondwomen," he had had reservations, it +seemed; open doubts in the write-ups. + +And now, Charles the author, in his turn, abruptly collided with a +strange discovery. He stood rigid, startled.... This strength and this +surrender, this power to act, this power to feel, this freedom fine +enough to accept the responsibilities of freedom, and to have no part +with that hollow Self-Assertion which traded round the world in +freedom's name: what was all this but the rounded half of that true Line +which, in the Studio, had so long eluded him? What had he wished to say +about freedom so much as just this? And why need he search in his fancy +now for his wholly Admirable Heroine?... + +Mary Wing appeared suddenly in the door. Unmoving, the young man stood +and gazed at her; and so vivid had his imaginings become that his stare +was touched with no greeting, no recognition even. And then, even in the +dusk, he seemed to see that she, his Heroine in the flesh, brought back +a face more troubled than she had taken out, eyes colored with a fresh +anxiety. + +He spoke rather confusedly: "What was it? Is anything the matter?" + +"Dr. Flower's very ill," she answered hurriedly. "He's had a stroke, or +something. I'm afraid it's very serious. I must go there at once." + +All the small fret of the earlier afternoon, every thought and +association with which he had walked into this room just now had receded +so fast and far that re-connection, all in a moment, was not easy. +Charles, staring, seemed to say: "And who, if you please, is Dr. +Flower?" And then his mind replied with a flashing picture of Angela's +father, as he had last seen him, sitting forlorn among his cigar-stubs: +and at once he touched reality again. + +"Ah! I'm sorry!" said he; and then: "You must let me go with you." + +"Well--thank you--if you like." + +And Mary, already moving away toward the bedrooms, added then, in a +colorless sort of way:-- + +"Who do you suppose telephoned me from there?" + +"Who telephoned?--I don't know--" + +She paused, half turned, looked back at him, hesitated, and then spoke +but a single word:-- + +"Donald." + +Brief though the reply was, it was sufficient to plant Charles Garrott's +feet permanently upon the earth. + +After an interval, with movements purely mechanical, he sought for his +watch. It was quarter past six. And he understood everything then. + + + + +XXI + + +Charles thought that he understood everything now. In so far as he +built a theory on the cold Argument from Design, he understood, of +course, nothing whatever. The truth was that Angela had had other things +than Mr. Manford to think of to-day. That she had gone out in her +Fordette at all was only by the merest chance. + +Trouble had come into the little house of the Flowers. As early as one +o'clock, Dr. Flower had preëmpted the family attention. Coming in from +the Medical School half an hour before his regular time, he had shut +himself in his office, without explanation; and there he sat all +afternoon, declining dinner with a shake of his head, and otherwise +strangely uncommunicative and withdrawn. Reminded that this was Friday, +which meant another lecture at half-past two, he only said in his +puzzling way: "Quite so. I have no stomach for the small talk to-day." +Mrs. Flower, stealing now and again to the dark office, doing her duty +as wife and mother, returned each time more concerned by her husband's +remoteness, less reassured by his grave statements that he was not sick, +in stomach or elsewhere. The two women spent a long and uneasy +afternoon. And at the critical moment of it--the moment when, a mile to +the west, Charles Garrott leaned out of his third-story window--Angela +sat anxious in her mother's bedroom, discussing whether or not they +should take the responsibility of calling in Dr. Blakie, on the next +block. + +But Angela did not think that her father was ill, exactly: it was more +as if his increasing queerness had reached a sort of climax. And now, by +chance,--or was it destiny, in this its favorite mask?--he quite +suddenly got over his mysterious attack; and the deepening worry lifted +from her young shoulders. Of his own accord, her father emerged from the +office and his unusual aloofness together, and came walking upstairs to +the bedroom, speaking with his own voice--speaking, indeed, more freely +than was his wont. He said at once that his headache was better now: +this being his first reference to his head at all. As if struck by his +daughter's troubled expression as he entered, he smiled at her and +patted her cheek in the kindliest way; and then, becoming thoughtful, +unexpectedly produced a two-dollar bill from his trousers pocket, and +handed it to her with some characteristically strange words about her +dowry, words which afterwards she could never quite remember. There +followed some commonplace family talk, entirely reassuring. + +And it was only then, in the certainty that everything was all right +again, that Angela allowed herself to recall her own affairs once more. +It was only then, with the thought that her recovered father very likely +wished to talk alone with her mother, that she left the bedroom and her +two parents together. At the door, she mentioned that probably she would +go out and get a little air, before it was time for supper. + +The old clock in the dining-room downstairs had then just struck five. +However, very little more time could have elapsed before the relieved +young girl, hatted and coated, issued hurrying from the kitchen door, +toward the garage that had once been a shed. Yet another minute, and she +was rolling from the alley-mouth. + +To snatch Mr. Manford from his wedding-coach: was this the calculation +that sent Angela forth in the fair eve of the disquieting day? Perhaps +such a raid and capture would not have seemed quite a crime to her, or +to any woman that ever lived. But nothing, of course, was further from +her thoughts. That she might conceivably meet Mr. Manford while she took +the air, and even exchange a few words with him, Angela did, indeed, +think, and hope. But this mild maidenly fancy was as innocent as it was +rightfully hers. Good reason she had to know that a little chat in +passing, if so be it should come about, would be no less acceptable to +Mr. Manford than to herself. Had he not told her by telephone this +morning that if he could find so much as a minute in this rushing day, +he would spend it in calling on her? + +On the eleventh floor of the Bellingham, Donald stood hastily rolling +his new sweater into a brown-paper parcel. Now into Washington Street, +the little Fordette came curving and snorting toward him: toward him, no +doubt, in a spiritual, as well as a geographical sense. And still the +full depth of the young girl's design was simply this: that her new +principal friend, going off for a gay week-end among maidens more blest +by opportunity than she, might go with a last pleasant thought of her. + +For Mr. Manford was Angela's principal friend now; there was no longer +the smallest doubt of that. On that day of culminating results last +week, when the unusual line of vehicles had stood before her door, the +stalwart engineer had definitely moved up to first place in her +thoughts. Not only had Mr. Manford called for an hour and three-quarters +that day, while Dan Jenney cooled his heels in the office, and then went +off for a walk alone: but then also he had first shown, by unmistakable +signs, that he was truly interested in her. Moreover, in the very same +moments, by a strange and rather exciting coincidence, she found herself +becoming almost certain that she was truly interested in Mr. Manford. +She must have been pretty certain, even then, for it was that night +after supper, just before she started off to the theater with Mr. +Tilletts, that she had told Dan Jenney in the parlor, sadly but firmly, +that it could never be, and given him back his ring. + +And since then, the shy girlish surmise had been further fed. One +pleasant happening continued to lead to another. When she had asked Mr. +Manford, half-jokingly, to send her some picture post-cards from New +York, for her collection, it was--again--purely from the instinctive +wish to know that she remained in her new admirer's thought, even when +he was far away. But he had sent her not only stacks of the loveliest +post-cards, showing the Flatiron Building, the Statue of Liberty, and +other well-known sights, but also the most beautiful book, called +"Queens"--a book of gorgeous pictures of American girls, all in color, +by one of the most famous artists in Chicago. Of course, common +politeness demanded that she should thank him--for "Queens," if not for +the post-cards--just as soon as he got back. And the resultant talk, +quarter of an hour over the telephone, had been just as satisfying as +possible.... + +Thus it was nothing less than a complete realignment of the coterie that +had taken place, this week. For if Mr. Manford had advanced rapidly in +the young girl's thought, even more rapidly, of course, had her old +principal friend dropped backward out of it. After the unattractive way +he had showed his pique that day, Angela had thought about Mr. Garrott, +indeed, only long enough to take a final position about him. That +position came simply to this, that if he was the sort of person who +expected to take liberties with you all the time, then he was not the +sort that she, Angela, cared to have anything to do with. She recalled +now her early premonition, that Mr. Garrott was a man of low ideals. And +she was glad to remember how she had put him in his place, the night he +had showed his real nature, and positively refused to compromise her +standards, simply to keep him on, as so many girls would have done. + +Now, in the tail of the complicated day, Angela thought only, and with +right, of her engineer. Rapidly up the Street of the Rich she drove, and +alert she kept her eyes. But, in truth, the hope in her heart had been +but a slim one; and now, with each passing block, she felt it growing +slimmer. When she got as far as the Green Park, and saw the time by the +church-clock there, it dwindled away blankly to nothing: the worry about +her father had kept her in till too late, just as she had thought all +along. In short, her mind's eye was picturing Mr. Manford already seated +in his train, when he suddenly made her start and jump by appearing at +her elbow. + +The meeting was his doing altogether. The maid scanned the sidewalks as +she proceeded; the man in a closed conveyance came skimming down the +middle of the highway. Nothing on earth could have been easier than for +him to skim on by her unseen, and nobody a whit the wiser. On the +contrary, he must have given the order to stop with instantaneous +alacrity. The very first Angela knew of Mr. Manford's nearness at all +was the sight of his head sticking out the door of a great car, just +ahead of her. + +The door was open; the car was coming to a standstill; Mr. Manford was +signaling. Nimbly, with an inner leap of happiness, the girl complied +with his obvious wishes. + +The two self-propelling vehicles, the big one and the little, stood side +by side in the middle of Washington Street, while passing chauffeurs +detoured around them with looks that cursed as they went. Between the +vehicles, on the asphaltum, stood Mr. Manford, dark head bared, speaking +sweet, hasty parting words: explaining what a terrible rush he had been +in since eight o'clock this morning, saying (and looking) how sorry he +was not to have been able to call. Eager manly words and self-conscious +manner, he was all that a girl could have wished. But then he stopped +himself, quite abruptly, as if he had recollected something, and put out +his hand with the solemnest look. "_Good_-bye!" he said, and seemed to +sigh, as if he never expected to see her again. + +But Angela did not take Mr. Manford's hand. Possibly these two minutes +should have filled the round of her expectancy; possibly not. Now there +rose in her a graceful thought which the sight of her admirer in a +conveyance of his own had momentarily rolled flat. + +Lifting her soft eyes to his, she said: "I wish--is there time for me to +drive you to the station? Or had you rather...?" + +"By Jove!" said he, staring. "That _is_ an idea!" + +The two normal young people gazed at each other through five seconds of +intense silence. When the man's gaze broke, it was only to fling it upon +the watch he had hurriedly jerked out. And that movement seemed to +settle everything. One glance was enough to satisfy the young +bridegroom that there was time. He so announced, and proceeded +accordingly. + +Thus, for the second time in fifteen minutes, Eustace and the Big Six +were sent empty about their business. And Donald, dressed to "kill" the +Carson house-party, sprang to the wheel of Angela's Fordette. + +"I'll hop her along," cried he, laughing with the excitement of the +thing, as he made the turnabout, "till she won't believe it's _her_!" + +And so he did, as old Charlie Garrott, passed unnoticed on the next +corner, could have testified, and did. Ten full blocks Donald proceeded +toward his train at a wholly honorable, indeed dangerous, celerity. And +then his single-mindedness began imperceptibly to yield. + +It was, indeed, touch-and-go with Mary Wing's male cousin, here at the +turning-point of his life. Had he not forgotten his sweater--well, who +knows? Now as the station grew steadily nearer, now as the pretty and +familiar voice spoke at his side, one thing was leading to another, and +his nervous fidgeting increased. + +It occurred to Donald, not for the first time, that he was being rushed +about a great deal here lately, with never a minute he could call his +own. Managed around all the time--that was about the size of it, here +lately: railroaded along into things, with no chance at all to stop and +think quietly what he wanted to do.... Then, in a quiet stretch before +the turn at Ninth Street, he looked down at the beguiling soft creature +beside him, whom he had come to know so easily, so quickly, and so well. +His gaze rested upon the rounded girlish bosom, rising and falling with +tender young life, at the neck fair as a lily where the V of the thin +white waist liberally revealed it, at the big eyes of a woman looking +back at him so dark and sweet. And he was surprised at the sensations +the look of these eyes now had power to draw up out of him. How? Why? +Had absence made the heart mysteriously fonder? Or was it something in +the intimacy of this swift adventure together--her sharing his dash for +the train like some one who belonged to him?... + +"I wish I didn't have to run off this way," he muttered, restively, +after a long silence. + +"I'll miss you," said she, and the dark eyes fell. + +He found the simple reply oddly stirring, arresting, and significant. He +was going to be away only three days, and she, this dear, different +fellow-being whose gentle weakness already seemed to depend on him, was +going to miss him. At some risk, for they now bounced through the +traffic of Center Street, he looked down at her again. And once again +the sum of all Donald's observations was this, that Angela was a +Woman.... + +No jawing here about the isms of the day, Browning--Tosti--no, +Tolstoy--those chaps; no arguing back at you over things a man, of +course, knows most about. No; this girl was all Woman.... + +"I suppose," said she, all at once, "there isn't a train just a little +later you could take?" + +By singular chance, the thought of the later train had that second +knocked at Donald's own mind. Marveling at the coincidence, he +hesitated, and answered weakly:-- + +"Well, there's sort of a train at 7.50--a local. But--this is the train +they're expecting me by." + +She made no reply. Glancing down, he got no answering glance: she was +looking, large-eyed and wistful, into empty space. Her silence, that +look, seemed in some subtle way to lay hold on whatever was best in the +young man, compellingly. Beyond his understanding, they seemed to +envelop Donald with a sudden profound pressure, immensely detaining. + +Now, over lower roofs, the station clock-tower, two blocks away, shot +suddenly up into the fading sky before them. They saw together that it +was twenty minutes past five. + +"Oh, hurry!... You've caught it, haven't you?" + +The speech, for some reason, pressed more than the silence. He answered, +shortly: "Remains to be seen." Down the long hill, the little Fordette +raced and rattled. The young man's hard breathing became noticeable. And +the broad entrance of the station was but half a block away when, with +abrupt violence, he threw out his clutch and jammed on his brake. + +"I've missed it!" said he, in a voice that brooked no argument. + +Tommy's valuable gift had stopped with a hard bump. Angela did not mind +the inconvenience. Her eyes were rewarding her principal friend. Her +heart seemed to turn a little within her. Into her cheeks flowed the +sweet warm pink. + +Together, the two normal young people laughed, suddenly, a little +unsteadily. Then, with gayety and some suppressed excitement, they sat +discussing an important point, viz.: what to do with their two hours' +holiday, before the later train? + +It was quickly decided that they should go home. Angela's Home was the +one intended; Donald it was who decided the point, as befitted the man. +He flung out a commanding hand to notify whom it might concern that he +purposed to face about, yet again. And the faithful Fordette, which had +set forth with so frail a hope, turned and snorted homeward with the +great victory of its career. + +Angela sat with shining eyes. She would not have been a woman, she +would not have been human but a plaster saint on a pedestal, if her +natural happiness had not had the added poignancy of a triumph among her +sisters. Just how far Mr. Manford considered himself interested in Miss +Carson, she had never yet been able to determine exactly; but that +beautiful damsel's position in the scheme of things she, of course, +understood perfectly. If her own intuitions had lacked, there were the +plain hints Cousin Mary had given her only the other day. Hence, since +last week, it was impossible to view Miss Carson other than as a rival, +an enemy almost, and one possessing all the odds. For Miss Carson was +rich and prominent, with powerful family connections behind and around +her, and every possible opportunity and advantage: while she, +Angela,--as we know,--had practically not a single rich relation on +earth, and not one soul to help her but herself. And still--here was Mr. +Manford at her side. + +They stepped up on the verandah of the home; and the girl remembered the +anxiety of the afternoon. But, listening as she opened the front-door, +she heard from above the distinct murmur of her mother's voice, talking +to her father, and knew again, with fresh relief, that all was well. Mr. +Manford having accepted an invitation to stay to supper, she disappeared +briefly to confer with Luemma--bribing Luemma with the promise of her +old black skirt, in short, to go out and purchase certain extras, in +honor of the guest. Returning again, she found her guest standing in the +dark hall exactly where she had left him, motionless, a strange absorbed +look on his masculine face. And as he met her eyes, there in the dimness +by the hatstand, some of the fine color seemed to ebb from his cheek. + +They went into the parlor, and sat down on the dented sofa; and her +conquest, still, was but part of a day that had belonged to another. But +now it quickly became clear that matters had taken a headlong jump, +beyond all calculation. + +It was, indeed, as if the man himself was profoundly reacted upon by +those proofs of his own interest which had so stirred the maiden. +Unknown to any one, he had missed his train and important engagements +for nothing else than to be here with this girl: and it was as if the +fact of itself thrust her far forward in his imagination, wrapped her +about with a new startling significance. Men didn't do these things for +any girl that came along. Or, possibly, the heady sensations were but +the cumulative results of a slower process, and the friendly vehicle now +resting at the door had done its decisive work before to-day. At any +rate, Angela soon observed that Mr. Manford's behavior was quite +embarrassed and peculiar; and of course, in the womanly way, his +manifestations reacted instantly upon her. The more peculiarly +interested Mr. Manford showed himself to be in her, the more peculiarly +interesting she found him. Stranger still, the more she found him +advancing, the more it was in her mind to retreat. Or, no--not in her +mind; it was, of course, much deeper than that. This reluctance could be +nothing else than the ancient virginal recoil, somehow remembered, +strange latter-day reminiscence of old flights through the woods. + +Instinctively, Angela talked commonplaces. The man's replies showed that +he hardly listened to her. As she recounted how her father had missed a +lecture for the first time to-day, he interrupted brusquely:-- + +"What's that ring you're wearing?" + +Oh, that; oh, an old family ring, she explained, that her mother had +given her on a birthday once. He must have seen it a dozen of times. Mr. +Manford said, on the contrary, that he had never seen it before in his +life. So--was it the voluntary lingering, perhaps, a backward look +through the leaves, as it were?--Angela lifted her hand for him to see. +The hand was tightly clasped at once. "Where's that other ring--the one +you were going to wear till--you know?" Oh, that one? She had given +that one back to the person it belonged to. When? Oh, last week. Why? +Because she knew then that she could never care for him. "Does that mean +you know somebody you--you care for more?" She said that _that_ wouldn't +mean anything so very much; and thereupon made an effort to withdraw her +hand. + +"There is a time for lighting a fire; there is a time for leaving it to +burn of itself." Put otherwise, Angela saw that Mr. Manford wasn't even +glancing at her ring. However, her proper gesture to recover it +accomplished no more than her commonplaces. For the cells and tissues of +the gentleman, too, harbored ancestral memories, masculine recollections +of agreeable old captures. And the touch and cling of the warm soft +_her_ had seemed to set them all to singing, drawing him, drawing him. +So far from recovering that hand of hers, in fine, the fleeing maiden +abruptly lost possession of the other one. + +Thus in the storied way, there approached the second Occurrence on a +Sofa. It may have been only the last recoil; it may have been that that +other occurrence, fruitless contact with the low ideals of man, had +permanently injured the womanly trustfulness. There was, at least, a +kind of terror among the mingled sensations, as Angela beheld the second +event resistlessly approaching. + +"Oh, please!... You mustn't ..." + +And--so sardonically does life twine joy with sorrow in its willful +tangle--it was as she spoke these words that Mrs. Flower, standing at +the head of the dark stairs, first called Angela's name. However, that +call died unheard. The mother's voice was low, the daughter, for her +part, could be conscious of nothing but that this dear and imperious Mr. +Manford was a very difficult person to resist. Perhaps something in her +had been against resistance from the first; but now, over his +inconclusive endearments, the pardonable inquiry sighed from her:-- + +"Oh, why do you do this? Tell me." + +Angela's mother stood two steps farther down: "_Angela!... Angela!_" + +But Angela, deep in her great business in the world, once again failed +to hear the alarmed low summons. Now sweet nearer speech filled her +woman's ear. For Mr. Manford, it is welcome to record, did not run, as +the cads run, from that artless challenge: he met it ready, like a +soldier and a gentleman. That touch of lips softer than a flower had +taught this young man, once and for all, what it was he wanted; huskily +his voice came from a swelling chest. "I love you!" said Miss Carson's +anointed, unmistakably. And then, indeed, the maiden, unaware of all +else, let her conquered cheek rest upon her victor's breast: still and +awed with the discovery that she loved, and in the same breath thrilled +with the knowledge that she was a Successful Girl. + +For our ruling passions are strong in death: more particularly, of +course, when the death in question is not our own.... + +Yet her moment of exquisite peace was brief enough, poor child. Scarcely +had the dearest words been spoken, scarcely had she known her awe and +her thrill, when all was snatched from her. That other voice outside, +more insistent, struck suddenly in to her unsteadied mind; too quickly, +the surrendered cheek lifted. There was a swift upstarting, the abrupt +parting of lovers: and after that fear descending, precipitate and dark +as a cloud, over the new great joy. + +The course of the succeeding hours was never clear in Angela's memory. +There was a rush of unfamiliar and frightening activity. Donald was gone +at a run for Dr. Blakie. She herself fled for Mrs. Doremus, on whose +judgment her mother much relied. Mysteriously, Mrs. Finchman and poor +Jennie appeared, tipping up the steps. Then Mr. Garrott stood suddenly +in the hall, with Cousin Mary and Mrs. Wing, all very grave and +breathless, they had come so fast. Mr. Garrott must have left very soon; +there was nothing for him to do; but Cousin Mary, who had once meant to +be a doctor, took charge of everything from the start, and was very +helpful. She slept that night in Wallie's room. + +At ten o'clock, Donald left her to take Mrs. Wing home; but he, her new +comforter, returned directly, in the sweetest way, to say good-night. +Earlier in the evening Donald had dispatched a telegram to Mrs. Kingsley +at Hatton, in which he said: "Serious illness in my family prevents +coming." The due excuse was strong enough, in all conscience. But the +matter had gone beyond illness now. + + * * * * * + +Thus it was that the strange day, already memorable to Charles Garrott, +memorable, too, to Mary Wing, turned past all counting into the +unforgettable day of Angela's life. Thus, into the little house in +Center Street, life and death came stepping side by side. + +After this day, there came another, and another and another: and still +it seemed that death overshadowed life, and joy was overwhelmed in +grief. The shadow of this first final parting seemed to close down on +the young girl's happiness like a cover, and for a space her engagement +was less real to her than the shut office downstairs, the empty seat at +the table. + +But youth, after all, is made for life, and thereby equipped with a +merciful resilience. The passage of time, mere use, worked wonders. And +Angela's blessing it was, no doubt, that from the beginning she had +others than herself to think about, and the need for much activity. +First and foremost, there was Donald, who was with her morning, noon, +and night, whose first sight of her in a black dress had moved him +almost to tears. It was not fair to the man who had won her that she +should give way to a limitless melancholy. Beyond that, loomed the +sudden colossal fact of the wedding, which would have to take place +almost immediately; for her duty now was to her future husband, and the +demands of his work must overcome her girlish shrinkings from such +unwonted haste. And a wedding must mean clothes, at all times, and +clothes, even at the plainest and simplest, must mean some thought and +some diversion. + +Insensibly, death turned back to life again. The great confused day of +Angela's life was a week old; it was two weeks old; it was three. And +winter now was fading from the softening air... + +They were the quietest weeks imaginable. Except her mother and her +_fiancé_, Angela saw no one for days together, not even Mary Wing. For +Mary, as it happened, was sick at this time--her first illness in five +years, so Mrs. Wing said. She had caught cold, it seemed, in the wet at +the funeral, and the cold had developed into quite a serious attack of +bronchitis, which kept her in bed two weeks or more. Thus the young +couple, in their mourning, were left completely to themselves. In their +isolation, in the still little parlor, they were planning at great +length about their future, going over and over their new common problems +from every possible angle. And the more Angela's fatherlessness was +accepted as a permanent fact in the order of the future, the clearer it +became that this fact must color and affect everything else. + +In chief, this question of the girl's came more and more to the front +of the loverly discussions: How could she go off to wild remote Wyoming, +now that her mother was a widow? + + + + +XXII + + +It was March now, the mild March of an early spring. There came new +days, zephyrous and sweet. All the world seemed to love a lover. But +other matters were afoot in the world, too, necessarily: afoot even in +the old coterie itself. + +Charles Garrott, descending Miss Grace's steps on an afternoon that +looked like April and felt like May, thought not of young Romance. What +with the groom's absorption, and Mary Wing's unprecedented illness, the +old principal friend had, indeed, heard little or nothing of the happy +pair through these days. He had accepted the event, long since, once and +for all, with fatalistic philosophy; and though the nuptials were now +but six days distant, they were far from his mind in this moment, as, +his hated tutor's stint done, he turned his long stride hurriedly toward +Olive Street. + +Charles, as we know, was not a caller. It was true that he had hardly +seen Mary Wing since the day when she, the heroine of his write-ups, had +so suddenly indicated herself as his larger heroine as well; true also +that, in the engrossed and very fruitful solitude of the Studio +succeeding, he had thought of her much, bookishly and otherwise. But +these facts had not changed the essential nature of Charles. Still he +was not a caller; still when he rang people's door-bells, it was morally +certain that he had definite matters to urge upon their notice. + +And so it was to-day. Charles, in a word, had conceived a new plan for +helping Mary. + +That she, the admirable, by way of reward for her smashing denial of the +Ego, should find herself fixed for life as a grammar-school teacher, +"demoted" and disgraced: this state of things had naturally seemed +unendurable to Mary's good friend. That Mary did not need his help, that +he recognized her now as competent, in the finest sense, to manage her +own affairs henceforward, seemed to have little or nothing to do with +the case. Hence, while she lay withdrawn from the battle of life with +bronchitis, the helper had been elaborately at work on new lines: +stalking School Board members for Mary, in fine, with great cunning. But +this plan, unluckily, his fourth and most troublesome, had lately +collapsed about his ears. It had cost the young man much valued time, +and not a little money for lunches; and the net practical result of it +had been to leave him angrily conscious of "influence," mysteriously +pervasive, and by no means possessed by him. A friendly disposition +toward Mary, personally, seemed to be everywhere joined to an unshakable +conviction that she could not hope to get back to the High School before +the fall, if then. Such was the fruit of five diplomatic conferences: +the sixth had stopped Charles short. Young Dr. Hazen, who was almost as +much Mary's representative on the School Board as Senff was Mysinger's, +informed him that Mary herself had already canvassed over the Board with +him, Hazen, and abandoned all hope in that quarter. + +What, indeed, could he do for Mary Wing that she could not do better for +herself? + +The fifth plan concerned Public Opinion again, and a new use of the gift +he had. It inspired less confidence in its author than any that had +preceded it. And it was to submit it, in advance, for Mary's discussion +and approval, that Charles now presented himself at the Wings' front +door. + +However, he met with a disappointment. Mary was out. She had gone to the +Flowers' soon after luncheon--unexpectedly, it appeared--and, at +half-past four, was not yet back. That seemed more or less surprising. +Mrs. Wing, who had answered his ring, looked somewhat concerned, he +thought. However, as it was agreed that Mary could not remain with +Angela indefinitely, the caller decided, after brief hesitation,--for +the Studio allured in these days as never before,--to wait for her. + +So he came again into the sitting-room, and Mrs. Wing sat to keep him +company. Naturally, there was but one subject for their conversation. + +Charles liked Mrs. Wing. She always began every conversation with him by +asking: "And how did you find your dear mother on your last visit?" +Mary's mother had never seen his mother, and possibly never would, but +(being a frightful sentimentalist) she assumed that all mothers are +dear. It was next her habit to inquire whether Charles had written any +stories lately, and why they never saw anything of his in the magazines. +Such things tended to create a bond. And recently the tie had been +strengthened by an unusually intimate talk on the subject of Mary, whose +surrender of her great prize had, indeed, upset and distressed her +mother even more than Charles had predicted. + +To-day, again, Mrs. Wing appeared somewhat unlike her usual calm self. +She omitted her inquiry about Charles's writing altogether (thus denying +him his chance to mention the recent rather gratifying acceptance of +Dionysius, no less), and the flattering things she kept saying of Angela +had, to his ear, a faintly tentative ring, requiring his confirmation. +But his first vague wonder, whether anything could have happened, was +soon lost in other reactions. Thus, he had to wince a little in +agreeing, once more, that Donald's future wife was a thoroughly "womanly +girl." Few authorities enjoy denying the ripe sum of their own best +thinking. But a later remark of Mrs. Wing's took a much deeper twist in +his mind. + +"Really," she said, slowly and dubiously, following a pause, "I have but +one fault to find with Donald's choice, and that is--well, frankly, +Angela seemed to care so little for Paulie and Neddy Warder.... And +Donald was such a goose over them, dear boy." + +As he did not see his way clear to replying to that, "I hope you're +mistaken, ma'am," Charles merely smiled vaguely, and said nothing. But +what he thought, on the delicate implication, was nothing about Angela +at all--only that Donald had been rather less of a goose over Paulie and +Neddy than Mary Wing had been.... + +Then the sitting-room clock ticked for a space, while Mrs. Wing communed +with herself. And Charles, gazing out into the park, waiting for his +friend, thought how it was that a young woman's work--even an +extraordinary young woman like Mary--always subtly lacked just that +ultimate touch of grim seriousness which justified the "fierce hackings +away" of a man. For, as an abstract truth, there was positively no such +thing as a Permanent Spinster: and women who were not spinsters, and +normally desired Paulies and Neddies of their own, could not possibly +fulfill their longings without serious complications to themselves, then +and thenceforward. It was no human or escapable "tyranny" that had made +Woman, to this degree, to her glory or her disaster, forever the victim +of her sex: and, by the same token, fixed the final responsibility for +the economic support of the family upon the shoulders of the predestined +and uncompromised provider, Man.... + +Yes, then and thenceforward ... Could you, for example, imagine Mary +Wing--who had had chances to marry before now, who might reasonably +marry at any time--could you picture Mary packing off her three little +darlings to a crèche every morning, that she might go and grow her soul +at a desk somewhere? Maybe so; but he wondered.... + +He was thinking whether he could contrive to discuss the crèche and +endowment arguments in his novel--for of course you could make a story +carry just a certain amount of "solid stuff," and only dreary prigs of +readers would lie still while you tried to feed them forcibly with a +spoon--when all at once Mrs. Wing, near by, was heard to strike her +hands together, with a little ejaculation. + +"Oh, Mr. Garrott! I do believe Mary's at the High School all the time!" + +That made the thoughtful visitor turn swiftly enough. + +"At the _High School_?" + +"It's so stupid of me!" she explained, with some relief, it seemed. +"I've just remembered. You know, she never cleared her papers and things +out of her office closet there, and it got on her mind when she was +sick. And to-day, when she came in from school, she told me she had +arranged with Mr. Geddie over the telephone--the man who has her office +now--to go and attend to it this afternoon. Yes, that's it--I'm sure!" + +"Oh!" said Charles, not a little perplexed. "And then, you mean--she +decided to go to the Flowers' instead?" + +"Well, to go there first--I suppose. Donald came in just as she finished +lunch--to talk with her about something. Then, when he had gone, Mary +told me she was going down to see Angela. It was all rather +unexpected--and somehow the High School went out of my mind completely." + +"But I hope nothing's happened?" he said quickly. + +"Well--I don't know that there has." + +Perplexity passed at once into the certainty that something had +happened. The instant thought in the young man's mind was: What's Angela +done now? Having risen, he gazed with direct inquiry at his elderly +friend. But her eyes glanced away from him; and she put him off further +by repeating: "It was stupid of me to keep you." + +Mrs. Wing added that Mary was certainly at the High School now. Charles, +turning disturbed away, remarked that perhaps he would still be in time +to help with the office cleaning, and she said that was very kind of +him. + +"She'll be glad to see you, I know. Indeed, she has appreciated all +you've done for her--those beautiful articles, for example--more than +you quite realize, perhaps." + +But the young man shook his head, and said with a kind of bitterness: +"I've never done anything for her in my life." + +And then, as he took the lady's hand to say good-bye, he asked abruptly: +"But why shouldn't I know what's happened, Mrs. Wing?" + +"Oh," said Mary's mother, and hesitated. + +"Yes, why shouldn't you?" said she, and hesitated again. + +"Well," she began again slowly, "it's nothing so serious, as I +said,--just a fresh disappointment for Mary,--that is really all it +amounts to with me. Very likely Donald has intimated to you that he was +not going to Wyoming?" + +The caller stared at her dumbfounded. + +"Not going to Wyoming! Why!--why not?" + +"Well, he feels, in his new circumstances," said Mrs. Wing, uneasily, +"that it would be more suitable to accept the position in New York. +But--I really had little opportunity to discuss it with Mary. She +seemed--to be frank--much disturbed, she had so set her heart on this +work in the West--" + +"More _suitable_!... How?" + +"Well, for one thing--it doesn't seem fair to separate Angela so far +from her mother, as would have to be the case in Wyoming." + +But into Charles's mind there had suddenly popped back a stray remark +let fall by Donald, in the only talk he had had with him for weeks: "I +tell you, Charlie, it's pretty rough on a girl to be dragged off to live +in a shack nine miles from nowhere!" A mere passing observation, that he +had paid no attention to at the time--but was that it? Was that the +reason why another of Mary Wing's most cherished plans must suddenly +cave in? + +He stood utterly dismayed. + +"So Mrs. Flower," he asked, with some want of composure, "is going to +live with them in New York?" + +"Oh, no,--not for the present, I believe. She feels, and so do I, that +young couples should be left to themselves to make their start. But +they will be so near that they can visit back and forth--which would be +impossible if Donald--" + +"But Mrs. Flower can't live here by herself?" + +"Well, no," said Mrs. Wing, and fussed with books on the table. "That +has been the great problem, of course. Dr. Flower's death has +complicated the situation sadly. I believe the present plan is for +Wallace--the boy, you know--to come back and live with her--just for the +next few months, while Donald and Angela are finding themselves." + +Charles stood without a word. But perhaps his look betrayed what he +felt, for Mrs. Wing threw out her hands with a helpless gesture, and +cried: "Well, he is the man of the family now!" + +"However," she added, turning away, "perhaps Mary will be able to hit +upon some other arrangement. That is what she went there for--to talk +the whole situation over with Angela." + +But Charles, who had always thought of Angela as "soft" and Mary as +"hard," seemed somehow quite certain that that talk had accomplished +nothing. With brief speech, he moved toward the door. Doubtless struck +with the fixed gravity of his look, Mary's mother, who had been an +old-fashioned girl herself once, said with an effort, and yet firmly +too:-- + +"It is life itself that is hard. Marriage means--readjustment. That is +the only comment to make." + +It was precisely the point on which the silent young man did not agree +with her. To him, as to her, all the sharp force of this tidings was, +indeed, in Mary's new overthrow. And yet for the moment there seemed to +be room in him for nothing else but comments on the vast void in Mary's +so different cousin. + +Angela was wanting in the responsible qualities of a full-grown human +being. Her fatal lack was in human worth. It was the sum of all he had +thought about her since the day he had called upon her poor father. It +was the cap and climax of all he meant to say about her in his New +Novel. + +So Charles took his leave with an abstracted face. + +In the drawer of the Studio table, there was growing now, night by +night, a fresh stack of manuscript, steady and firm upon a new Line. +Mary Wing had straightened out this Line for Charles: Mary who had +taught him once and for all that a woman could be finely independent, +and still uphold the interdependence which held the world together. Yet +Mary, the admirable, was after all but his "contrast" and his foil: it +was for the peculiarities of her opposite that he had finally whetted +his pencil. And, in the intense and retrospective thinking which went +along with the best writing he had ever yet done, the young man +considered that he had got to the bottom of Angela's case, and her +sisters', quite thoroughly explored the souls of the Waiting Women of +Romance. + +But this news of her, these final touches as to the Nice Girl's brother +and her future husband, seemed to fling at him, as it were, a last +conclusive chapter for his "Notes on Women." That marriage meant +readjustments he, the authority, doubtless understood as well as +another. That this marriage might make it necessary for Wallie Flower to +be readjusted out of his education: even that was allowed as +conceivable. But that the very first act of Angela's new life should be +to influence her husband in the direction of his weakness, and, as it +seemed, of her own good comfort--what was this, indeed, but a brilliant +certification of all the grounds of his own attack?... + +The author's face, the author's swift feet, were set toward the High +School. His errand--now--was to cheer up Mary Wing. "Make her look on +the bright side": so her mother had urged at parting. That necessity +remained as a soreness and dull anger through all the young man's +consciousness. And yet, in nearly a mile's walk, he hardly thought of +Mary once. + +He was surveying, as if from a new peak, the unhappy situation of +Home-Makers with their Homes yet to seek: the considerable army of the +involuntary spinsters of leisure. And more than ever now, perhaps, he +saw these sisters as a Type, pathetically marked: the innocent +creatures, the helpless victims, of a dying ideal of themselves. + +Here was poor little Angela, his Novel's case in point. She was born a +human being, she was born a being with sex. And in twenty-six years' +contact with the rich and human world, she had gathered nothing to her +sum beyond what tended to enhance her sex's attraction. So selecting, +she had permanently lost the fullness of her double birthright: all in +nice, unconscious and inevitable response to an environment which +continually assured her that being a woman was enough. + +If life had been real and bright and turbulent around her, and she sat +within and polished her pink nails, it was because she was a woman. If +she was given no education beyond the demands of provincial parlor-talk, +no training for her hands, no occupation for her head, if no one ever +thought of her as a full-statured being who must pay her way in +substantial coin; this, again, was because she was a woman, and a woman +(if any one bothered with argument at all) some day might--or might +not--be the mother of children. Surely it had not been Angela's fault if +she was early apprised, though through a sweet mist, that she had but +one faculty of any value in the world's market; not her fault if, amid +general approval, she innocently spent her youth and idleness in +tricking out her value, and bringing it steadily to the attention of the +only beings who could have a use for it. Least of all was it her fault +if her peculiar business, and her odd specialized training, were +bounded, not by marriage, but only by a wedding-day. For the final +unnaturalness, the crowning wrong in her situation was exactly this: +that, being told that she must be a wife or nothing, she was +coincidently told that being a wife was a matter which a nice girl did +well to know nothing about.... + +The author, sharpening his phrases, walked in angry abstraction. He +passed old acquaintances as if he had never seen them before.... + +Oh, it was true (he conceded), a thousand times true, that many women of +this crude bringing-up did develop, when their time came, a splendid +competence over all their special field. But it was a little too much to +assume that every creature in the female form could be counted on to +perform such a feat of pure character. And Romance, which gallantly or +indifferently made these exact assumptions, defending and cherishing the +queer but comfortable orientalization with the cloak of false +"womanliness," scarcely pretended to believe its own agreeable fictions. + +Here was Angela again, his little case in point. Angela was reasonably +good-looking, adopted a flattering attitude toward eligible young men, +knew her place, and kept no opinions on matters of interest to her +betters; hence she was called a "womanly" woman. Being womanly implied +the possession of certain home-making virtues, present and to come; +hence it was assumed, and she inevitably and naïvely assumed, that she +possessed these virtues. Odd as these deductions sounded, he himself, he +could not deny, had swallowed them once,--that night at the Redmantle +Club,--romantically accepting the appearance for the reality, willfully +investing the humdrum commonplace with the full beauties of the ideal. +But for him, at least, all obstinate optimisms concerning La Femme had +exploded with a bang in a party-call. You did not gather figs of +thistles. And now it was no longer conceivable to him that she who in +quarter of a century had developed no human interests, tastes, resources +at all, who seemed to lack even an average interest in Paulie and Neddy +Warder, should all at once blossom marvelously into the responsible and +"justified" matron. No, for him, Angela at forty, having "let herself +go" now that nothing more was expected of her, sat forever in a room +that she had not swept, plaintively reminding a fatigued Donald of the +priceless gift of her Self. + +And Donald, though his interest in exploring the creature once so +elaborately mysteried was long since utterly exhausted, would probably +take that argument amiss no more than Dr. Flower had done. Romantic +males, with their poor opinion of the worth of a woman, might hope for +true domesticity, true maternity: but in their hearts they had thought +all along, with a wink, that "possession" was enough. It was "what a +woman was for." + +But in that they were mistaken. Possession was not enough. Being a +female was not enough. Great heavens!--thought Charles Garrott, and +muttered as he strode.... What a shame, what a staggering waste of rich +human potentiality, to classify and file away one half the world as only +"_marital rights_!" + +Wasn't it about time to stop all this? Wasn't it time for modern writers +to pull away the rosy veils and let the Angelas meet themselves--while +they could still do something about it? Didn't it lay up needless future +misery to go on deceiving helpless women into putting a preposterous +overvaluation upon the mere possession of their sex? Lastly, and above +all, wasn't it a colossal libel on all womanhood to accept the strut and +mannerism born of this deception as the true essentials of +"womanliness"? + +_Womanly!..._ Why, womanliness was a prime human quality, integrally +necessary to the work of the world--a great positive quality, not a +little passive one, productive, not sterile, of the spirit, not of the +body. Womanliness was the mother and guardian of great social virtues: +of a finer and deeper emotion, of more sensitive perceptions, of a +subtler intuition of the sources of life, of an all-mothering sympathy, +a more embracing tenderness. Womanliness had no more to do with the +light bright plumage of the mating-season than a waxed mustache had to +do with being a soldier. + +There was a time, he understood well, when the fact of womanhood had +implied substantialities: when being a wife meant also being a domestic +factory superintendent, not to mention being a continuous mother. That +time was gone forever. You might argue for the passing, you might argue +against it: meanwhile it had happened. Inexorable economics had dried +the heart from the old tradition; and in the sudden vacuum thus created +there moved and thrived anomalous little creatures who never knew that +they had lost all touch with reality. Untroubled by a rumor of change, +Angela held contentedly to the remnant, a low ideal of herself. But it +was not so with her finer sisters. For the passing of the old +womanliness of four walls and dependence had flung a window wide to a +nobler prospect and a vaster horizon. And already the woman of to-morrow +was rising in her lusty strength to prove her fundamental racial virtue, +her womanliness, upon nothing less than the world. + +Well, hadn't he told Mary long ago that the object of all this was only +to make women more like themselves? In that, he would stake his life, he +had been exactly right. + + * * * * * + +A concrete High School smote across the vision of the seer, and the +cloud-stepper's feet trod but the hard sidewalk again. + +Groping for truth upon his favorite subject, he had been briefly lost to +the issues of the practical: he had a power of concentration, as he +would have been the first to admit. But the flight of his rhetoric was, +after all, only an incident of his indignation and distress; which +sentiments, he knew all the time, yet had to be faced on their own +account. And now, as he rounded his last corner, and his destination +rose abruptly before him, Charles recalled for what he had been walking +so fast and far. + +Or, no ... What was he coming for exactly? + +It was all very fine and easy, as a writer, to polish up demolishing +phrases for poor little Angela. But what did he, as a man and a friend, +have to do for Mary Wing? + +The helper crossed the street in the lingering vernal sunshine. Here was +the great building where Mary had once held an important place, where +she came to-day, by special permission only, to remove the last traces +of that association. Now that plan with which he had set out to-day +looked back at the young man with rather a small face, and wry. He had +never thought much of the plan: only to persuade Mary to let him make +public the facts about her rejected honor from the Education +League--legitimate news for the papers, fine peg for a new publicity +campaign, etc. But all at once he knew that he wasn't even going to +mention this to Mary now. With what words, then, did he rush to her in +her fresh disaster? Doubtless to say, "I'm awfully sorry." A stirring +exploit. Hadn't she shown him on that other day that she, the strong, +had no desire for his fruitless sympathies? + +The truth was, and he had known it from the beginning, he rather shrank +from seeing Mary at all now, in the stress of this final defeat. Final, +yes: for while Angela was attaining success to the full limit of her +small conceptions, every aspiration that Mary had cherished, literally, +had one by one gone down. And if this last was not the worst, perhaps, +neither was it the easiest to bear. No, if anything on earth was +calculated to harden and embitter a woman who could not easily yield, +surely it must be her own so easy overthrow by pink cheeks and soft, +empty eyes. + +And these white-stone steps Charles now ascended had for him a +reminiscent power, by no means comforting. The last time he had trod +these steps, he had sworn, in anger, that he, single-handed, would force +the School Board to bring Mary Wing back here, without delay. Mary would +have a right to smile, if she ever heard of that. She had been thrown +out of this building only because she was a woman: under all the +argument, that was positively the reason. And now three months had +passed, and he, her helper, came to say, "Well, I'm very sorry...." + +Charles pushed through the tall bronze doors of the High School, where +he had seen Miss Trevenna one day, strode long-faced into the dim spaces +of the entrance hall. It was five o'clock: the whole building seemed +silent and empty. A rare sense of impotence within him, troubled also by +a secret shrinking, the young man went stalking across the corridor +toward the stairways. But just here he encountered a brief diversion. + +A glazed door at his left, at which he happened to be looking, came +suddenly open. The door was marked, in neat gold letters, PRINCIPAL'S +OFFICE. And reasonably enough, the jaunty figure that came stepping out +proved to be none other than the principal himself. + +Always a hard but uncomplaining worker, Mr. Mysinger was evidently just +leaving for the day. Light overcoat on his arm, stick and gloves in his +hand, he whistled blithely to himself, to the tune of labor done. But at +the sight of Charles Garrott here on his domain, he checked his gay air, +stood still in his official door. + +Over half the corridor, the two men gazed at each other. And Mr. +Mysinger's specious face, after the first surprised stare, assumed the +smile of amity and pleasure. + +"Ah, Garrott! Well met!" + +Charles had halted, too, without premeditation. The chance meeting here +was natural enough. All that gave it the force of coincidence was that +he had in that instant been thinking, not for the first time, of Mary +Wing's old saying of this man: "If he let either Board know that he +wanted me back, it would be done to-morrow...." + +"I've wanted to see you for some time," said Mr. Mysinger, smiling and +easy--"about a certain matter of common interest--" + +On the great stairway the sound of descending feet was heard, those of a +belated teacher, doubtless. But neither man looked to see. And within +the sedentary Charles there was slowly spreading a vast iciness, akin to +a bodily nausea. + +"Can't you step into the office half a minute?" + +"Certainly." + +Mary's former principal stood aside from his door, bowing, with +elaborate welcome. Charles, advancing, passed through it, passed through +the anteroom, stepped silent into an office large as a magnate's. Here +he stood, just inside the door. Mysinger, following with his faint +swagger, went by him toward his handsome flat desk. + +"Have a cigar?" + +"Thanks, no." + +The good-looking principal leaned against his desk, facing his visitor +with the same air of too good-humored assurance. + +"Garrott, let's be frank," said he. "You feel that I am hostile to one +of your friends, and stand in the way of her advancement in the schools. +You are really mistaken in that. So far as my personal opinions might +carry weight, I am anxious for her--for all the teachers--to go forward +just as fast as their abilities would justify. But as you know, Garrott, +the Board and the Superintendent settle all these matters, and I myself +am only one of the teachers under their direction." + +He paused encouragingly. But the young man at the door only continued to +look at him with the same lidless fixedness. + +"At the same time," said the principal, a rather more resolute note +tingeing his voice, "you appreciate as well as I that teachers +can't be picked up and moved about like chessmen. We must have +some--permanence--some constancy--to insure efficiency. And frankly, my +personal judgment--after fifteen years' experience, and considering the +brilliant work of Johnson Geddie--is that you could hardly hope to see +your friend promoted--well, immediately." + +"So you would advise--?" + +Mysinger's eyelid seemed to flutter a little: he really did have a +purpose, it seemed. + +"I am told--ahem!--that your friend has recently received a most +flattering offer--from elsewhere?" + +How had he known this? "Well?" + +"Well, the party in question," said he, with his set smile, "seems to +have a certain prejudice against me. She refuses to speak to me, in +fact,--why, I cannot imagine. All the same, I am, and always have been, +her sincere well-wisher. And after earnest thought, I honestly feel sure +that her friends would make no mistake if they urged her not to let slip +this--ahem--well-deserved promotion. I thought," he added, his gaze a +threat now, "I'd better bring the point to your attention." + +Charles's fixed eyes did not waver. But before them there unrolled a +thin gray mist, briefly shutting the principal from his sight. The mist +queerly turned red, and became shot with fiery sparks. Then all cleared; +and, behind him, the young man's hand felt for, and touched, the open +door. Gently, moving only his arm, he shut it. And it seemed to him that +he must be turning white inside. + +"You," said he, "are more used to insulting women than I am." + +Mysinger flung up a deprecating hand. "Tut, tut, my dear sir! Talk of +that sort does no good whatever, I assure you. You would do well to look +at the matter in a sensible way, and believe that I speak--_Here! +What're you doing there?_" + +The principal had suddenly heard a strange sound: the click of his own +key in his own lock, in fine. At the same time, his visitor was observed +to be regarding him with a new and peculiar intentness, arresting and +significant. And his only reply to his host's indignant inquiry was to +drop the key in question in his coat-pocket. + +Now Mary's old conqueror, and his own, had straightened from that +lounging swagger. His voice rang more angrily: "You--! What do you think +you're up to, anyway--?" + +"I think I'm going to beat you to a pulp," said the author,--"_you +puppy_!" + +And he started forward with a kind of bound, like one who goes to fill, +at last, a long-felt need. + + + + +XXIII + + +Mary Wing was considered a reliable person. When she announced that she +would clean out an office closet on a certain day, you could make your +plans on the thing's being done. And to-day--if her usual principles +might have weakened a little--Mary was further bound by the definite +engagement she had made. As Charles had reflected, a demoted +grammar-school teacher could not walk in and out of a principal's office +like one who had some rights there. + +Mary had not remained at the Flowers' interminably, after all. She had +entered the High School before Charles Garrott had arrived at Olive +Street, and had been upstairs for half an hour, when Charles, following +on to help her, strode through the great bronze doors. Nevertheless, she +was a full hour behind the time mentioned to Mr. Johnson Geddie over the +telephone, and this increased her hope that her only too obliging +successor would not be found waiting for her. However, Mr. Geddie was +found waiting for her; very much so, in fact. Nothing could have +exceeded the exuberance of his courtesy, and nothing could have been +less welcome. + +The new assistant principal was a plump, white person, in whose face a +reddish mustache and gold-rimmed spectacles--his own personal addenda, +as it were--were the only salient features. Not brilliant, he was rising +by character, evinced in an unconquerable optimism. "Keep a-smiling, +brother--it costs you nothing!"--so Mr. Geddie's roguish eyes seemed +continually to say. But perhaps they seemed to say it more than normally +to-day, by way of striking a happy average with the quite unsmiling late +incumbent. + +Mary, during her brief tenancy, had stored here a long accumulation of +printed matter, chiefly duplicate files of "The New School," with sundry +assorted leaflets of the Education Reform League. Her task to-day was to +go through these files, destroy what was no longer useful to her, and +pack the rest for removal. Her successor had thoroughly prepared for +her. There on the floor was the packing-case, there on the floor was a +table to sit at, there against the wall stood a stepladder. But Mr. +Geddie would not weary in well-doing. The moment he understood what the +proposition was, as he termed it, he said that, of course, he would help +Miss Wing. Refusals drowned in a sea of smiles. Allow Miss Wing to climb +that rickety ladder, and lift down those heavy stacks of magazines? +Positively, she must not ask him that. Trouble? A pleasure, Miss Wing; a +genu-wine pleasure. + +He had his way, as people of strong sunny character always do. Mary, +having overcome the impulse to make an excuse and abandon the +enterprise, sat at the little table. Kind Mr. Geddie went up and down +the ladder, fetching her dusty armfuls to sort over. In the intervals, +for he had the shorter end of the job, he was down on his knees beside +her, brightly stacking discarded "New Schools" into piles against the +wall. + +The work went forward steadily, on the woman's part almost in silence. +That, however, made no difference. It was the man's power to be able to +talk more than enough for two, and he did. As the old assistant +principal grew steadily more quiet, the new one seemed increasingly +buoyant. And it seemed to Mary that she had been listening to his +conversation for a long, long time, at the moment when she heard him +suddenly exclaim, from the ladder:-- + +"Well, well! Look who's here! Come for the spring-cleaning, Mr. Garrott? +Ha, ha!" + +She, in her inner absorption, had failed to hear the approaching feet. +But at that she raised her head, with a kind of jerk. + +"Don't mind the dust, Mr. Garrott--it eats all right! Ha, ha! Walk in!" + +Mr. Garrott stood silent in the office door, looking at Miss Wing. The +eyes of the old friends briefly met. Something in the young man's +appearance vaguely arrested Mary Wing. She had noted, as her glance +lifted, the torn glove on his right hand. Now she was remotely aware +that the face looking back at her so intently appeared somehow subtly +changed: there was something faintly wrong with it, it seemed. But such +details Mary's consciousness hardly registered at all. All in one flash, +she wondered how he happened to be here, thought how good it was of him +to come, and knew that she had never been less glad to see anybody in +her life. + +"Good-afternoon," said she. + +"How'do, Miss Mary?" said Charles; and then started forward. "How are +you, Mr. Geddie? I seem to be rather late to help with the good work." + +"Yes, sirree!--Can't come in at the eleventh hour and take our credit +away! Can he, Miss Wing?--ha, ha! All over but the applause!" + +However, Mr. Geddie did not know himself for a tactful man for nothing. +Observing that Miss Wing continued to drop magazines on the floor in +silence, and that her young man there didn't seem to know what to do +with himself, he gracefully adopted a new position. From the third round +of the ladder, he made a roguish address, the meat of which was that +there was a whole corner left of the bottom shelf, and if Mr. Garrott +insisted, etc. + +"I'll relieve you with pleasure," said Charles, coldly. + +So Mr. Geddie lumbered down from the ladder, wiped his hands on his +pocket-handkerchief and re-attached his cuffs. He implored Miss Wing to +make herself absolutely at home in his office, assured her, not once but +three times, that John the porter, on the floor below, would be +positively gratified to do any service for her, however small. In the +moment of parting, he volunteered a new civility. + +"Why, here, Mr. Garrott!" he hastily exclaimed, "your coat's all dusty +in the back! That won't do! Just a minute while I get my whisk--" + +But Miss Wing's young man interrupted him rudely. + +"No, I'm not dusty at all! Thanks--don't trouble." + +Another person who didn't know the value of a smile, clearly. And the +man _was_ dusty, of course. Well, no affair of his, of course. Mr. +Geddie kept a-smiling. + +"Well, good people!" said he. "Olive oil!" + +When he had got a polite distance down the hall, Miss Wing's young man +shut the office door upon him. So at last came privacy. For the first +time, since the unforgotten afternoon last month, Charles Garrott stood +alone with his admirable heroine. + +He moved toward her, deliberating. + +Downstairs there, he had been having five of the most engrossing, the +most completely satisfying, minutes of his life. Being able to come +upstairs at all, he had come in the spiritual state of his stimulating +experience. Over all that was unsettled and unhappy, there persisted in +him a fierce young elation. By the oddest luck, he was not here +empty-handed, after all: he came with something rather better +than a hope to give. And doubtless--since he was incurably a +sentence-maker--there had already come into his head discreet phrases +with which to communicate the hope, at least: phrases which, though +gallantly suppressing his own exploits, might yet be somewhat tinged +with a protector's strength. + +But all this dropped from Charles's mind in the instant when Mary raised +her head over the table, and looked at him. + +He had seen his friend for a few minutes on Friday, her first day up and +about. But that passing glimpse, it seemed, could hardly have counted. +For now her gaze had an unexpected power for him: the sight of her came +on him with a sort of impact, as if this were some one he had heard +about often, but never before seen. Undoubtedly, that small phenomenon +was due to the amount he had been thinking about her of late, behind her +back, as it were. But beyond all this, the particular look of Mary's +face had made him instantly certain that, whatever she had gone to +struggle with Angela about to-day, she had, indeed, been routed. And +that he had not miscalculated the effect of this upon her, he was also +certain from the first sound of her voice.... + +Mary did not look up as her helper advanced, or cease the work of her +hands. But it was she who spoke first:-- + +"How did you happen to come here?" + +"I've been to your house. Your mother told me you were here." + +She said, with a curious stilted politeness: "It was very good of you to +come. But really you must not wait for me, please. I have a good deal +more to do--a great deal more--and it is work of a sort that I have to +do alone." + +"Miss Mary," said Charles, "your mother told me, at my request, what has +happened this afternoon." + +Mary flinched, just perceptibly. But her voice, when she spoke, seemed +harder than before. + +"Well, it's the fact. That's all there is to say. There isn't anything +more to discuss." + +"I don't mean to discuss it, of course. There was just one thing I +thought of--a--sort of suggestion." + +Finding himself neither questioned nor forbidden, he continued: "Do you +think it would be such a bad way out of the--the difficulty, if Donald +were just to go on here for a while?" + +Still Mary waited, hardly encouraging him, examining a "New School," +silently laying it down in the packing-case at her feet. + +"I know you feel," said Charles, inspecting the top of her hat, "that +settling down to this consulting work, in a city that offers so many +distractions all the time, won't be a good thing for Donald--from any +point of view. Staying here won't take the place of the chance with +Gebhardt he's throwing away, of course--that's pretty serious. Still, +there ought to be plenty of good work for him to do here--isn't +there?--for a few months, a year or two, if necessary. That would give +him--and you--a little time to adjust things to--the new conditions. +And then from the point of view of the Flowers, too,--of Mrs. Flower, in +fact,--it occurred to me it mightn't be a bad sort of working +compromise.... What do you think?" + +"I think it is very sensible," she replied, with the same labored +courtesy. "It is what I suggested, too." + +"Oh," said Charles, and paused. "But Donald didn't want to give up Blake +& Steinert, I suppose?" + +"I haven't suggested it to Donald." + +That brought a considerable silence. + +"It's--settled, then?" + +"It was settled last week." + +A curious let-down feeling took possession of the young man. He pressed +his hand to his forehead; and then for the first time was aware that his +head ached furiously. In the same moment, his eye was unpleasantly +caught by his burst-out gloves. Having stared at his hands for a second, +he silently stripped off the gloves, balled them, and pitched the ball +into a waste-basket near by. + +"I'll just have a look into this closet for myself," said he, turning +away. "I don't believe Geddie--" + +"No!--please don't!--don't trouble! I really don't need any help, thank +you. I don't ..." + +Her wish to be alone was all but woundingly plain to him. And still it +seemed to Charles physically impossible to turn now and walk out of the +door. So, not looking at her, he answered in a peculiarly mild manner +that, of course, this wasn't help at all, only a little indulgence of +himself, which she really mustn't refuse him. And while he yet spoke, +allowing no opportunity for such refusal, he hung his hat on Mr. +Geddie's hook, and all the forepart of him disappeared upward into the +closet. + +After an interval rather longer than necessary, he re-emerged to view, a +few periodicals in one hand, a faded bundle of typewritten papers in the +other. + +"Geddie's made a clean sweep. There's hardly another armful." + +His manner was almost as cheery as Geddie's own. His "note" was to go +ahead as if nothing had happened. + +"Put them here?" asked Charles. + +Mary Wing's arms quivered a little on the table. + +"Put them _anywhere_! It doesn't make the _least_ difference!" + +So Charles laid his burden down on the table, and quietly went up the +ladder again. Here, for a space, he pretended to be impossibly busy over +nearly empty shelves. + +And then, out of the silence behind him, he heard his friend's voice, +painfully stiff, somewhat strained. + +"You see--you oughtn't to have come to see me to-day. I--I'm not fit for +society. I tried to warn you. I haven't had time--to get philosophical +yet." + +The helper spoke into the dusty closet: "Well, you don't need to get +philosophical with me. I'm pretty mad myself--as far as that goes." + +"I wasn't prepared for it--at all.... And then I've been beating my head +against it--like a fool--all afternoon." + +Well he knew Mary's horror of weakness, her warranted confidence in her +own self-control. Well he understood her regret for that uniquely sharp +speech of hers. Was it this, a novel impulse to justify herself in his +eyes, that seemed to force her on, beyond his expectation and against +her own will? + +"But don't suppose I went there expecting to have my own way about +everything--manage them around like children. I didn't. I went +respectfully. I went to beg. But it was no use." + +Silence: and then the hard voice went on rapidly:-- + +"She and Donald had talked it all over, and decided that it would be +best for his career to go to New York. She and Donald ... I _did_ think +that, as I was planning Donald's work when she was still in short +dresses, my opinion might have some weight with her. And I thought, just +as you did, that something might be saved if they stayed here for the +present--kept the house and all the rest of it. And then, of course, I +lost my temper--that makes twice.... I reminded her how she had told me +once that nothing could induce _her_ to leave her mother, as a widow.... +What was the use? Of course she only cried, and said it was hopeless to +try to explain to me--how differently a woman felt about all these +things when she was going to be married. I believe she said I was +incapable of understanding the new emotions that came with a great +love." + +That, indeed, seemed a romantic description of the mild, chance product +of the Fordette. However, the replete young authority only said:-- + +"Then I suppose it's great love that taught her engineering so +quickly--and all Donald's little peculiarities?" + +Mary Wing made no answer. Her capable small hands took up the literature +lately provided by Charles. And when she spoke, it was as if his +unaccustomed acrimony had met and destroyed her own. + +"Oh, it's natural that we should see everything differently. She is +really a sweet-natured girl. I'm sorry already for what I said to +her.... And her not wanting to stay here--you mustn't think that's just +a selfish whim--just wanting to live in New York. Of course, what she +wants is to have Donald to herself--to have their young married life to +themselves. And my going there to give advice to-day--naturally that +made her more certain than ever that she could never have that +here--with me just around the corner. She let me understand that, +finally. She intimated that Donald had said as much--he was tired of +being managed.... Oh, it's perfectly natural, perfectly right. +To-morrow, I'll accept it easily enough.... As I say--I haven't had much +time." + +He was more touched by that speech than everything that had gone before, +yet more resolved, too, not to say, "I'm sorry." + +"As a matter of fact," he asked straightforwardly, "what _was_ +decided--as to Mrs. Flower?" + +"It's not decided yet, at all. However, I have a plan--another +suggestion--which it seems to me might meet some of the difficulties." + +"Aren't there friends or relatives here that she might stay with for a +time?" + +"That's it. I think I can persuade her to live with us--till we have a +chance to see how all this--" + +"With _you_?" + +"It's just a hope, as I say. I didn't think of it till just now. Mother +is very fond of her. And Wallie can't give up college, of course. That +would be--quite the worst thing." + +The school-teacher spoke with characteristic matter-of-factness. If she +was adding final touches to the portraits of two women, she did it, +certainly, with supreme unconsciousness. In the brief stillness of the +office, she efficiently neared the end of her task. The top of her table +was almost bare, the litter on the floor was deep. And now she spoke +again, dryly and quite conclusively. + +"At any rate, nothing fatal has happened. Nobody knows that better than +I do--really. No doubt it's personal vanity with me, as much as +anything. And now--" + +"Do you know," Charles Garrott spoke up suddenly, as if he did not hear +her at all--"I think you're the best I ever knew? The best--the +_best_--absolutely the most of a person--" + +She, the strong, seemed to start and shrink; she broke in sharply, with +instant signs of a shaken poise: "No--_please_! You don't understand me +at all. I do--not need sympathy! It's just what I've been trying to +say--" + +"Well, you aren't getting it from me, no fear. Sympathy! If ever there +was honest looking up, if ever--" + +"No!--don't! I didn't tell you about it for that!--only to explain why I +seemed so ... It was due you. As I say, nobody understands better than I +how unreasonable it is--to be so disturbed. And if you hadn't come here +to-day--" + +"Won't you give me credit for some understanding? If you were ten times +as disturbed, I'd think it the reasonablest--" + +"Yes--for a woman. Well, I'm not that kind of woman," said Mary Wing, +with curious agitation, as if she could stand any sort of talk better +than this. "Please don't say any more. I don't tell my troubles to be +comforted--patted on the head. I'm not feminine, I hope, after all these +knocks. You make me--" + +"Thank God, _no_!" said the young man on the ladder, considerably moved. + +And then that connection which he must have been groping toward for a +month flashed startlingly upon him, and he, the authority, blurted out +like a boy:-- + +"No--_you're womanly_!" + +He saw his old friend's face quiver a little as the strange word struck +her: oddly, it seemed to silence her. But it was not possible that she +could be one half so struck with that word as he, Charles Garrott, was. +_Mary Wing was a Womanly Woman_.... And now she could no more have +stopped his speech than she could have stopped a river when the one gate +in the dam, long locked, has suddenly burst open. + +"That's it. Of course.... Funny, I was just thinking over all that as I +walked around here--how different those things are. No, not +different--they don't belong in the same story at all. What's character +got to do with--feathers in the springtime?... Born stupid," said +Charles, in a low, stirred voice--"that seems to explain me. I'd better +have been one-eyed--beat me over the head with it, and still I can't +see.... Won't see. That's it!--it's worse. I'm just an old-line +male--that's what. Just the sort who've taught women not to bother to +try to be womanly when being feminine comes so much cheaper. Why, look +at me, criticizing you in my thoughts, not liking it because you +were--independent. What was that but just pique--don't you know?--just +common ordinary male jealousy--because a woman didn't need my shoulder +to lean on. Manly protector ... seventeenth-century stuff. Well, you've +punished me, don't you worry.... Just standing where you always stood, +just being your Self. Acting straight from your own law all the time, +doing the best sort of things, one after the other--the biggest, +the--the _tenderest_--" + +"Don't," said the grammar-school teacher again, but in the littlest +voice he had ever heard from her lips. + +Rapt as he was, that voice penetrated him. More, it alarmed him: and +with reason, too. Staring down with a new fixedness, touched with a +faint, purely masculine horror, Charles beheld the strangest sight seen +by him in many a day. Mary Wing, the unconquerable, had suddenly put her +face into her hands. + +He had really only been finishing that other talk of theirs, with a +certain sense of right; but of course this wasn't the time for that. He +had been indulging his analytic propensity, his fatal tendency to +comment, at her expense. Hadn't he understood that she feared nothing +so much as his sympathies?... + +His friend, in her arresting attitude, sat as rigid as a carven woman. +The stillness in the little office was profound. Then a voice strained +out, very thin, but still not defeated:-- + +"Don't be alarmed. I'm ... not going to cry." + +And that seemed to settle it. It was as if, in that silent struggle +waged all the way from the Flowers' to now, the speaking of the word +itself was the fatal admission. The school-teacher had no sooner +pronounced it than her arms spread suddenly out on the table before her, +and her head came down upon them. + +Charles Garrott, on his ladder, was heard to take one breath, sharply. +After that, no sound came from him. Quite motionless he sat, in the +chance position in which the sudden disaster had overtaken him: long +arms dangling from his knees, large feet hooked under a ladder-rung, +some distance down. He hardly winked an eye. + +Mary Wing was crying. That painful hard tension had snapped; the +indomitable slim figure drooped beaten, for once. She, also, made little +sound in her peculiar difficulty. But her body shook with a stormy +racking. And it hurt her, he was sure; hurt her physically, as if she +couldn't find tears without breaking something inside.... + +Strange it seemed that once, in this very room, and only the other day +really, he had wanted to see Mary cry. He had thought of it then as a +desirable sort of symbol, hadn't he?--something of that sort. What did +her tears have to tell him now? Then he had conceived himself as +watching her emotion, moved doubtless, but yet with a secretly gratified +masculinity. Now every heave of those slender shoulders was like a +clutch upon his heart. + +And still there was something in Charles that was not distress at all. +He was aware of another and quite different inner sense--peace, the end +of struggle, fulfillment--he could not say what it was. It was strange. +He was not unhappy.... + +There came, after a time, signs that his friend was overcoming that hard +revolt of feelings too much put upon. Even in the beginning she had +never seemed to abandon herself, quite. At length, somewhat +unexpectedly, she moved, turned from her seat under his eye, and, +rising, went away to the office's one window. There she stood, her back +toward him. And presently she began to clear her throat, with nervous +quick coughings. + +Through this, Charles had not spoken, or thought of doing so. To pat +Mary's shoulder, this time, had not entered his head. His instinct +seemed to feel the banality of any intrusion upon her freedom: she +should weep or not weep, just as seemed best to her. Now, as his grave +eyes followed her, it occurred to him that his presence here had been, +and was, a considerable intrusion. And about the time he had reached +this conclusion, Mary spoke, naturally enough, except that a sharp catch +of breath broke her sentence in the middle. + +"I'm giving you ... a pleasant visit to-day." + +The young man stirred on his perch. He answered, oddly, with a sort of +growl:-- + +"That's right! I'm a fair-weather friend. Keep things pleasant for _me_ +all the time--or good-bye." + +His heroine was sniffing repeatedly, in the humanest way. She kept +clearing her throat. Her movements made it clear that she was searching +busily for her handkerchief. However, there lay her handkerchief on the +table, under his eye. And if she, perhaps, hardly wished to turn and +come for it just now, no more did he see his way clear to going and +taking it to her. + +"No--but what's the sense of it? I'm--doing just what I told Angela not +to do. Feeling sorry for myself, that's all." + +"Well, I don't feel sorry for you. Don't worry about that." + +Charles came down the ladder, and stood a moment kicking at the "New +Schools" strewn about the floor. + +"Look here, suppose I save time by arranging about this box now? You +want it to go to your house, I suppose?" + +"No--I'm going to send it to the grammar-school." + +"Oh--all right. I'll attend to it," he said, briefly. "I'll tell the +porter to keep it to-night, and get a wagon to-morrow." + +On which, without more ado, he stepped from the assistant principal's +office, and shut the door behind him. + +Charles's conference with the negro porter in the corridor below lasted +a minute, perhaps. His diplomatic retirement lasted ten minutes, at +least. His surplus time the young man spent in staring out of a tall +window into a white-paved courtyard. But that it was a white-paved +courtyard, or that it was a courtyard, he never knew. The instant he +found that he was staring at it, he jumped a little, and went +upstairs.... + +If he had meant this interval as a punctuation and the turning of a +page, Mary, it seemed, had so accepted it. Reopening Mr. Geddie's door, +Charles saw that his absence had been employed for a general setting to +rights. The table had been moved back against the wall; the books and +globe restored to it, the chair Mary had occupied returned to its place, +the window opened to blow out the dust. Mary herself stood in the +middle of the room, coated, buttoning her gloves. Without looking at her +exactly, he was aware that the white veil which had been caught up +around her hat was now let down. + +Bygones were bygones, clearly: the least said, the soonest mended. +Charles remarked, exactly as if house-cleaning were the sole interest he +knew of here: "Well, you've made a good job of it." + +And Mary replied, with equal naturalness: "I did what I could. John will +have to attend to these things on the floor." + +"Yes--I told him to see to that at once." + +"He ought to give the closet a good cleaning, too. I'd better tell +him--this is just the time." + +"I told him to be sure to scrub the closet. It'll be all right." + +Looking up, she said: "You seem to have thought of everything." + +"Let me get my hat," said Charles. + +But Mary, standing in his way, was regarding him with a sudden +directness he had no wish to reciprocate. And she answered his remark +about the hat with a little exclamation. + +"What's the matter with your eye?" + +"My eye?" said the young man, and involuntarily put his hand there. +Recollecting, he finished: "Nothing--nothing at all." + +The school-teacher came a step nearer, but he went round her as he +spoke, and continued his way. + +"But there's a good deal the matter with it!" she exclaimed, concerned. +"It's swollen--it looks discolored, too.--How did you hurt yourself?" + +"Oh, that? Oh!" said Charles, carefully fitting on his hat, and then +removing it again. "I remember now--it's nothing. Got a tumble this +afternoon, that's all. Stupid thing." + +"You must let me get some hot water down the hall. I'm afraid it's--" + +But he indicated, quite brusquely, that his eye was all right, just the +way he liked it, that having water put on it was, in particular, the +last thing he would ever dream of. + +She said behind him, slowly, after a pause: "If you won't, you won't, of +course.... But it's so exactly like you--" + +"Ready?" said Charles. + +But when he turned he found that Mary had turned, too, after him--stood +facing him anew. And this time the confrontation was too near, too +immediate, to be further avoided. + +He now discovered that the thin veil had not withdrawn his friend very +far. Looking at her for the first time since her cataclysm, he saw that +her delicate face wore that look described as "rain-washed," which +commonly means peace, but peace at a price. The redness of her eyelids +was quite perceptible. What struck the young man particularly, however, +was the look of the blue eyes themselves. More or less irrelevant eyes +he had always thought them, for all the heavy arched brows which so +emphasized their faculty for steady, sometimes disconcerting, +interrogation. That characteristic grave intentness was in Mary's gaze +now: but it was not this that gave her look its power to hold Charles +Garrott in his tracks. + +The peculiar commotion within him gave forth in a short laugh, testy and +embarrassed: "Honestly, if you say the word 'eye' to me again--" + +"I wasn't going to speak of your eye," said Mary Wing, with quite +remarkable meekness.... "I was thinking of that remark you made--about +being a fair-weather friend." + +And then she went on hurriedly, with a rare, impulsiveness: "I've just +been thinking--I don't suppose since the world began there was ever such +another rainy-day friend as you. It's got so now that I never get into +trouble without thinking right away--as I was thinking this afternoon +when I left the Flowers'--that you'll be right there to help me with it. +Yes, I was. And it's so--perfect. Nothing to spoil it ever--not one thing +for you to gain--all just your rather extravagant idea of what being a +friend means. You don't know--how much it means...." + +The strange speech--strange blossom of her disruptive emotion--ended a +little short; but that it ended was the principal thing. Doubtless there +had been a time when words such as these from Mary Wing, this fine frank +expression of abiding friendship, would have been sweet and acceptable +to Charles Garrott, crowning him with a full reward. But it seemed that +that time must have passed, somewhat abruptly.... + +The two moderns stood, gazing full at each other. And now, in the same +moment, a little color tinged the girl's cheek, beneath her veil, and +the young man turned rather pale. + +"Miss Mary, you must be dreaming," said Charles, gently. "I've never +done anything for you in my life. We both know that. Let's go." + +Mary, her eyes falling, had resumed the buttoning of her gloves. She +moved toward the door. The descent of the High School stairs was made in +comparative silence. The chief item of importance developed was that +Mary intended to go home by street-car; she was tired, she mentioned. It +seemed that Charles, on the contrary, had no intention of foregoing his +afternoon constitutional. He said that he would see Miss Mary to her +car, however; and he did. + +So the old friends parted casually on a street corner, as they had done +a hundred times before. + +But in the Studio, there could be no such reserve, no such slurring of +the characteristic services of men. Here combat must have its fair due, +in the moral order of a too sedentary world. Judge Blenso, in brief, +from whom no secrets were hid, had the full facts relative to the +altered eye within ten minutes of Charles's homecoming, an hour later; +and the Judge's cold manner, already somewhat softened by the heartening +acceptance of Entry 3, straightway dissolved in exultation and proud +joy. The reconciliation between uncle and nephew was instantaneous and +immutable, and there followed, by consequence, the most broken, the most +conversational, evening in the history of the Studio. + +Charles was very glad to be reconciled with his relative. He was very +glad to feel that his secretary no longer viewed him with bald disgust. +Nevertheless, there were times, necessarily, when a writer wished that +he had no relative and secretary at all; and this, in a word, was one of +them. Charles did not wish, to-night, to go over and over one set of +primitive facts indefinitely; he did not wish to listen to sporting +anecdote and reminiscence, hour after hour; in chief, he did not wish to +go to bed at half-past ten o'clock. However, he did each and all of +these things, perforce. + +"Always retire early after a fight!--that was my father's rule, long as +he lived!" cried Uncle George, his black eyes dangerously bright.... +"No--let's see. _Before_ a fight--that was father's way! Well, good +gad!--too late for that now! You come along to bed, my dear fellow!..." + +But, in time, a sweet snoring from the parallel white couch indicated +freedom, welcome solitude, at last. And then the young man rose +noiselessly in the dark, and slipped back to the familiar Studio, where +all his personal life had so long had its heart and center. On the old +writing-table, in front of which he had sat and pondered so many hours, +so many nights, the green-domed lamp was set burning anew. However, +Charles did not sit at his table now. Beside the lamp, Big Bill without +surcease ticked off the flying minutes of a writer's prized leisure. But +Charles heeded not Big Bill. Wrapped in a bathrobe grown too short for +his long shanks, he paced his carpet on slippered feet, up and down; and +there was no such thing as bedtime now. For this day the authority had +made the last and the best of all his many discoveries about Woman: and +he did not see how he could ever sleep again. + + + + +XXIV + + +Luemma, the twelve-dollar cook, had never dreamed of having +opera-glasses of her own; hence she looked pleased, for once in her +life, when her departing young mistress unexpectedly presented her with +a pair: old and somewhat shabby, doubtless, but still possessing the +valuable power of bringing distant objects near. And it must be assumed +that the nice man who sold the gasoline was equally glad to have the +Fordette for his own: else he would probably not have fattened up the +trousseau, one day, by purchasing the interesting little vehicle (cheap) +for cash. + +Because of mourning in the bride's family, the Flower-Manford nuptials +would be "very quiet." Invitations were strictly limited to near +relatives of the contracting parties, with a very few of the most +intimate friends. So the social columns of the "Post" had warned and +notified all persons in due season. However, Charles Garrott, reading, +was not cast down. As the groom's chosen supporter in his "most need," +Charles had had his fixed place from the beginning. + +Further, he considered himself fully entitled to be present in the +category of intimate friends, not to mention his peculiar relation as +one who had narrowly escaped a yet closer privilege in the premises. + +Angela's was an afternoon wedding: the hour of "taking place," five +o'clock. At four o'clock on the set day, Charles prematurely snapped his +tutorial watch at Miss Grace (who was still waiting), and rushed away to +his rooms. At half-past four, after scenes of wild haste, he stood out +in the Studio, for final inspection. He was arrayed in what the Britons +like to call a "morning coat": a morning coat new-pressed by Judge +Blenso's skillful hand and patent iron, made glorious by Judge Blenso's +best new waistcoat, especially urged for the occasion. Now the admiring +secretary pinned a white carnation in the morning-coat lapel, as excited +over it all, oddly enough, as if the wedding afoot were his young +employer's own. So dismissed with a blessing, Charles jumped into a +taxicab, at four thirty-five precisely, and shot away to the Bellingham. +Here, in a bedroom upstairs, a brief delay occurred, owing to the +appearance and behavior of the bridegroom. The face that Donald, in his +regalia, turned upon his best man, bursting in, was seen to be a pale +green in color; his voice and speech were highly erratic, his attempt at +a brave smile a sight to rend one's heart. On this pitiful funk, +Charles's gibes, his appeals to the higher nature, had but small effect. +"Here's the ring," said the groom, with a sick croak. "Charlie, hadn't I +better take one little drink?" + +However, the cab was swift. The drive to Center Street was but a matter +of five minutes. Once more the two young men were stepping, side by +side, up the worn brick walkway. It made Charles think of the day they +had come to return the books. But this time the line of vehicles before +the weather-beaten door was conclusive testimony to the triumphant +activity within. + +In the hall, a lady greeted them, a near relative doubtless. A dim +pleased significant hush seemed to emanate from the lady, and pervade +the house. From behind the dark curtains of the parlor, there proceeded +the murmur of assembled persons, waiting. Even the hatstand, though +essentially unchanged, somehow conveyed a mysterious expectancy. + +They were sent aloft to an upper chamber, conceived to be Wallie's. Here +they were instructed to wait quietly till somebody had need of them. + +The waiting was rather trying. Tête-à-tête in the small bare room, groom +and attendant talked but fitfully. Donald seemed to have drawn little +courage from his dram. He sat stiffly on a chair-edge, jumping at each +peal of the loud little bell below. Much more unreasonably, the best +man showed signs of nervousness, too: it was observed that he had +cut himself twice while shaving. And suddenly, jerking out his +watch, he announced that probably he had better step out for a +minute--reconnoiter--see what he could see. + +"They ought to want you now, seems to me," quoth he. "I'll see. You sit +tight, right there." + +"Awright," croaked Donald. + +So Charles stepped out from the nuptial waiting-room, and closed the +door behind him. Having done this, he came to a standstill, abruptly: +for here, in the Flowers' still upstairs hall, he beheld just the sight +he had gone forth to seek. + +At the other end of the hall, in the dimness, stood the bride's +attendant, Cousin Mary Wing. She, too, had just come out of a door, it +seemed; she, too, had stopped and was gazing. And the first look of the +blue eyes, over the space, released in him, the old helper with his +secret help, a vast content; just touched with a subtle sadness that +such a little gain could mean so much to her now. + +He moved toward her in the expectant quiet.... + +Doubtless, it was no small thing that Mr. Mysinger had kept, more or +less, that promise he had made under threat and duress; marvel enough +that he had, in fact, "personally requested" Mr. Senff to "see what +could be done," etc., as agreed. Surely the whole matter had been fuller +of openings for double-dealing than an egg was of meat. And yet, to +Charles, the upshot of all the hoping and planning had been a cruel +disappointment. For Life, alas, still differs from Romance, realities +still refuse to fade like a dream, at just the suitable moment. In +brief, the School Board, by a majority of one, had yesterday ruled that +Mary should have her reappointment to the High School staff, "as soon as +arrangements would permit"; but of the assistant principal's office no +word was said. + +To one who had voluntarily surrendered her great promotion, this seemed +but a scanty recompense. And as for the new plan, his and Hazen's, +concerning the Assistant Superintendency of Schools next year--no +less--("There's really a good chance, now that the Mysinger bunch are +showing a better spirit," said Hazen)--that was much too remote to seem +very substantial just now.... + +In the dark upstairs hall, the friends greeted briefly, in voices +scarcely above a whisper. Mary said hurriedly: "Donald's here? Angela'll +be ready to see him in just a second." + +"I'll produce him--dead or alive." + +The best man laid his hand on the banister. But his subconsciousness +warned him that the banisters were dusty, and he took his hand away. + +"You look happy to-day." + +"Yes--shouldn't I be? Weren't you--pleased, when you read--" + +"They've treated you abominably--no other way to express it." + +She smiled at him, but looked away. And he perceived, or thought he did, +that the memory of their last meeting remained with her, touching her +manner with a faint self-consciousness. + +"You are hard to satisfy," she said. "I've felt like singing all day.... +Will you tell Donald to come now?" + +"Yes. I'm going to see you after this is over?" + +But no, she, the busy, was to stay here for the night, it seemed, +keeping Mrs. Flower company in her daughterlessness. And Charles, having +anticipated this occasion principally as her holiday-time and his own, +turned away with the sense that most of the wedding was over.... + +Yet this, of course, was but the side-play of elders, counting for +nothing. Now the prime action of the day, the culminating hour, was at +hand. + +Donald was whisked away for a brief glimpse at his love. Returning, he +confronted almost immediately the moment of his public appearance and +confession. Word came to Wallie's room that the gentlemen were to +descend forthwith, for better or worse. "Now then!" whispered Charles, +as they started down--"chest out, chin up!" And Donald grinned back +feebly, as if to prove to himself that he still could. Now the dim hush +deepened and thickened, the little house seemed to hold its breath. +There was no music to cover these preliminaries, because of the +mourning. In complete stillness, groom and escort stepped through the +curtains into the assembled company, which, though limited in numbers as +it was, seemed to fill the little car-shaped parlor. Through a narrow +lane between vaguely discerned relatives and friends, the young men +moved to their appointed place. Here they stood, almost stepping on a +stout clergyman, undergoing his frank, interested scrutiny, through a +dreadful pause. Then at last a stir in the company made it clear that +the bride was at hand; and after that Donald could feel that nobody was +paying any attention to him. + +So without great pomp or ritual, fuss or feathers, came the great moment +to which all one woman's life had looked forward, to which, conceivably, +it might all look back. Standing statue-like a few feet from her, the +fingers of one hand feeling in Judge Blenso's waistcoat-pocket for the +ring, those of the other resting lightly on the cold Latrobe, Charles +listened to the beautiful words which converted Angela Flower into Mrs. +Donald Manford. + +Angela "was married in a traveling-suit." She was a little pale, like +her lord and master; her responses were just audible. And never had +Charles seen her look so maidenly sweet, so feminine and engaging and +desirable. Her soft and pretty face, yet unbroken by a line, was +immensely serious. Her look into the beyond was faintly wistful, a +little awed, supremely innocent. A wonder dawned in the great dark eyes. +Here girlhood ended: in great happiness, doubtless, yet in great +mysteries too. Here came change, so colossal that no man could ever know +change in these terms. Where led this unknown parting of the ways, what +was the heart and meaning of Life? + +And Mary Wing's face, glimpsed once or twice over the bride's shoulder, +was surprised wearing much the same look too. No woman, perhaps, even a +fighting educator, listens quite unmoved to these old words. Sweetly +pensive, Mary gazed at her so different cousin. And Charles wondered if +she had got quite philosophical now, and wished that she had something +much bigger to feel like singing about to-day.... + +"I pronounce you _mon_ and wife," cried the parson: and it was not the +first thing he had pronounced loudly, either. + +So came relaxation from the solemn stiffness. There was a flutter of +movement, human speech again, the swift embrace of bride and bride's +mother. Then speech became free and general, and the near relatives +rushed upon the happy pair. + +Charles, having wrung Donald's hand in the approved manner, had his due +turn before the center of the visible world. It was the first time he +had seen Angela, to speak to, since the day of the party-call. But, +though she was naturally a little nervous and staccato in the +circumstances, he considered that she received his felicitations with +dignity and graciousness. + +"Donald and I appreciated your gift so much. I hope you got my note? It +was perfectly lovely. We shall think of you whenever we use it." + +Interesting, indeed, it was to Charles to see these pretty eyes, that he +had once caused to weep, resting upon him with this genuine bright +restless indifference. + +"When you're in New York, you must be sure to let us know. Donald and I +will always be so glad to see you. I hope we'll have a guest-room, and +then you must come to stay with us. I do hope you will have better luck +with your stories, Mr. Garrott. I'll be watching for you in the +magazines--remember! How do you do, Cousin Annie? Donald and I +appreciated your gift so much ..." + +So Charles Garrott passed on, a bachelor still, still thinking about his +"story." + +In the "small reception following"--to quote the "Post" again--Charles +did what he could to make the affair a success, circulating about like a +valued member of the family, speaking winningly to old ladies whom he +did not know, heartening the timid with cake and wine. His own best +moments in the reception were short talks with two Flowers, brothers of +the bride. But Wallie, the chemist and lamp-repairer,--so it was now +written on the stars,--was down for his Easter vacation only: he was +returning to college next week. "The Wings want mother to visit them, +till I come back in June," he let fall, with truly masculine +unconsciousness; and felt no irony in his sister's impending departure +to lead her own life, while Mary Wing, staying at home, took care of her +mother. + +As for the older brother, the wealthy and generous Tommy, it seemed that +he had run on all the way from Pittsburg for the express purpose of +"giving Angela away." A handsome volatile little chap, Tommy proved to +be, with a mustache, a manner, and a worried look in the corners of his +eyes: and Charles, introduced, examined him with unaffected interest. +For Charles had often thought of Tommy, often wondered if Tommy might +not be, at heart, a master humorist. Unluckily, that interesting point +was never settled, the acquaintance being cut short untimely by the +general movement toward the hall. + +The embarkation of Mr. and Mrs. Manford was "very quiet." There was no +hurling of old slippers, no unseemly merriment. They came down the +narrow stairs amid a little rice, a last subdued chorus of farewells. +The bride's pallor was noticed now, her pretty smile was a little fixed. +The groom, on the contrary, affected the hearty, the jovial: his manly +backbone was obviously reasserting itself, now that he was a lawful +protector henceforward. It was observed on all sides that they made a +good-looking and well-matched couple. + +So Angela and Donald went out on their great adventure. And Charles went +with them down the walkway, with a bag or two to carry, doing his duty +as he saw it, to the end. With his own hands he clicked shut the door +of their wedding-coach. (A liveried one it was, the symbolic vehicle not +being available, for reasons explained.) "We'll hope to see you soon, in +our own Home," said Angela, the Home-Maker, the very last thing. And +then the coach leapt away, and he, the old principal friend, stood +motionless, bareheaded in the mild sunshine, staring after it.... + +Stepping up on the verandah again, Charles encountered the relative who +had welcomed him on arrival--Mrs. Flinchman, Finchman, did she say?--and +who now welcomed him anew, beaming. + +"Well, Mr. Garrott!--your friend is a fortunate young man, is he not? I +don't think I ever knew a sweeter, truer, more womanly girl. And you," +she queried, with immense archness, "knew her so very well, too, I +believe?" + +He intimated pleasantly that few, indeed, had known her better, perhaps: +whereon the lady's expression grew more significant than ever. + +"Well, no wonder the men were all flocking about her, I'm sure--a +lovely, old-time young woman! But I understand it was love at first +sight with these two--they simply _flew_ together! Ah," said Mrs. +Finchman (Flinchman?) with a sigh, which, however, did not disturb the +deeply gratified look indigenous to women at weddings--"ah, it's very +sweet! A real old-fashioned romance, that's what I call it, Mr. Garrott! +And now that we've come to the end of the story, who can doubt that +they'll live happy ever after--as you literary men are so fond of +putting it?" + +"Who, indeed, madam? It--all went off very smoothly, I thought? +Well!--" + +"You must be going? Then _good_-bye!--so sorry it's over! Knowing of you +so well as dear Angela's faithful friend, Mr. Garrott, I feel that we +are anything but strangers, and hope so much you will find time to come +in and see us, one evening very soon. We live quietly on Mason Street, +next to the Methodist Church--I and my sweet girl Jennie." + + * * * * * + +He left the house, after all, with Mary Wing, who was going home for an +hour's work on school examination-books, before returning to sup with +Mrs. Flower. This decision she had casually communicated, by the +hatstand just now. So the "holiday-time" came to a six-blocks' walk: and +even that was an after-thought. Truly, if a man had a mind to see this +woman, without definite transactions to discuss, he had need of all his +delicacy and tact. Calls, drives, bridge-parties, going to places, doing +things: she had no room in her life for such as these. Time was more +precious to Mary than to a writer. And she had convinced one writer, at +least, by a moving tribute to his perfect friendship, that she had never +had a personal thought of him in her life. + +But Charles did not despair. He was a young man still. And meantime he +was happy. + +"You should wear a hat like that every day," she said, agreeably, as +they turned into Washington Street. "You look seven feet tall at +least.... By the way, did you feel your ears burning, about one o'clock +to-day?" + +He said no, and smiled a little. Her intention of keeping the +conversation away from certain topics--topics that might have been +uppermost in both their minds to-day, perhaps--had been perfectly +evident to him from the moment they crossed the verandah. + +"I met Judge Blenso as I came home to lunch," continued Mary, "and he +stopped for a talk--purely to tell me what a wonderful person you were, +it seemed. But in that connection, he gave me some exciting news--that +you've just had a very flattering offer for 'Bondwomen'--and refused it! +I couldn't understand why." + +At that, he looked subtly pleased, while affecting but a modest +amusement. The event in question had been, in truth, sweet balm to the +spirit and the confidence bruised in so many rebuffs. Still, his reply +was only that his relative was born for a press-agent clearly. Requested +to explain this dark saying, he gave a light disparaging account of his +only offer, stating that Appleholt Brothers, before accepting his book, +had desired him to rewrite it throughout, completely revolutionizing the +character of his heroine and omitting not less than fifty thousand +words, including the existing plot. + +Mary glanced up at him. "I'm taking this with a little salt--shall I?" + +The author laughed. "Well, it was about like that. Still," he added, as +if there were such a thing as carrying modesty too far,--"of course I +could do what they want easily enough--in a month, I think." + +"You don't seem excited at all. But you aren't going to do it?" + +"On the contrary, I have now formally changed the name of my old novel +to 'Bandwomen,' and--put it in the Morgue." + +"The Morgue?" + +"A repository for deceased manuscripts, recently founded by my +relative." + +"Oh!" said she, slowly. And, after a pause: "You don't feel any longer +that it's good?" + +"I _do_ feel that it's good! I'd swear it--before a publishers' +convention. But--it doesn't happen to be the story I want to write any +more. I'm not interested in it." + +There was another pause. + +"It doesn't represent you now, I suppose? And the one you do want to +write?--you're writing it, aren't you? Judge Blenso says you work till +all hours of the night--and this is going to be your masterpiece." + +"I shall have to caution the Judge about this, I see. We won't have a +friend left, between us." + +"But I'm interested, very much so. I've wondered ... Do you remember your +speech at the Redmantle Club last winter--on work for women? Do you think +you'd make the same speech to-day?" + +"Oh," he said, lightly, "I don't know quite so much as I did last +winter, you see. I'm not in the class with the lady in Sweden any +more.... Why do you suspect my--loyalty?" + +"Suspect?--no. I was only deducing from what you just said. I know +something about the point of view you took in 'Bondwomen'--you told me +once--and now if you're so dissatisfied with it that--" + +"No!--no! It isn't that! My point of view hasn't changed at all. It's +only--" + +He glanced down at her, and away, suddenly struck with hidden +significances, abruptly recalling that this woman beside him had played +hardly less part in the making of "Bondwomen" than in "Bondwomen's" +final consignment to the Morgue.... + +"I--I want to approach the whole question differently--lay a different +emphasis--that's all.... But if I believed in the value of work last +year, as--as a liberal education in responsibility--I believe in it ten +times as much now. Don't you know that?" + +"I'm glad you feel so. And that's what you're going to say in this +book?" + +"Hardly anything else." + +They walked on a little way in silence. The afternoon was fine; the last +flickers of a vernal sun danced along the sidewalks. Many people moved +on the promenade. The passing moderns attracted the favorable gaze of +not a few acquaintances. In appearance, Mary was judged one of the +variable women. She, the worker, with her habitually colorless face and +faintly fragile look, responded remarkably to dress, as Charles had once +before had occasion to note. And to-day, she was dressed as for a holiday +and a fête. However, he hardly looked at her once, throughout the brief +walk. + +"Do you know," she said suddenly, again with some touch of +consciousness, he thought,--"every conversation you and I have had for +months has been about _me_? That came over me, with a sort of shock--the +other day. I feel that there's a great arrears to make up. And I doubt +if you know how much I've wanted to hear about this book--since you told +me you had your 'line' straight at last. See how I remember.... Don't +you mean to give me any idea what the story's to be about?" + +The young man's heart seemed to move a little within him. + +"Can you imagine a writer's turning away from an opening like that?" + +"Well--but when will you?" + +"It's a long story. I don't think I could make it all clear in five or +seven minutes--and that's all the time you have to spare nowadays." + +"Do I seem as bad as that?... But I know literally nothing about it yet, +you see, except what I've just extracted. Idleness is bad for +able-bodied persons, including women. Does that state your point of +view--approximately?" + +"Precisely." + +"And how are you developing it this time? I mean--with a working-woman +as your central figure?" + +"No--principally with a woman who has nothing to do--and reacts +accordingly." + +"Oh!... That's what you mean by a difference of approach, I suppose? +She's married?" + +"No--that's the trouble." + +"You are dreadfully mysterious. How _does_ she react?" + +"Of course, she marries." + +"Then it's not a story of work at all?" + +"Hardly at all. It's an old-fashioned romance." + +"I see--told from a new-fashioned point of view?" + +Charles laughed. "The description was suggested to me--very recently. Up +to a point, it fits. You see, I'm still learning." + +"You know," said Mary, after a step or two, "you like to picture +yourself as one who can't be restrained from talking about himself and +his work, on the smallest provocation. In reality ... Tell me honestly, +do you object to being cross-examined this way?" + +His gaze kept straight ahead. + +"By you?--oh, no. Of course, I ... I've wanted to tell you my story some +day." + +"Then I'll continue my quiz now. I know it's usually a stupid question +to ask--but have you decided on a title yet?" + +But that happened to be the one thing he did not care to tell her now. + +"You can't fix the title till you're done, you know," he evaded lightly. +"A story changes so. But I have a sub-title in mind ..." + +She asked if his sub-title was a secret, and he said no. + +"I'd thought of--'A Comedy of Temporary Spinsters'--something like +that," said the author, and, unseen, colored abruptly. + +"That's _good_!" Mary exclaimed after a moment. "It suggests--so much! +Temporary Spinsters.... Only--I hope you don't mean to be cruel to your +heroine?" + +"Oh, no." + +They turned into Olive Street. + +"And by the way," said Charles, "she's not my heroine--only my central +figure." + +"Oh! Is there a distinction? Then will there be two women in this book?" + +"Of course--a common principle of writing. Your central figure--in a +character story--needs the comment of contrast, you know--of a--a foil." + +"I hadn't thought of that. You had only one woman in 'Bondwomen,' you +see.... And the contrast--she'll be as different as possible--a +working-woman, I suppose?--a Permanent Spinster! That's interesting, I +think--a study in contrasting types. Now--by my catechism--I really +begin to get an idea--" + +"Do you? I don't know. There are points--there are points--which I've +never been able to settle yet, myself." + +Mary began to search for her latch-key. Splendidly competent though she +was, she did not appear to have a regular place for keeping her key, +like a man. And Charles wondered if she had quite forgotten that offhand +remark of his, the day of his luncheon to Helen Carson, that he was +drawing his Line from his life.... + +"But the men in the story," she was saying--rather mechanically, he +thought--"I conclude there must be some, even though you don't mention +them. What type do you make your hero?" + +"Oh!--hero! There isn't any. The hero's the reader." + +"The reader!--I fear that's too technical for me." + +He explained: "My--my study develops by the method of 'progressive +revelation,' so-called--the principal characters being first set out, of +course, with the wrong labels carefully pinned on them. Well, the hero's +just the commentator on this development as it takes place, thinking it +out to save the reader the trouble." + +"But--isn't it the theory nowadays that there shouldn't be any +commentator?" + +"Oh, there may be a _theory_!" he retorted, the artist briefly flashing +in the man. "However, I comment." + +They went up the Wings' three steps, and Mary put her key into the lock. + +"But your hero can't be altogether an abstraction," she insisted, thus +engaged--"else how can there be any old-fashioned romance?" + +The young man's laugh covered an interest in the conversation intense to +the point of physical pain. + +"Really, this won't do. We get it more and more backwards. I haven't +even described the story to you right. It's not an old-fashioned +anything--primarily--it's not a study of types. No, it's--it's an +intellectual autobiography. Do you work on Sundays?" + +The school-teacher wheeled in her open but inhospitable door, with +something like reproach in her eyes, and said: "_No!_" + +"Then you can't escape me. I'll stay in town this Sunday, and you shall +hear it all from the beginning. You--you've brought it on yourself now." + +The two moderns looked at each other. And the young man in the tall hat +was breathing rather hard. + +"But--wouldn't that disappoint your mother? I know--I've noticed--that +you never let anything interfere ..." + +His look changed perceptibly at that. And still, it was not the son, not +the old critic of Egoettes, who answered, slightly chagrined:-- + +"What time have you to give me, then? Some day in the summer vacation?" + +Mary Wing's eyes fell to her hand on the door-knob. "I hoped," she said, +"that you would come in now." + +"But your--your work?" + +"I--thought I would take a holiday to-day." + +So they went into the house. And Charles stood alone in the Wings' +silent hall, slowly pulling off his wedding-gloves. + +In the sitting-room Mary was similarly occupied. Though she was going +back to the Flowers' so soon, she took off her hat. Having done so, she +stood before the mantel-mirror, fluffing up her hair a little, where the +hat had pressed it down. It is the immemorial fashion of women: a +characteristic position, and so an engaging one. Delicately the upraised +arms defined the lines of a graceful figure. + +But when Mary saw in the mirror that Charles Garrott had come into the +room, and had stopped short just over the threshold, looking at her, she +knew only that the moment had come when she must make acknowledgments +due for good aid and comfort received. And in her, the strong, +nervousness spread now like a fear. + +So she plunged hastily, the moment their eyes met: "I know, of course, +there isn't time to tell me about it now. But--I don't seem to get any +picture of your--your man at all.... What sort of man is he, +personally?" + +The author, starting a little, moved forward in the dusky room. + +"Oh, let's not speak of him," he said, with visible effort. "He's only a +writer. That's polite for a poor stick." + +"No--don't! Tell me--in the action of the story--what does he do?" + +"Not a thing--really. Just sits around and thinks." + +Strength came into her low voice: "Why--_why_ do you always belittle him +so?" + +Continuing to look at her, he said, remotely surprised: "Belittle him? +But I don't." + +The school-teacher's fingers closed over the mantel, and the tips of her +nails whitened. + +"Then I don't understand at all," she said, steadily. "I've been +thinking that it was he who almost murdered the villain, and gave one of +the Spinsters her old place back...." + +Charles Garrott stood like a man turned to stone, fascinated gaze upon +the eyes in the mirror: girlish eyes, doubtless, but quite unwavering +now. And then, in an instant, his face was scarlet from neck to brow. +His embarrassment was frightful to see: that of a soul too suddenly +stripped bare. + +"Oh!... So you've been looking through me--all along. I see ... the +Judge didn't confine himself to ... Well, his knowing--was purely an +accident. He had, of course, no--" + +"And why must my knowing be an accident, too?" + +"I--it was simply something you had nothing whatever to do with. And +there was an understanding--the--the matter was entirely private. You'll +please forget the Judge's--small-talk, and--" + +"Not if I live to be a thousand! I'll forget everything--I'll forget my +name!--but that!--no, you ask too much of my feelings." + +That, indeed, checked the young man's horrible self-consciousness. He +saw, with unsteadying bewilderment, that this was no light conversation +of hers, that Mary Wing was more deeply moved than he had ever seen her. +And suddenly he was aware, by some swift flicker of his intuition, that +it was to say this to him, and nothing else, that she had come home, +made a holiday, to-day.... + +"And you told me you had done nothing for me," she said, in the same +passionate low voice--"that day--when you had just done everything--what +nobody else in the wide world would ever have done for me! And you +were--hurt, too...." + +She stopped, abruptly. Her face quivered, just perceptibly, but he saw +it. Strange and incalculable.... Surely he had tried to do bigger and +better things for Mary, than the impromptu display of his primitive +passion.... Was this, also, of the primal and everlasting; did this, +too, touch the immutable and true? + +The helper was making reply, not exactly with _insouciance_: "Why!--why, +but I can't let you think of it--it was _nothing_! I _enjoyed_ it! I +simply didn't think he had behaved to you as he should. Naturally, I +didn't like that...." + +"_You_ didn't--because that's the way you are. You expect nothing--but +give everything. I don't like to hear you make light of yourself. I +don't." + +She turned away, went over to her desk by the window, where the school +examination-books awaited her. But once more it was clear that she had +no purpose here. She moved the piled books on the desk-leaf, half an +inch, perhaps, and went on in a controlled voice:-- + +"But I can't tell you how I felt, and feel, about it. And it's foolish +to--try to say thank you. We must talk of something else.... Sit down, +won't you? I'll give you some light in a minute." + +But the young man in the wedding raiment did not sit down, gave no sign +at all that he had heard her conclusive and hortatory speech. His eyes, +turning, had followed her as she went away from him. And now, as she +ended, he only stood and looked; looked over the familiar room at the +slender figure of a woman which, all so suddenly, had shot up to fill +the world for him. + +Fading light from the Green Park just touched Mary's face, where she +stood. She was a school-teacher, thirty years old. Life had buffeted +her: hard contacts with the real world had left upon her their permanent +marks, traced lines not to be eradicated beside these fine eyes. This +woman's first youth, her April bloom, was gone forever. But to this man +on the hearthside, her presence, her nearness, were charged now with an +intense power over depths in him which would stir to no fleshly +prettiness. + +He had her secret now. He knew her, a Woman revealed. And, standing and +looking at her over the darkening room, he was mysteriously shaken with +a profound emotion. + +This was his best old friend, this was the being he admired most upon +earth. She was his dearest comrade, his work-fellow and his playmate, +his human free and equal. She had a mind as good as his, a spirit whose +integrity he respected no less than his own; hands that were capable and +feet that she stood upon, and did not depend. She had an honor that was +not woman's honor, a virtue and character that had no part with the +business of sex. There was no competence a man had that this woman did +not have: she was as versatile and thoughtful and fearless and free as +the best of them. And, through and beyond all this, there was the +discovered marvel, that she had tilled and kept sweet the garden of her +womanhood. Underlying her rich human worthiness, as the mothering earth +lies under a tree, there was the treasure he had hardly glimpsed, this +store of her secret tenderness. + +So it was that Charles Garrott spoke up suddenly, with a kind of +huskiness:-- + +"No, there's only one thing to talk of now. You will have to hear my +story." + +The grammar-school teacher did not move. The twilit sitting-room was +stiller than a church. The young man went toward her on feet not now to +be stopped. + +"But not from the beginning--no. That doesn't matter. It's the ending--I +have waited to talk with you about." + +He stood now by the hard-worked little desk, an elbow rested on the top; +he looked down at the bent familiar head, the thick crown of feminine +fair hair. Just so, he had stood and looked on that other day, when she +had written upon his heart what freedom meant to her. + +"I wanted to show how one man--got his education in womanhood--learned +how strength is stronger for being sweet--just by coming to see and +understand the moral beauty of one woman's life.... That is my story. +But it isn't enough to end with." + +Some of his dignity, some of his self-control, seemed abruptly to +forsake the hard-pressed young man. + +"You are that woman," he said, hoarsely. "You've educated me. But it +isn't enough." + +She, his only heroine, raised her head, gave him one look from under her +arched brows; a strange look, that might have said good-bye to the +perfect friendship he had forever changed now. And he saw in the dusk +that her face was very pale. + +"You've supposed I want nothing for myself. I am here asking for +everything...." + +Her lashes fell. He was so close to her now that, just by putting out +his arm a little, he could have taken one of the small hands on the +desk-leaf. So he did put out his arm thus. Her hand, possessed, was cold +as ice; but it was not withdrawn. No, Mary's hand seemed to stay and +cling, like a hand come Home. + +And now he heard her voice, as tender as a mother's:-- + +"Ah, have I anything to give, do you think--that hasn't been given? What +sort of ending do you want?" + +So Charles told her then what sort of ending he wanted. And that, and no +other, was the sort of ending he had. + + +THE END + + + + +By Henry Sydnor Harrison + + ANGELA'S BUSINESS Illustrated. + V. V.'S EYES. Illustrated. + QUEED. Illustrated. + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Angela's Business, by Henry Sydnor Harrison + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANGELA'S BUSINESS *** + +***** This file should be named 34297-8.txt or 34297-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/2/9/34297/ + +Produced by Darleen Dove, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Angela's Business + +Author: Henry Sydnor Harrison + +Illustrator: Frederic R. Gruger + +Release Date: November 12, 2010 [EBook #34297] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANGELA'S BUSINESS *** + + + + +Produced by Darleen Dove, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + +<h1>ANGELA'S BUSINESS</h1> + +<h2>BY HENRY SYDNOR HARRISON</h2> + + +<h3>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY<br /> +FREDERIC R. GRUGER</h3> + +<h3>BOSTON AND NEW YORK<br /> +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY<br /> +The Riverside Press Cambridge<br /> +1915</h3> + +<h3>COPYRIGHT, 1914 AND 1915, BY HENRY SYDNOR HARRISON</h3> + +<h3>ALL RIGHTS RESERVED</h3> + +<h3><i>Published March 1915</i></h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h3>To JACK<br /> +<i>Who does not think as I do.</i></h3> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus1" id="illus1"></a> +<img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>"I DECIDED I WOULD REFUSE IT"</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#I">I</a><br /> +<a href="#II">II</a><br /> +<a href="#III">III</a><br /> +<a href="#IV">IV</a><br /> +<a href="#V">V</a><br /> +<a href="#VI">VI</a><br /> +<a href="#VII">VII</a><br /> +<a href="#VIII">VIII</a><br /> +<a href="#IX">IX</a><br /> +<a href="#X">X</a><br /> +<a href="#XI">XI</a><br /> +<a href="#XII">XII</a><br /> +<a href="#XIII">XIII</a><br /> +<a href="#XIV">XIV</a><br /> +<a href="#XV">XV</a><br /> +<a href="#XVI">XVI</a><br /> +<a href="#XVII">XVII</a><br /> +<a href="#XVIII">XVIII</a><br /> +<a href="#XIX">XIX</a><br /> +<a href="#XX">XX</a><br /> +<a href="#XXI">XXI</a><br /> +<a href="#XXII">XXII</a><br /> +<a href="#XXIII">XXIII</a><br /> +<a href="#XXIV">XXIV</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#By_Henry_Sydnor_Harrison">By Henry Sydnor Harrison</a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + + +<p><a href="#illus1">"<span class="smcap">I decided I would refuse it</span>"</a></p> + +<p><a href="#illus2">"<span class="smcap">No! Morals are the bulwark of the nation!</span>"</a></p> + +<p><a href="#illus3"><span class="smcap">Charles had no great chance to show his fearlessness of public opinion</span></a></p> + +<p><a href="#illus4">"<span class="smcap">Oh!... Why do you do this?</span>"</a></p> + +<p><a href="#illus5">"<span class="smcap">Well, I won't marry her! I won't!</span>"</a></p> + +<p><a href="#illus6"><span class="smcap">Angela peeped over into Washington Street</span></a></p> + +<p><a href="#illus7"><span class="smcap">This Spinster supplied a quiet charm</span></a></p> + +<p><a href="#illus8">"<span class="smcap">Ho!—had your spies on me, have you?</span>"</a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>ANGELA'S BUSINESS</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h2> + + +<p>Being an author actually at work, and not an author being photographed +at work by a lady admirer, he did not gaze large-eyed at a poppy in a +crystal vase, one hand lightly touching his forehead, the other tossing +off page after page in high godlike frenzy. On the contrary, the young +man at the table yawned, lolled, sighed, scratched his ear, read +snatches of Virginia Carter's "Letters to My Girl Friends" in the +morning's "Post," read snatches of any printed matter that happened to +be about, and even groaned. When he gazed, it was at no flower, but more +probably at his clock, a stout alarm-clock well known to the trade as +"Big Bill"; and the clock gazed back, since there was a matter between +them this evening, and seemed to say, "Well, are you going to the +Redmantle Club, or are you <i>not</i>?" But that was precisely the point +on which the young man at the table had not yet made up his mind.</p> + +<p>Of course, if he went to the Redmantle Club, he could not possibly spend +the whole evening here, writing, and, oddly enough, this was at once a +cogent reason for staying away from the Redmantle Club, and a seductive +argument for going to the same. No lady admirer could ever grasp this +paradox, but every true writer must admit that I know his secret +perfectly.</p> + +<p>From time to time, no diversion offering, the author would read over the +last sentence he had written, which very likely ran as follows:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>We have a society organized on the agreeable assumption that +every woman, at twenty-five or thereabouts, finds herself in +possession of a home, a husband, and three darling little +curly-headed children.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Stimulated a trifle, he would thereupon sharpen up his pencil and charge +forward a few sentences, as now:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>Slipshod people never test such old assumptions against +actuality; they cling to what their grandfathers said, and call +their slipshodness conservatism. So (like ostriches) they avoid +the fact that there are three large and growing classes of +women who simply have no relation to their comfortable old +theory. I refer, of course, to the classes of Temporary +Spinsters, of Permanent Spinsters, and of Married but +Idle—childless wives living in boarding-houses, for example. +Let no Old Tory conceive that he has disposed of the Woman +Question until he can plainly answer: What are all these +various women to <span class="smcap">DO</span> in their fifteen waking hours a day?</p></blockquote> + +<p>Following which, he lit a cigarette in a moody manner, and sat frowning +at the back of the head of his relative and secretary, who was clacking +away all the while on a second-hand typewriter near by.</p> + +<p>It will be contended that some hesitancy was fitting enough to the +writer's thesis, Woman having raised perplexities in the bosoms of +philosophers from the earliest times on. But perplexity did not happen +to be the trouble with this philosopher, Charles King Garrott. These +sentences Mr. Garrott so apathetically set down were the ancient +commonplaces of his mind, the familiar bare bones of special researches +long holding a unique position in his life. The dull General Public, +with its economic eye, might yet rate him merely as a private tutor, +formerly of Blaines College; the relative and secretary there might +judge him only a young man of an unmasculine thin sedentary quality, who +mysteriously gave his youth to producing piles of strange stuff that all +had to be copied out on the typewriter. But, in the privacy of his own +soul, Charles Garrott was, through all, not alone the coming American +novelist (which rather went without saying), but, in that direct +connection, probably the only man in the world who really understood +Woman.</p> + +<p>Old times used this phrase unscientifically; "understanding women" has +acquired misleading connotations. The words seem to call up the picture +of a purely gallant observer, one with a polished mustache and amorous +gay eyes, sitting under a sidewalk awning and ogling out over a purplish +drink. We may go so far as to state plainly that they call up the +picture of a Frenchman. The young man at the table is scarcely imagined +as this sort of authority, viewing Woman crudely as La Femme. As he +could not put pencil to paper without revealing, Charles Garrott viewed +Woman, never as La Femme, but exclusively as a Question. Himself the New +Man obviously, he saw Woman solely as a Movement, meditated about her +strictly as an Unrest. When he considered her in the concrete—and that +he seldom did nowadays, if we need not count his friend, Mary Wing, who +was as New as he, to say the least of it—his eye reviewed and +criticized her, not as a Sex, but strictly as a human being against an +environment. Charles Garrott would scientifically diagnose a Woman to +her face, in a manner which she, poor creature, but little suspected.</p> + +<blockquote><p>Romance [he began again] left us with the sentimental tradition +that a w——</p></blockquote> + +<p>"Charles!" said his relative and secretary, speaking for the first time +in ten minutes, a long silence for him—"I'll thank you for your +attention a moment."</p> + +<p>"Certainly, Judge," said Charles Garrott, with that alacrity with which +a true writer habitually welcomes an interruption.</p> + +<p>"Here, near the end of this story—passage I can't for the life of +me.... Here! Seems to go like this: 'Let a man,' cried Dionysius, +cracking walnuts with a sort of splendid sadness, 'but free his eyes +from the magic of sex, and mask my words'—no!—let's see—'<i>mark</i> my +words, Bishop, he shall see strange truths.'"</p> + +<p>There was a pause.</p> + +<p>"Mistake somewhere!" said the gentleman at the typewriter, with a +chuckle. "Well, what's what?"</p> + +<p>"No, that's right, I believe. Why, what's the matter with it?"</p> + +<p>"Why!—there's no sense in it!"</p> + +<p>"Oh—it's advanced talk, you know. Modern, epigrammatic stuff, you might +call it."</p> + +<p>"Conceding that, here's the bit about the nuts. That's where the mistake +is, <i>I</i> claim. Let me see—'cracking walnuts with a sort of <i>splendid</i> +sadness.' Good gad,—that can't be right, Charles! 'Sober sadness,' +'sorrowful sadness'—something of that sort you meant, eh?"</p> + +<p>The secretary had swung about suddenly, revealing a face almost +startlingly handsome, fine-cut as a cameo, pink and white as a +professional beauty's, and topped with a magnificent crown of snow-white +hair.</p> + +<p>"'Pathetic sadness,' now, my dear fellow? Go just a little better, +wouldn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Well—no, Judge, not just in this particular story. Fact is, it's meant +to be a little queer, you see."</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> queer, that's my point!" said the Judge, rather worried. +"'Cracking walnuts with a sort of splendid sadness'—if the public +understands <i>that</i>!—Well, as you like, of course."</p> + +<p>Having thus washed his hands of all responsibility, the relative gazed a +moment at a little red "Nothing But Business, Please" sign that hung +above his typewriter-table, hummed a bar or two in a sweet tenor voice, +and resumed his now expert clacking.</p> + +<p>Similarly his employer resumed his composition:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>Romance left us with the sentimental tradition that a woman's +sex was a complete, indeed a glorious, justification of her +existence (<i>v.</i> F. Dell: "Women as World Builders"). Because +she some day would be, or might possibly be, a mother of +children, she was set upon a pedestal and left there, exempt +from further responsibilities meanwhile. The potentiality of +motherhood became a claim to life-long support in idleness, +etc., etc.—</p> + +<p>Now, we have long understood that the controlling fact in the +life of every man is the way in which he gets his living. We +have long understood that the essential immorality is to get +something for nothing. But only lately have we come to see how +these two general laws apply, have always applied, to women. +Only late—</p></blockquote> + +<p>But there the pencil, which had been dragging, came again to a halt.</p> + +<p>This writing went forward in an old exercise-book, on the label of which +a fine trembling hand had written "<i>French Composition</i>." It was seen +that firmer fingers had overwritten that inscription with another: +"<span class="smcap">Notes on Women</span>." Here, in brief, the authority was reducing certain +views to essay form, according to a plan he had: squeezing out the meat +of his mind into the exercise-book, as the moral basis of a great new +novel, nothing less. And the truth was that he had no sooner begun the +stock-taking process than difficulties appeared, and the present want of +ardor made itself felt. Faint doubts and questionings, indeed, knocked +at Charles Garrott's mind in these days; not touching Woman, of course, +but certainly seeming to touch his last year's formula for her. "I'm an +ultra-modern with conservative reactions," he had thought to himself, +with a sense of important discovery, but a night or two ago. And on the +whole, he felt that that had explained him scientifically into the best +company in the world.</p> + +<p>The reference was to the one other existing person who, it was conceded, +might possibly know as much about Woman as he, Charles, did. That one +was a lady in Sweden. And, reassuringly enough, he had long since noted +in the Swedish lady's bold modernism, also, this precise same tendency +toward judicious reconsideration.</p> + +<p>Suddenly the young man put away his writing, shut his table-drawer with +a click, and said:—</p> + +<p>"I'm going out for awhile, Judge—to a meeting of the Redmantle Club. +Think I need a little stimulus."</p> + +<p>He went away to the bedroom, thinking, but not of the Redmantle Club, +for which, to say truth, he cared little. Nor were his thoughts in line +with the swingeing sentences he had just been writing in the +exercise-book. On the contrary, the young authority was openly inquiring +of himself: <i>Was</i> economic independence the complete solution of the +Unrest? <i>Were</i> there no Values in the world but Utilitarian Values?</p> + +<p>The bedroom door shut, and Judge Blenso, who had replied with a mere +busy nod to Charles's announcement, desisted from his clacking, and +produced a late copy of "The Rider and Driver" from the little drawer of +his typewriter-table. He began to look at pictures with a happy +expression upon his striking face.</p> + +<p>Why was Mr. Blenso called the Judge? An interesting point, on which I, +for one, unluckily can shed no light. But if he has also been called a +relative and secretary, that was for the sake of peace only. To say +outright that this fine large gentleman was Charles Garrott's nephew +(his half-nephew, to be exact) would necessitate a vast deal of +explanatory genealogy. That was a fact, as the family Bibles of the +Blensos and Minters clearly proved, but it is a fact that had better be +quietly ceded. Judge Blenso was a relative, and it is quite true that +his young half-uncle had been reared from infancy to address him as +Uncle George. Garrott, who had no other nephew in the world, had always +thought it a little unfair.</p> + +<p>The Judge's disaster had come upon him in the prime of a gallant +widowerhood. He had dived from an unfamiliar pier, one luckless day, in +the interests of a stout young woman, who flattered herself that she was +drowning. Diving too close to avoid her bulk, Charles's relative had +struck his head upon a submerged beam which should not have been there; +and the stout young woman, so far from drowning, had promptly proved +that she could float enough for two. She had saved her rescuer's life, +in short.</p> + +<p>But the beam had had the last word in the encounter, after all. When +Uncle George Blenso got well of his concussion, it was early discovered +that he was just a little "different"; also that his nominal Real Estate +and Loans business downtown was far, far from solvent. It was +accordingly proposed in the family that Uncle George should go to the +Garrott place in Prince William County; but this proposal had been +rejected at once by Uncle George, who protested indignantly that he was +a city man. The upshot was that Charles, being the only city relative +extant, had invited the Judge to share his third floor here, turning out +his young friend and room-mate, Donald Manford, for that express +purpose. That had seemed to settle the issue. But no; very soon the +lively kinsman was pointing out that he would need money, of course, for +clothes, club-dues, and so on, and accordingly it was arranged that he +should become Charles's literary assistant on a regular salaried basis.</p> + +<p>It happened that Charles had as yet had occasion to publish but a single +fiction ("The Truth About Jennie"; see "Favorite Magazine," for August, +1910). He had, indeed, as much need of a private chaplain as of a +secretary. The peculiarities of the case, thus, often struck and amused +him; and they did so now as, opening the door of the bedroom, hatted and +coated, he saw his secretary's still youthful head bowed pleasantly over +the magazine.</p> + +<p>"Ah, my dear fellow, there you are!" said the secretary, with just a +little jump.</p> + +<p>And putting down his reading-matter in a manner suggesting that, of +course, he had had to kill time somehow while waiting for Charles, he +went on at once in an agreeable confidential voice:—</p> + +<p>"By the by, I intended to ask you—you've heard about this Miss +Trevenna? Gad, you know, Charles! Her father won't let her name be +mentioned!"</p> + +<p>The employer eyed him gravely, pulling on his gloves. The story alluded +to was not unknown to him: how one modern girl, claiming more Freedom +than existed, had too rashly crossed the great gulf, and how, her +enterprise proving fatally unsuccessful, she had lately come home again. +He felt very sorry for Miss Trevenna.</p> + +<p>"Fact!—her mother visits her in secret, in lodgings," said his +secretary, dropping his eager voice further. "A sad case—sad, yes—but, +my dear fellow, can we allow our girls to run off with other people's +husbands? No! Morals," said Judge Blenso, sternly, "are the bulwark of +the nation!—that's what <i>I</i> say! Am I right, Charles?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus2" id="illus2"></a> +<img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>"NO! MORALS ARE THE BULWARK OF THE NATION!"</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Charles said that he was perfectly right. He then proposed that the +Judge should knock off work for the night, forthwith. But the Judge +looked rather shocked at the suggestion, and began to clack vigorously +at Dionysius.</p> + +<p>"There's really no hurry about this short stuff, you know. Why not go +down and cheer Mrs. Herman up a bit? She always appreciates a call from +you."</p> + +<p>The relative's hand irresistibly rose to his mustache.</p> + +<p>"A fine woman, a charmin' fine widow-woman," said he, in his rich voice. +"But!—business <i>before</i> pleasure, Charles. That's <i>my</i> way, my boy."</p> + +<p>However, the ringing motto seemed a little too good to live up to. +Hardly had the front door shut on Charles when Judge Blenso—he rather +insisted on the official title, now that he was secretary—hooded his +old typewriter for the night, turned down the light in the green-domed +lamp on the table, and descended to visit his landlady. That he had +small reverence for his half-uncle's New Thinking now became clear. The +Judge left the Studio (as he himself had christened it), chuckling +silently to himself, and on the steps began to chant aloud a sort +of gay recitative of his own composition. The chant went a beat +to every step, thus: "Cracking—piffle—walnuts—piffle—in a—sort +of—piffle—sadness!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2> + + +<p>The Redmantle Club was more advanced than Charles, and he knew it. And +when he told his relative that he was going to it for stimulus, he must +have been secretly well aware that it was but a treacherous stimulus he +was likely to get.</p> + +<p>The Club had been founded by Mrs. Frederick B. Seaman, who had once had +a novel published, long ago, at a nominal expense of two hundred and +fifty dollars. The name Redmantle had some significance which eludes +memory, but there seems to be no doubt that the founder's original idea +had been merely to gather together a few congenial persons to abuse the +publishers to. The times, however, chanced to be ripe for a broader +forum, one where the most advanced women of both sexes could meet and +freely speak out the New Mind. The Redmantle had seemed to fill the +long-felt want, from the start. Now its meetings began with a Programme, +and you may be sure nobody bothered with such small fry as a publisher. +The Redmantle speakers won salvos only by completely exterminating the +Family and the Home, or proving beyond successful contradiction that +Love Is Going Out.</p> + +<p>By arriving late on purpose, Charles Garrott missed a speech by Mary +Wing on the New Education, for which he was rather sorry. For a year or +more he had regarded Miss Wing as one of his best friends, and he always +liked to hear her demolish, in characteristically forceful sentences, +the surviving tradition that the true object of education is to +ornament gentility. He liked to see Mary Wing lay her hand upon her +breast, her Self, and cry out: "So long as I live, whatever I do or +think or am, the center of the world for me is <i>here</i>. I will not +conjugate dead languages or recite the imports of Uruguay, before I +learn the first fact about my Self—my body and my mind, my background +and my opportunity!" On the other hand, by his late arrival, Charles +missed Miss Frothingham's advanced harp-solo, and Professor Clarence +Pollock's tribute to a celebrated lady anarchist. As to the elder Miss +Hodger's address on the New Ego, he was not much less opportune. Miss +Hodger was nearing her peroration as the writing tutor appeared at the +door.</p> + +<p>He took up a position just inside, and looked through the parlor smoke. +The smoke emanated principally from the ladies, who were, however, as +five to one. Miss Hodger towered by a baby-grand piano, one hand upon an +album, and clamored for her Rights. She demanded these Rights of hers, +whatever they were, with such iteration and passion that a kindly, +simple person, had there been any such present, must needs have cried +out, "Give that lady her Rights there!—and quick about it!"</p> + +<p>Miss Hodger's was a tall figure, bony but commanding; she had a flat +chest, a tangled mane of sorrel hair and a face somewhat like a horse's. +Of her argument, little need be said; you may find it in detail in the +very books where Miss Hodger found it. It was, in sum, an unanswerable +demonstration of woman's sacred duty of Developing her Ego. The exposé +of the Home proved particularly searching; it brought loud cheers. Much +Miss Hodger said, too, of the Higher Law and the Richness of +Personality, of Contributions to the Race and Enhancement of the Life +Stream. In Charles Garrott's ears one sentence seemed to ring and stick +above the rest: "Fiercely and relentlessly shall Modern Woman hack away +all that impedes her in her Self-Development—all, I care not what it +is!"</p> + +<p>She ended with a kind of yell, thumped the album twice, and strode away +from the baby-grand. There were bursts of clapping, a chorus of +approval, and then general buzzing and commotion. The Programme was +over. Everybody was standing: all talking, nobody left to listen. +Servants entered bearing trays of light refreshments; light, indeed, +they looked. It was the Redmantle's social hour, the hour of good, free, +courageous talk.</p> + +<p>Charles Garrott moved into the noisy room. All his sides, of course, +were not known to his fellow members, and yet he had a standing here. He +was recognized as one of the pioneer Rightsers; his last year's speech +before the Club, on "Work for Women," had been generally adjudged a +first-rate piece of Modern Thinking. And all the Redmantlers seemed to +like to talk to him, too; they would get round him and back him up into +corners in a way he scarcely liked. Mrs. Frederick B. Seaman looked as +if she meant to kiss him. "And now," she said, beaming, "for a good long +talk about my new book." He cleverly evaded her, but in so doing fell +right into the net of the hearthside anarchist, Professor Pollock, who +drew him in with a hand as large and soft as a beefsteak. Pollock was a +thin, bald young man, with the conventional flowing necktie, and the New +disappearing chin, and secretly Garrott had always thought him a most +terrific jackass.</p> + +<p>"How are we going to relieve this White Slave situation, Garrott? How? +How?"</p> + +<p>"It is one of the grave problems of the day," said Charles. "At the +moment I can only answer, as President Taft answered the workman at +Cooper—"</p> + +<p>"What, you admit that you have no remedy to lay down? None whatever?"</p> + +<p>"At the moment, none. It is one of the grave—"</p> + +<p>The younger and even freer Miss Hodger, who had been hovering near, +exploded a mouthful of cigarette smoke, and exclaimed excitedly:—</p> + +<p>"Oh sister, only think! Mr. Garrott has no remedy for the White Slave +situation!"</p> + +<p>They thought it most reprehensible of him to have no remedy, and closed +in on him, bursting with theirs. "Have you not considered the +necessities of the living wage!" demanded the elder Miss Hodger's +joyless voice, suddenly at his elbow. "Living wage—bah!" said Professor +Pollock, hotly. "A mere sop—a mere feeble temporizing—" "You must get +into their homes!" cried the youngest Miss Hodger, who admitted homes +only as places to get into. "You must take them very, very young...."</p> + +<p>So they fell to quarreling among themselves, and Charles Garrott +wriggled away, wishing that he were as cocksure about anything as the +Hodgers were about everything, and resolving to try to be henceforward. +So he eluded Miss Frothingham, who was handicapped by her harp and +nearsighted besides, but ran at once against a crimson-faced woman in a +purple negligée, a stranger to him he felt sure, but she asked him at +once, in an angry sort of way, "Don't you favor a public reception +<i>immediately</i> to splendid Flora Trevenna?" In spite of his resolution, +Charles's eyes fell before the threatening gaze. It seemed to be the +sixth time, at least, that he had caught the name of Miss Trevenna among +the Turkish fumes, but the idea of the public reception immediately was +new to him. "Don't you think she's struck a great Blow for Freedom?" +demanded the crimson one, with rising indignation. "Don't you think +she's weakened the hold of the horrible Tyranny of Marriage?"</p> + +<p>Thus the Modern got stimuli, of just the sort he had known he would get +if he came. Members jostled him, blew smoke in his eyes, laid +demonstrative hands upon him. All about him in the dense air, he heard +hot voices crying out incorrect statements of things they had lately +misread; at best loose bits plucked from authors whom he, Charles, had +turned inside out year before last, as like as not. And why, he +wondered, need Redmantlers <i>look</i> so queer? Why must new ideas, if only +the least bit radical, invariably attract people who liked to wear +breakfast-gowns in the evening, people with uncombed hair and burning +pop-eyes, people who had little chin, indeed, but yet far more chin than +humor?</p> + +<p>And then suddenly, in the midst of the febrile Newness, the young +authority found himself talking to a sweet-faced girl from the country, +who looked at him with woman's eyes, and spoke simple little things in a +pretty voice: "Do you play bridge? Do you tango? It must be <i>wonderful</i> +to be a writer...."</p> + +<p>It was really an extraordinary experience.</p> + +<p>The development came by way of his good friend, Mary Wing, whom Charles +reached at last with a certain sense of making port. Miss Wing, it must +be known, was the assistant principal of the great City High School, +where no woman had ever been before her, where she herself had arrived +only after eight years' incessant battling upward. She was also, this +long time, president of the State Branch of the National League for +Education Reform, with the prospect of presently mounting far higher, to +nothing less, if you please, than the General Secretaryship of that rich +and powerful body. Considering her history and her exploits, it seemed +that she should have been six feet tall, with a gaze like a Gorgon and +a jaw like Miss Hodger's. But Mary Wing was actually a slight and almost +fragile-looking creature, with quite girlish blue eyes in a colorless +face that wore an air of deceptive delicacy.</p> + +<p>She was two months older than her friend, Mr. Garrott, which made her +thirty in December. And she was undoubtedly the most distinguished +person in that strident room, not excepting (at the present writing) Mr. +Garrott himself.</p> + +<p>The assistant principal was discovered leaning against a bookcase, +eating sandwiches in large bites, two bites to a sandwich, and paying no +attention to the earnest talk of the group she seemed to belong to. "It +must be the effect of speaking," she said to Garrott. "I'm ravenous. But +goodness, there's no nourishment in these little paper things." And +almost at once she demanded, firm as a Redmantler, if he had ever been +to call on Dr. Flower; some cousin or other of hers, this was, who +(through her connections in the educational world) had lately taken an +appointment as lecturer at the Medical School. Charles had agreed to +call on this worthy, it seemed, but naturally he hadn't done so.</p> + +<p>She chided him for his remissness. It was a mild enough reproof, in all +conscience; yet it was at that moment that he, with his diagnostic +tendency, caught himself eyeing Mary Wing critically, as if she were any +other Redmantler. And then he seemed to become aware that, without +knowing it exactly, he must have been eyeing Mary Wing critically for +some time past now.</p> + +<p>"He'll need some patients, too, to eke out. I must look into that," said +she, popping the second half of a sandwich into her mouth. "I suppose +you don't know anybody who intends to be sick soon, in a costly way?"</p> + +<p>He shook his head. He himself, he intimated, had no idea of getting sick +merely to oblige her rural cousins.</p> + +<p>"What does that girl do?" he added, almost irritably. "Didn't you tell +me there was a girl, twenty-five years old? Why doesn't she work, and +eke out?"</p> + +<p>"She does work. She runs the house."</p> + +<p>"Apparently you didn't see Mrs. Waldo's statement that quarter of an +hour a day was quite enough for that so-called work."</p> + +<p>"Do you believe that?"</p> + +<p>"I know it's false. Still there are ninety-six quarters of an hour in a +day, people estimate. What sort of girl is she? Little nitwit, I +suppose?"</p> + +<p>"She's my cousin."</p> + +<p>"Lots of people have little nitwits for cousins. Why doesn't she pitch +in and earn her keep, like a free personality—as our friend Miss Hodger +would say?"</p> + +<p>Miss Wing was observing him with a strange air, resembling amusement. +"You must really ask her that yourself some time, Mr. Garrott."</p> + +<p>"I'll do it with pleasure, the first time ever I clap eyes on her."</p> + +<p>"Well, then," said she, with a sudden laugh, "do it <i>now</i>!"</p> + +<p>And thereupon, within ten seconds, the managing young woman had whisked +him around a knot of Redmantlers, whisked him around the bookcase, and +was saying in merry, efficient tones:—</p> + +<p>"Angela, this is the famous Mr. Garrott you've heard so much about—my +cousin, Miss Flower! Mr. Garrott's very anxious to—"</p> + +<p>She paused wickedly, but after all finished without malice, "To make +your acquaintance." And so Mr. Garrott did not have to ask the country +cousin on the spot what she was thinking about not to earn her keep.</p> + +<p>The girl had been standing against the other corner of the bookcase all +the time, it seemed. She was talking, in a polite sort of way, to +another guest—Mr. Tilletts, the wealthy and seeking widower—and +fanning away tobacco smoke with a hand too small for the heavy odds. Mr. +Tilletts was removed at once by the thoroughly competent Miss Wing.</p> + +<p>Charles Garrott, recovered from the sudden little surprise, looked at +the cousin with interest, and was at no loss for easy conversation. +While he knew of Miss Flower very well, he pointed out, he had had no +idea that she was here this evening. In fact, he hadn't gathered that +Miss Flower went in for—well, for this sort of thing, exactly.</p> + +<p>"Why—I really don't, I'm afraid," said she in her soft voice. "I don't +suppose I understand it all very well. I just came—because Cousin Mary +invited me!"</p> + +<p>She hesitated, then laughed, and finally said: "And you see, it's the +first party I've been invited to since I came here to live!"</p> + +<p>"And you like parties?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, so much. Don't you?"</p> + +<p>The remark, at, and as to, the Redmantle, seemed delightful.</p> + +<p>"I did, when I was young and gay. Now, I never seem to have time to +enjoy myself any more. You've been meeting a good many people, I +suppose?"</p> + +<p>"Well, no,—not many yet. Really hardly any." The girl laughed, and +again showed a charming naïveté: "You're the very first man I've met +since we came here—except Mr. Tilletts!"</p> + +<p>"But that's a tremendous exception, Miss Flower. You appreciate that +he's one of our leading swains?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>is</i> he!" she said, a little disconcerted. "Why—I hope he didn't +think I was rude! I thought he was—somebody's father, you see, or +uncle...."</p> + +<p>Charles Garrott regarded the cousin pleasurably, with no thought of +cross-examination. He, the authority, it need scarcely be said, had +recognized this girl at sight. Manifestly, she was none other than the +Nice Girl, the Womanly Woman, whom he and all moderns were forever +holding up to scorn. Doubtless it was merely the increased conservative +reaction: but Charles, for the moment, seemed conscious of no scorn in +him toward Miss Angela Flower.</p> + +<p>The cousin was pretty; not beautiful, no throne-shaker; but pretty, and +attractive-looking. Wholly normal she looked, quite engagingly so, with +her fine clear skin, smooth dark hair, and large limpid eyes. In her +manner there was something soft, simple, and sweet, an ingenuous desire +to please and be pleased; Miss Flower was feminine, in short,—it could +not be denied. In a company, where the women acted like men, and the men +acted like the Third Sex, this girl seemed content to remind you, like +her mothers, that she was a woman.</p> + +<p>Her conversation, intrinsically speaking, was not remarkable. But—the +insidious contrast again—in a Midst where everybody else was conversing +remarkably, plain conversation itself became an episode, and a charming +one. She spoke of bridge, saying that she and Cousin Mary were hoping to +"get up a table" one night very soon; of Mitchellton, where she had +lived seven years till September; of the maxixe and the smallness of the +house Mary Wing had taken for them; a dozen such un-New simplicities. +And then, as she happened to be saying something about the strangeness +of the city, "just at first," Charles Garrott exclaimed suddenly, rather +pleased:—</p> + +<p>"There's a friend of yours, at any rate, Miss Flower—Donald Manford! +The last one in the world you'd expect to meet here."</p> + +<p>The engineer must have just come in; over bobbing heads, through waving +arms, his fine figure and bronzed face had been suddenly glimpsed at the +doorway. This young man was another cousin of Mary Wing's; she, indeed, +had raised him by hand; and he looked hardly less alien at the Redmantle +Club than Miss Angela Flower herself.</p> + +<p>To Garrott's astonishment, Miss Flower did not know Donald from Adam.</p> + +<p>"Is <i>that</i> Mr. Manford?" she exclaimed, surprised apparently by her +cousin's cousin's good looks. "Of course I've known <i>of</i> him for the +longest time, but—"</p> + +<p>"Why, that's strange—he's like a brother to Mary Wing. But then," said +he, reconsidering, "Donald's out of the city half the time, and does +nothing but work when he's here."</p> + +<p>"Oh! Cousin Mary said she was going to bring him to see us some +time—but—"</p> + +<p>He enlarged upon the young engineer's industry (trained into him by Miss +Wing); explained how he was busier than usual just now in view of his +coming trip to Wyoming; mentioned the great Mora dam and cut-off +project, on which he expected a commission under Gebhardt himself.</p> + +<p>"And your cousin Mary, too," he concluded, in the justest way, "is an +awfully busy person, you see."</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course, I know! She does work <i>terribly</i> hard, doesn't she?"</p> + +<p>After the slightest pause, the girl added: "It's such a pity she has to, +don't you think so?"</p> + +<p>On which Donald Manford dropped cleanly from Charles's mind, and he +inquired with authoritative interest, artfully concealed: "How do you +mean, exactly?"</p> + +<p>"Well—I don't know—"</p> + +<p>She looked at him, laughing a little, as if not certain how far she +could say what she meant; but finding his gaze so extremely encouraging, +she went on seriously:—</p> + +<p>"Don't you think when a woman gets really wrapped up in business—and +all that—she's apt to miss some of the best things of life?"</p> + +<p>He might have laughed at the quaint deliciousness of that, to him, +Charles Garrott. But he didn't.</p> + +<p>"That's the great question your sex is working out, isn't it?" he said, +carefully. "I don't suppose work—just moderate, useful occupation—ever +hurt anybody much, do you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no!—of course not. That's just what I believe, too. I believe +everybody ought to have work to do. But—all the work isn't teaching or +going to an office—or being a public speaker—do you think so?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, never. No, indeed."</p> + +<p>She hesitated and said, laughing: "I know <i>I</i> find it work enough just +keeping a house and doing the housework—and being a daughter and +sister!"</p> + +<p>It was at that point that Charles's purely conventional look altered, +his inmost self pricking up its ears, as it were. And a moment later the +simple girl said, in the naïvest way imaginable, what seemed immediately +to stick in his scientific Woman lore like a burr:—</p> + +<p>"Of course I haven't studied and read like Cousin Mary, but truly it +seems to me that—just making a home is sometimes all the business a +woman could possibly attend to...."</p> + +<p>He stood looking down at her in the strangest way, engrossed with novel +reflections. She would have been astonished had she guessed how her +chance phrase had set this man's mind to working, behind the pleasant +mask. In her innocence she clearly did not understand, even after all +the speeches, how at the Redmantle Club we talked of all businesses, and +everybody's business, but never the business of making a home.</p> + +<p>The reactionary talk proceeded for a space. But shortly, there were +signs that the meeting was about to adjourn. And it was clear to +Charles, as a true writer of a philosophical tendency, that he should be +glad to be alone for a space now, and to think.</p> + +<p>He said suddenly:—</p> + +<p>"Miss Flower, I want very much to introduce Donald Manford to you, +before I go. May I do it now? Won't you promise to hold fast to this +bookcase, and not budge till I come back?"</p> + +<p>The girl promised. She seemed pleased by his thought of her, but sorry +over his own impending departure. "Oh, do <i>you</i> have to go now?" she +said, and her woman's eyes seemed to add quite plainly: "I'd lots rather +talk to you than meet Mr. Manford."</p> + +<p>The young authority smiled at her, and disappeared into the company. +Directly, he was back again, the engineer in tow.</p> + +<p>Donald, found conversing in a nook with another handsome guest, a Miss +Helen Carson, had rather resisted removal and been hauled off, truth to +tell, in some ill-humor. But Charles, for his part, felt warmly pleased +with himself, bringing together these two nice, normal cousins of Mary +Wing's. The girl too, looked pleased; her eyes were shining, a pretty +color tinged her young cheek.</p> + +<p>"I'm so glad to meet you, Mr. Manford, at last. We're really sort of +connections, aren't we—once removed!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I believe so!—that's fine. Delighted to know you," said Mr. +Manford. "I hope you enjoyed the speeches this evening?"</p> + +<p>"Well—that's hardly a fair question!" laughed Miss Angela, looking from +one man to the other. "Are you a—regular member?"</p> + +<p>The query brought applauding laughter from Mr. Garrott and a weak groan +from Mr. Manford. "You mean I look like one? Oh, that's a blow! No, +honor bright," he added, "I leave all the advanced stuff to Mary."</p> + +<p>Then Charles took his leave, in the friendliest manner. He felt, in an +odd sort of way, that there had sprung a kind of bond between this girl +and him, all the realer in that she, of course, was so unconscious of +it. So kindly did he feel toward Mary Wing's cousin, indeed, that when +she hoped, in her charming natural way, that he would come to see them +some time soon, he, though anything but a caller, actually came very +near promising to do so.</p> + +<p>Miss Flower's eyes regretted his going; they were feminine eyes. Charles +smiled into them again, pressed her hand, and turned away toward the +Studio, to think.</p> + +<p>By the door, he ran again into Mary Wing. The educator had changed her +position, but was still eating sandwiches. She beckoned Charles nearer, +in her confident way, and said:—</p> + +<p>"Do you remember my telling you how much I wanted to see Donald settled +before he went off, and sketching a few of the qualifications the girl +must have? And your saying that what I wanted was a syndicate?"</p> + +<p>He remembered, he said.</p> + +<p>"See how I treasure up your <i>bon mots</i>. Well, there she is."</p> + +<p>And she nodded down the room, not even in the direction of her cousin +from the country, but to none other than Miss Carson, now found +conversing with the heated Pollock.</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Garrott.</p> + +<p>"Why," exclaimed Mary, the moment her eyes had followed her nod, "I +wonder where Donald is!"</p> + +<p>He decided to pretend not to hear. Gazing at Miss Carson in the light of +this information, he was ready to concede that she seemed a sound enough +modern choice. Well-connected, well-to-do, and completely educated, the +young lady in question, while now taking "two years out" to please her +mother, was next year going to work, to please herself—of course, in +Social Service. Young and alluring Miss Carson looked, indeed. But +something in the mould of her smooth chin, confronting the young man who +had none, seemed to serve notice that, though she was beautiful, she +knew that Women's Egos must be free.</p> + +<p>"Don't you think she may be a little firm? I mean, for Donald?"</p> + +<p>"Firm? Not a bit!—she's human and competent. Heavens!—you don't want +Donald to marry a helpless little silly, do you? But what on earth +became of him, did you notice? I made him come here after me specially +to meet her, and I had them talking so nicely—"</p> + +<p>Then Charles said firmly: "I just introduced him to Miss Flower. It +seemed you'd neglected to do so. By the way, your cousin's charming."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Mary, rather drawn-out.</p> + +<p>And, after a rebuking pause, she added in pedagogic tones: "Well, I'm +sorry you took him away from Helen. I'm serious about this match, you +see. It would almost reconcile me to giving Donald up."</p> + +<p>The young man's look at his old friend was certainly critical now. And +he refused to feel in the least sorry for his interference with her cool +eu-marital scheme. For, taking even the most liberal view, Modernity was +for Moderns; probably always would be. What under the sun did a fellow +like Donald want with a wife who would prove him wrong about a cosine, +and keep him up jawing about Mrs. Gilman till two o'clock in the +morning?</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>From the Turkish air of the Redmantle, Charles Garrott passed out into +the bracing November night. Two blocks farther along, he passed the door +of another club, a completely male one. And down the wide steps, between +the columnar lights, there came shambling a large, loose-jointed, +round-faced man in a brown felt hat, and joined him.</p> + +<p>"Well, Charlie."</p> + +<p>"Good evening, Mr. Wing."</p> + +<p>Having caught stride, the two men walked on in silence. This Mr. Wing +was Mary's Uncle Oliver, an interesting individual in his way, member of +the City School Board, and in the business world known sometimes as a +"capitalist," sometimes again as a loan-shark. When in the vein, Mr. +Wing could be conversational enough, and his morose air at present +indicated that he had lost not less than three dollars at the Bellevue +Club card-tables this evening.</p> + +<p>When they had proceeded some three blocks in total silence, Charles, +emerging from his brown study, said idly:—</p> + +<p>"Mr. Wing, do you believe in the Woman's Movement?"</p> + +<p>Hearing no reply to his query, he glanced around, and found Mr. Wing +slowly shaking his head. It seemed to be a time-gaining sort of shake; +it undertook to hold the floor temporarily, promising good sound +argument to follow. Charles waited. But Uncle Oliver did not speak; he +only continued to shake his head, slowly and profoundly. And when the +two had traversed half a block in this provisional sort of way, the +money-lender suddenly turned up the steps of the house where he lived, +still shaking his head.</p> + +<p>Halfway up the steps, he looked back over his shoulder, and said:—</p> + +<p>"Well, good-night, Charlie."</p> + +<p>"Good-night, Mr. Wing."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2> + + +<p>The first thing the author did, on opening the door of the Studio, was +to look at the clock. Big Bill pointed to but five minutes of eleven. +Good! There remained a clean hour and a half before he would have to +cease work and go to bed, to wake up a private tutor.</p> + +<p>All the lethargy of the earlier evening seemed to have vanished now, +under the strong reverse stimulus of the Redmantle Club. Having turned +up the light in his gas-lamp, the young man stood a moment, thinking +intently, and then sat down at his writing-table. The table was twelve +years old, and had been to college and law-school. It was worn and +stained, but still strong, and bore up, besides the lamp and clock, not +only a large array of writer's paraphernalia, but a considerable +floating miscellany, too, including a clipping or so, several unanswered +letters, a stray tobacco-pouch, a thick exercise-book, and the +particular volume on Women he happened to be reading at the moment. +Ignoring these, the proprietor drew from the back of his table drawer a +capacious brown-paper folder, and from the folder plucked three +typewritten sheets, held together with a clip.</p> + +<p>It was seen that the topmost of these sheets bore a heading: <span class="smcap">Mary Wing</span>. +And for some moments the author of them sat in stillness, conning over +the lines that followed: the magnanimous lines he had prepared with such +pains long ago, and then tamely put to sleep in a drawer.</p> + +<p>He had composed this eulogy last winter, to help Miss Wing in her +campaign for the assistant principalship of the High School. His plan, +of which she knew nothing to this day, had been cunning and complete. +First he would get this "write-up" into the "Persons in the Foreground" +department of "Willcox's," the famous and enormously circulated weekly; +then he would have the "Post" reprint it; finally he would induce all +the local papers to print glowing editorials demanding, "Is this +prophetess to be without honor in her own country?" Unquestionably a +most helpful plan; but characteristically, Mary had not waited for it. +By some "pull" she had, she had put her little matter through months +ahead of schedule, and Judge Blenso had just finished typing the +"write-up," late one winter's afternoon, when Charles was summoned to +the telephone to be greeted by the first woman assistant principal in +history. He, of course, had been delighted with her success. And +yet—had he not felt even then that the episode was typical of a +positively manly independence?</p> + +<p>Now he read over his forgotten words with cool judiciality:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>Her name was in newspaper headlines before she was out of her +teens; and many and many a time since. She wished to be a +doctor, and the Medical School would not take her in. And +shortly this slim girl, with her sweetly-cut chin and ethereal +eyes, had raised the whole State on the issue of principle thus +thrown down: Did a woman have the right to study, or not? She +stormed the courts for an injunction, she set the legislature +by the ears for a special act. The story of her personal +interview with the Governor, at the height of the disturbance, +is often told to this day; but never by any friend of the +Governor's. And then, when she was within a step of winning the +long fight, her father died suddenly and she faced the +immediate necessity of earning a living.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Farther along, the author's eye found the particular passage that had +been in his mind from the start, the part about the National League for +Education Reform. Having recounted how the bequest of Rufus B. Zecker's +millions had "assured the permanence and ultimate triumph of the +League's programme," the generous "puff" went on:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>What the National League contemplates is nothing less than the +remaking of our entire educational system, on the basis of a +new perception of truth, namely: that education is, not +learning at all, but purely the process of fitting the +individual for effectual relations with his (or her) +environment. With the League's propaganda to that end, under +the brilliant leadership of Horace Gurney Ames, Miss Wing has +been closely associated for the past seven years. Her work here +has been, indeed, the dominant part of her career....</p></blockquote> + +<p>The dominant part of her life, he would better have written. And that +was precisely the trouble.</p> + +<p>The sheets dropped from the young man's hands, and he gazed unwinking at +the green translucence of his lamp. His mind skipped back to a day in +early September, when Mary and her mother had come home from their two +weeks in the metropolis—Mrs. Wing still looking rather crushed from the +overwhelming rush of New York, Mary radiant with the hope that before +long she might go back to New York, to stay there the rest of her life. +For on that journey she had abruptly learned that the League directors +had their eyes upon her with reference to their General Secretaryship, +which was to become vacant next March. Undoubtedly, the brilliant Dr. +Ames had sounded her pretty directly on this point. Undoubtedly, too, it +would be another long step up for Mary, making her, in the educational +world at least, a figure of national consequence. Once again, of course, +Charles Garrott had been delighted. And yet it was clear to him now that +his Modernity had first felt conservative reactions on that very day.</p> + +<p>Through the shut door of the bedroom there came a gentle snoring. After +the day's secretarial labor, Judge Blenso slept well. Charles rose and +walked his carpet, much worn with a writer's meditative pacing.</p> + +<p>The wisest of us generalize from the instances that lie nearest us. How +far this young man's views on Woman had been moulded by contrasting the +maturing uselessness of his pupil Grace Chorister, say, with the fine +efficience of Miss Wing, he himself could not have said. But at least he +knew that Mary Wing had long embodied the best of the whole Movement for +him. He had held her up, in season and out, as a perfect example of the +New Woman at her best. And Mary Wing was that, he declared it now; the +real thing, as different as possible from the hollow shams of the +Redmantle Club. Of course—of <i>course</i>—she had a right, just the same +right that a man had, to put away her mother, her family and friends, +and follow away the star of her work. But ... if only she showed a +little more appreciation of values apart from My Career; if only you +could imagine Mary sometimes speaking of Being a Daughter and Being a +Sister.</p> + +<p>Yes; those were the words that rose naturally in his mind. Beyond doubt, +Mary Wing's cousin from the backwoods had given a push to Charles +Garrott's thought; he would have been the first to admit that. Not +merely had Miss Angela happened to body forth, in the most pleasing, +unconscious way, that very type which all Redmantlers so derided; but +further, she had artlessly used a phrase which, to his authoritative +mind, had helped to scientize her case at a bound. For of course the +most scientific modern demand as to Miss Angela's class came simply down +to this, that all Temporary Spinsters should have some regular business +to occupy their hands and heads. Very well, then, laughed this little +girl: What about the <i>Business</i> of Making Homes?</p> + +<p>The phrase, connoting so much more than mere "keeping house," was worthy +of a writer. And when had this other doctrine grown so strong and sure, +that the Business of Making a Career, of Developing My Ego, was +necessarily the biggest business in the world?</p> + +<p>In the silence of the large dim Studio, the young man stood stroking the +bridge of his nose, somewhat worriedly. It was a well-cut bridge, and +held three brown freckles.</p> + +<p>It occurred to him, not for the first time, that he himself was helping +to spread the egoistic doctrine referred to. He remembered his novel, in +short: his Old Novel, as he already called it, albeit it was his only +one, and he and Judge Blenso had completed it but two weeks ago, to a +day. This novel, in manuscript, was now in the hands of the great house +of Willcox Brothers Company, whom Charles, after due thought, had +selected as his publishers. Willcox's offer, and the contract, might +come by any mail now.</p> + +<p>To the writing, and infinite rewriting, of this first work had gone the +scant leisure of more than four years. Its title-page read: "<span class="smcap">Bondwomen</span>: +A Novel of Modern Marriage." (The Judge had first typed the title +<span class="smcap">Bandwomen</span>, as if it were a Novel of Female Bandsmen, which had annoyed +Charles very much.) Considering the cunning with which he had labored to +"keep the story moving," it could scarcely be doubted, that "Bondwomen" +was destined to have a large sale. And that, in fact, was just the +danger; that was precisely the reason that he, the author, felt this +sense of moral responsibility. Young married women, young impressionable +Temporary Spinsters everywhere, would soon be reading this book, and +moulding their characters upon it. He, of course, had never preached any +of the wilder, Trevenna Modernity. But all the same.... That passage +there, for instance, where <i>Lily Slender</i>, in the lonely vigil on the +terrace, reviews the status of Parasitic Woman and decides to leave her +husband, and grow her Soul: certainly the probability was that +intelligent women all over the world (he would have to grant British and +Colonial rights at once, no doubt) would shortly be devouring that keen, +advanced Thinking; and, it was to be feared, a general exodus from Homes +would follow. In his mind's eye, Charles saw armies of women rising and +packing Gladstone bags in the stilly night, and stealing forth, just as +the dawn whitened the east, to join <i>Lily Slender</i> in lifting marriage +to the Higher Plane, by means of Commerce.</p> + +<p>He had put much of Mary Wing into <i>Lily</i>; he knew that. But then he +hadn't taken it in, in those days, how serious Mary was as to—what was +the word of that mad ass Hodger?—fiercely hacking away whatever impeded +her in her Self-Development.</p> + +<p>Had not the moment rather come when some one, some all-seeing and +completely modern authority, should resolutely sound the Note of +Warning? Was it so sure that careering Egoism had anything more valuable +to give the world than the old virtues which it flouted? Beauty, charm, +and cheer, tenderness, selfless sympathy, all that mothering meant: was +it not ridiculous to ignore these enormous contributions to the work of +the world, because, forsooth, they could not show an immediate cash +return?</p> + +<p>Now all the clocks of the city—all, that is, that were right, and had +bells—began to sound midnight. But the absorbed author and authority +paced on, aware of no sound. He was thinking, with something like +excitement, of his next novel, "Bondwomen's" greater successor, for +which he was now just struggling to fix his point of view, straighten +out his "moral plot," by means of notes in the old French +exercise-book. Long as he had sensed a certain spiritual starkness in +his first novel, long as he had looked forward to his second, the vital +questions concerning his new "line" had never yet been settled in his +mind.... Well, suppose that, with a frank, courageous change of front, +he employed the New Novel to sound the wholesome Note of Warning; +suppose that he boldly took a Home-Maker for his heroine, for example, +and justified her—justified her <i>scientifically</i>—as no modern thinker +had ever justified her before....</p> + +<p>The striking idea was not a new one altogether; but its possibilities, +suddenly opening out, rapidly grew more and more interesting. +Unfortunately, before it could be developed in even the smallest degree, +it was abruptly interfered with by a most unwelcome intrusion of the +practical.</p> + +<p>Charles Garrott was a tutor. He had turned eagerly to his table, to +capture certain phrases at least, while they were yet hot in his mind. +But now, chillingly, his eye fell upon that other exercise-book, lying +there publicly atop the volume on Women. At a glance that book looked +exactly like its sister, kept hidden in a drawer; but in fact there was +a boundless distinction. No hand had overwritten the label of that book +there raising it to the peerage, as it were. That book was just a common +book: "French Composition." And it was known to contain uncorrected +exercises, forty sentences at least, which must be tutorially attended +to, before Charles Garrott slept this night.</p> + +<p>There followed a brief struggle; but it could end in only one way. +Charles, with no good grace, sat at his table and clutched up a fat blue +pencil.</p> + +<p>It was a galling occurrence. Yet a man, of course, must live, whether +cynical Frenchmen can see the necessity or not. And the tutoring, say +what you would against it, was the best net result of a gradual sifting +process, designed to find what would yield the largest amount of money +for the least amount of work. So had Charles Garrott bent his life, to +be a writer. Bred casually to the law, he had thrown over the +encouraging beginnings of a practice directly he found that clients +expected to take all a man's time, including nights even. Teaching he +did not love, and yet, as he had enjoyed an excellent education, it +"came easier" than anything else. His boast to friends, indeed, was that +he could teach anything, whether he had ever heard of it before or not; +and it was a fact that at a private school once—years ago, in the +interval between college and law-school—he had taught Spanish on three +days' notice, keeping, as he said, precisely one page and a half ahead +of his class the whole year through. But teaching Ancient Languages at +Blaines College was found, upon fair experiment, to involve too many +papers in the Studio, conferences with boys, annoying teachers' +meetings, and similar invasions of a writer's privacy. Besides, it was +not nearly lucrative enough, after the coming of the Judge, who drew +twenty-five dollars a month as Secretary, besides his keep.</p> + +<p>Thus had evolved the private tutor, with a waiting-list. Thus it was +that probably the only living compeer of the lady in Sweden must put +aside his Thinking to-night, to peruse and criticize such stuff as +this:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>16. <i>Bon jour, Monsieur le Curé! Avez vous vu le grand cheval +de mon oncle, le médecin?</i></p></blockquote> + +<p>Oh, detestable!</p> + +<p>The two French exercise-books—twins with what a difference!—had +started life equally as the property of a certain dear old lady, who had +been spurred into studious endeavor by reading in a magazine that Roman +Cato learned Greek at eighty. She had pointed out to her daughter, +quite excitedly, that she herself was but seventy-one, and French was +easier, besides; and that evening she had telephoned to Charles. The old +lady wrote a very neat but virtually illegible hand, employing the +finest Spencerian pen ever seen:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>23. <i>Non, petit Henri, non; votre sœur Marie n'est pas +jamais aussi méchante que vous fûmes hier soir.</i></p></blockquote> + +<p>The author's golden moments fled.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, before he went to bed, Charles Garrott did produce from +his drawer that other private book of his (the front part of which, +also, was stuffed with observations about the Curé and naughty little +Henry). Here, for what time he had, the young modern set down, on a +fresh page, preliminary Notes, such as, indeed, contrasted oddly with +those inscribed in the earlier evening. And when he shut up his book to +go to bed, he did it with an air, and spoke aloud:—</p> + +<p>"Let 'em bite on that!"</p> + +<p>From his tone, you might have supposed that all the Redmantlers of the +world would come to-morrow and look at these novel words of his. That, +of course, was far from being the case: these were his inviolable +secrets. Yet so real were his imaginings to the young man, so +reactionary seemed even the thought of a Novel of Warning, that an +unmistakable defiance had tinged his voice as he spoke. And particularly +did this defiant air seem to extend to his excellent friend, Mary Wing.</p> + +<p>Charles Garrott went to bed that night thinking defiantly of Mary (and +almost tenderly of Mary's so different cousin); and on succeeding +afternoons, when he took his walks abroad, he did not turn his steps, as +was frequently his habit, toward streets where the advanced assistant +principal was likely to be met.</p> + +<p>None the less, he did meet Mary on the street, before the week was out; +and then the case was such that the secret sense of disloyalty faded, +and Charles saw that he had been right all along. Mary, in short, was +found parading Washington Street, where the largest possible number of +people would be certain to see her, in the company of the too celebrated +Miss Trevenna. And then the authority thought of the Home-Making cousin +more sympathetically than ever; though he did not guess that the cousin, +chancing to see him and his ladies from an upstairs window, was also +thinking, not unsympathetically, of him.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2> + + +<p>It was not Charles's fault that he did not see Miss Angela, to-day, as +she saw him; the sight of her would have been agreeable to him, at that +moment particularly. But the window from which the pretty cousin looked +out happened to be a considerable distance away; and she gathered +nothing of his sentiments.</p> + +<p>Dr. Flower's house, indeed, was not on Washington Street at all, but on +Center, a very different street. Center, however, had this merit, that +it stood back to back with Washington, and as the Washington Street +residences were mostly "detached" at this point, the rear of the Flower +house commanded a certain view of that handsome thoroughfare; not much +of it, of course,—an oblique slice cut in between houses. The distance, +as has been said, was rather great for eyes less keen than the lynx's. +But a pair of opera-glasses at the parted curtain discreetly bridged the +space, and brought a few feet of the Street of the Rich under the +legitimate observation of the less materially successful.</p> + +<p>Now, when she had leveled her glasses upon the three figures—for +Charles, at this trying moment, was escorting <i>two</i> ladies down the +promenade—Miss Angela felt, to say truth, a little lonely and out of +things. Not only was Mr. Garrott the first man she had met in the new +city, but she had met him only, as it must now have seemed to her, like +ships passing in the night. Not dreaming how she had been figuring in +his thought, the girl felt, humanly and femininely, a little depressed. +And when she presently reflected, "I suppose this is the time he goes +down to lunch every day!"—the small thought was actually a cheering one +to her, presenting, as it were, some point of contact with Washington +Street and the pleasant happenings that seemed to go on over there.</p> + +<p>Such, in fine, was the sheer enchantment of distance. To Mr. Garrott +himself, this public promenade was as far from a pleasant happening as +could well have been conceived.</p> + +<p>When he had looked over the street just now, and seen who his old +friend's companion was, Charles had, indeed, experienced a decided +shock. On the heels of that, he had had a moment of distinct +uncertainty. Ought he to cross and join this remarkable pair, or should +he avert his eyes? The etiquette here was unknown to him, the business +without precedent in his experience.</p> + +<p>There was more than etiquette involved, of course. While this particular +city was alive to contemporary currents, and even had its little +Redmantle Club, it still considered the Church of England marriage +service a sound start for a union, and associated contrary theories +exclusively with inferior morals. To walk Washington Street with Miss +Trevenna was, as it were, to wound and rebuke the city's old-fashioned +prejudices. But that, without doubt, was the very reason Mary Wing was +doing it.</p> + +<p>Charles had crossed the street. Mary Wing saw him, half-way over. Not +suspecting how his unfavorable scrutiny had been upon her for some time +past, she smiled a bright welcome.</p> + +<p>He was presented to Miss Trevenna. She acknowledged his greeting in an +absent, fluty voice, and turned on him briefly a face of almost nun-like +serenity, palely lit by a pair of starry eyes. He found her altogether a +mystic-looking creature, not easily associated with things wild and +gay.</p> + +<p>"I was just telling Flora about the Education Reform League," continued +Mary, in her calm tones.</p> + +<p>But Charles, after all, had no great chance that day to show his +fearlessness of mere public opinion. Hardly had he passed out of Miss +Angela Flower's range of vision, when the walk of three ended, if the +episode did not. It was Miss Trevenna's corner, it seemed; she could not +be persuaded to go farther.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus3" id="illus3"></a> +<img src="images/illus3.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>CHARLES HAD NO GREAT CHANCE TO SHOW HIS FEARLESSNESS OF +PUBLIC OPINION</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>"I'd turn with you, but I have a class," said Mary, disappointed, and a +little surprised, it seemed. "I wish you'd stroll on with me!"</p> + +<p>"I've something to do at my room—some business to attend to, really."</p> + +<p>"Then let's walk this afternoon, do! Shall I come for you?"</p> + +<p>"How nice of you! I'd like to so much."</p> + +<p>On which the girl was gone, stepping on light feet down the side street. +In the momentary lapse of talk, Charles's eye went after her. He saw +something mysteriously withdrawn in that gray figure, something set +forever apart.</p> + +<p>And then, while he and his friend walked on six steps in silence, the +young man wondered, with a sudden fierce annoyance, what Mary thought +she was doing exactly.</p> + +<p>Of Miss Trevenna he knew only what the world knew, which was little +enough. One of several daughters of a prosperous family, she had been +known as a reserved, and somewhat dreamy girl, indifferent to social +life, and much addicted to curling up at home with books of poetry; +Shelley's poetry or some such bewildering stuff; altogether a queer +person. She even wrote poetry herself, it was damagingly alleged after +the crash, and it was recalled that in women's meetings she had +sometimes risen and expressed, in the quietest sort of way, ideas which +disconcerted even the Hodgers of her day. Duly there had come to town +the entirely typical dashing stranger: Robert McKittrick, this one was, +an architect in government employ, who came with excellent letters. Mr. +McKittrick was seen in public, a time or two, with Mr. Trevenna's +quietly peculiar daughter; it was known that a sane and sound Mrs. +McKittrick existed in Philadelphia, or some such place; there may have +been a little mild talk, but it was very little and very mild. And then +one fine day, the town was startled with the news that these two had +taken the great jump together, by the last night mail train north.</p> + +<p>It was the sort of thing you read about in every novel nowadays, +especially if written by an Englishman. But this time, unluckily, it had +really happened, and in a community not too large for a homogeneous +public opinion. Moreover, life does differ just a little from the +novels, in that it possesses no invisible author to shut the book +splendidly, the moment the case is proved. Life did not leave Mr. +McKittrick and Miss Trevenna forever singing in the honeymoon heyday. It +merely kept them in the back of the town's mind for two years, a tidbit +or a terrible warning, according as you looked at it, and then it +brought Miss Trevenna back to us again, alone.</p> + +<p>It might have seemed the oldest and the vulgarest story in the world. +The weak, trusting maiden, the handsome, promissory villain, the flight, +the rude awakening and Conviction of Sin, and then the piteous Return +(Act III, Curtain) to Forgiveness, a black shawl, Quick Decline, and +Death: these things have wrung the gallery's scalding tears from farther +back than we can remember. But well Charles Garrott understood that Miss +Trevenna's "case" had nothing to do with this cheap business. He thought +it right enough, of course (theoretically speaking), that Mary Wing +should sympathize with a sister in distress. And yet.... Well, no one, +certainly, had "deceived" or "betrayed" Miss Trevenna. Quite probably +she had proposed the excursion herself, like one of the glorious +heroines at the moment educating British maidenhood. Miss Trevenna had +gone with her lover because she had a Right to Her Happiness; she had +gone to fulfil the Unwritten Law of Her Being; she had gone to Strike a +Blow for Freedom. It was absurd to look for remorse in a black shawl +here.</p> + +<p>And still, glancing after that oddly cloistral figure, the young man +felt that the net effect was not so different from the sorry old +melodrama, after all.</p> + +<p>He spoke suddenly, with a manner proving that he did not pride himself +on wearing a mask for nothing:—</p> + +<p>"Did you know that a woman's occipital condyles are less voluminous than +a man's,—yes, considerably so,—while her zygomatic arches are more +regular? Well, then, take my word for it, for they are."</p> + +<p>Miss Wing rewarded him by coming out of her abstraction with a laugh. +She asked him in what great tome he had learned that fascinating fact.</p> + +<p>"Ah, that's my secret. By the way," said Charles, "how's that charming +little cousin of yours, Miss Angela?"</p> + +<p>He spoke in his most natural voice, as if no thought of conflict had +ever risen between him and the best of New Women. All the same, the +cousin's name fell rather oddly on the advanced air.</p> + +<p>Mary Wing said that she hadn't seen Angela since the Redmantle Club; she +said she must try to go there this afternoon. He remarked that being +pulled up by the roots, and transplanted, was hard on the young, but +that Miss Angela would make friends fast enough. Having a passion for +biography, especially the biographies of women, he wanted particularly +to learn something about this girl, who had given him, Charles Garrott, +a phrase. But the talk now took another turn; it wasn't a day for +discussing Home-Making clearly. Miss Hodger and Professor Clarence +Pollock went walking by, across the sunny street, and Mary, having +greeted them much too pleasantly to suit his taste, said:—</p> + +<p>"Do you know this is the third time I've seen those two together lately? +It begins to look like an affair."</p> + +<p>"What!" he cried, disgusted. "Why!—why, she'd bite his head off in a +week!"</p> + +<p>And then, while she protested argumentatively, he was silent for a +space, struck with the thought that here was an opening not unsuited to +his need.</p> + +<p>While the plan for his new work was by no means settled yet, beyond +doubt this matter of Miss Trevenna had given strong impetus to the +conservative wave. And meanwhile, there was the personal side. To +lecture Mary Wing openly was a thing scarcely to be thought of. Yet, +having felt the unmistakable reactions himself, the young man found +himself itching, literally itching, to get his hands on Mary and make +her react a little, too.</p> + +<p>He said in his pleasantest way:—"Did it ever strike you, by the way, +that she's got the propaganda in the purely archaic form?"</p> + +<p>"Archaic?—Hodger!"</p> + +<p>"She still imagines that the object of this Movement is to make women +more like men. Of course, the object of the Movement is to make women +more like themselves."</p> + +<p>Her silence seemed to applaud his epigram. Charles felt that it was +generous of him to add: "I bagged that somewhere. Sounds like Havelock +Ellis to me. But," he added, frankly, "I've improved the wording. Why do +you say I'm unjust to her? On the contrary, I'd be delighted to fork +over all those rights of hers she was demanding the other night. By the +by, what are Hodger's rights exactly?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose she's entitled to human rights, even if you, as a man, don't +find her especially attractive."</p> + +<p>Charles winced, and then smiled faintly.</p> + +<p>"Human rights—security and protection, life, liberty, and the pursuit +of happiness? She's got them, hasn't she? I thought what Hodger was +yelling for was special privileges, rather exceptional privileges in the +way of freeing her Ego from—"</p> + +<p>"As a woman, she hasn't even all the human rights, you know very well. +As a human being, she would feel that she's entitled to exceptional +rights, because she's an exceptional being. She would take the ground +that her public work—"</p> + +<p>"She would take that ground, of course. But," said Charles, amiably, +"possibly others would not agree with her. That is just the trouble, +isn't it? The doctrine that the world belongs to Exceptional People has +that fatal weakness."</p> + +<p>"In your opinion," she qualified him—"what?"</p> + +<p>"We'd need a great board, a sort of Super-Supreme Court of really +godlike understanding, to tell us which are the Exceptional People."</p> + +<p>Seeing that he had her temporarily at a loss, Charles continued his +agreeable prattle:—</p> + +<p>"And hand them out their little certificates, you know. I remember, this +chap Chesterton said a fairly bright thing once—a little piece I read +somewhere. He said he'd always wanted to hear somebody—anybody—preach +'personal liberty' with one small qualification. Said he'd waited and +waited to hear one person state the creed something like this: 'Men and +women of genius must not be bound by ordinary laws. But I am <span class="smcap">NOT</span> a man +of genius, and therefore I will keep the law.' Chesterton said he'd been +waiting for years."</p> + +<p>He was aware that Miss Wing was regarding him in a curious sort of way, +and now she said, directly:—</p> + +<p>"Do you know, this doesn't sound like you at all?"</p> + +<p>"Doesn't it?—why not? I've always believed in taking a good look +around, every now and then. Constant discussion," said Charles, +"constant canvassing of rival theories—"</p> + +<p>"Well, those theories are only good for people who think that the way to +advance is by standing still."</p> + +<p>As she spoke these positive words, the two were overtaken and passed by +Henry Mysinger, of all people. Mr. Mysinger was at once Mary's principal +at the High School and her special adversary in the Schools, against +whom in years past she and her friend Garrott had how often schemed and +plotted. His salute now was pleasant, with reference to Charles, but the +eye he cast upon his assistant was distinctly not approbatory.</p> + +<p>As for Mary, it did not appear that she bowed at all.</p> + +<p>"But the way to advance is by advancing," she continued, declining to +lower her voice at all, "and it's only the exceptional people who are +capable of superintending these advances. That, by the way," said the +school teacher, "is probably the very definition you are looking for."</p> + +<p>He flatly rejected her definition; disputation followed. With increasing +pointedness, Mary Wing pressed the case for "exceptional people," +Self-Developing People who recked not of Homes and being Sisters and +Daughters. And presently she said, with only a small air of +hesitation:—</p> + +<p>"And please remember that enlightened people cannot possibly point the +way without courage, and—a certain amount of pioneering experiment."</p> + +<p>Mr. Mysinger had mercifully withdrawn himself around the corner of Third +Street. There his assistant would turn, too, parting from her friend; +and really, that appeared to be just as well. Forgetting his mask, the +young man was beginning to betray signs of exasperation. No more than +Mysinger, of course, had he ever been deceived by the delicate +girlishness of Mary's face; but the positions she seemed to be taking +now passed anything he had ever thought of her addiction to the New. Was +this mere argument for argument's sake?—or did she seriously imagine +that the regeneration of society was to be accomplished by the antics of +a few wild female Egoists—lawless Egoettes?</p> + +<p>"That's true, to a point, of course," he said, with control. "Yet don't +you suspect people who talk about their Duty to the Race, while +overlooking entirely their duty to that part of the race which should be +nearest and dearest to them?"</p> + +<p>"I'd suspect even more people who daren't call their souls their own, +for fear they might be criticized by somebody who knows nothing about +the facts."</p> + +<p>And then she exclaimed suddenly. "Oh, why don't you say at once that +you've been talking at poor Flora Trevenna for three blocks!"</p> + +<p>He was considerably taken aback, but spoke calmly: "Not at all—or at +least only in a general way. One of the problems of the day, as we say +at the Redmantle Club."</p> + +<p>It was on the tip of his tongue to say then, man to man, as it were: +"Miss Mary, you have a great work ahead of you, in a special field. +Isn't it a pity to confuse your good cause with one that perhaps is not +so good?" But, of course, you hardly gave advice of that sort to Mary +Wing.</p> + +<p>"But since you seem to invite my opinion," he continued, "I will say +that I do think there is a logical connection between Hodger's kind of +talk and Miss Trevenna's—ah—pioneering experiment."</p> + +<p>"Of course there is! Who denied it?" said she, with a forthrightness +that increased his wonder at her.</p> + +<p>And then, as they came to a standstill at the corner, she added, after a +grave speculative stare:—</p> + +<p>"If it'll do you the slightest good, Mr. Garrott, I'll tell you exactly +what finally decided Flora to forget her duty to her sisters, aunts, +uncles, and so on, as you consider. Prepare yourself. It was a sentence +in a book."</p> + +<p>"<i>A sentence in a book!</i>"</p> + +<p>Miss Wing nodded, several times. "As she's a reserved girl, and I appear +to be her only friend now, of course this is a confidence."</p> + +<p>"I can name the book!" cried Charles; and he did.</p> + +<p>"However," he resumed, with bitter urbanity, "if she'd happened to read +a few pages further, she might have noticed that the Lady in Sweden took +every bit of it back."</p> + +<p>To his surprise, Mary Wing laughed.</p> + +<p>"Do you know, that's just what I told her, in almost those very words? +And what do you suppose she said? 'Well, I'm glad I didn't read as far +as that.'"</p> + +<p>Continuing to look at him and continuing to laugh, the annoying young +woman added: "I'm afraid you don't begin to understand women as yet, Mr. +Garrott! No, you don't begin to. <i>Au revoir!</i>"</p> + +<p>It was noted that Charles's bow was characterized by a certain +stiffness.</p> + +<p>He went on his way alone, to Berringer's, and the good solid man-talk. +The strongest thought in his mind now was that the end of these things +was not yet. And here, at least, he was by no means deceived.</p> + +<p>The next day was Saturday. At two o'clock on that day, each week, +Charles took train and went down to his mother's place in the country, +there to remain till early Monday morning. This was an invasion of his +writer's time, with which he let nothing interfere. Returning to town, +and finding "Bondwomen" not yet heard from, he became absorbed in a +short story—for the "line" of his new novel could not be laid in a day +or a week, of course—and went suddenly upon his emergency schedule, as +Judge Blenso had named it. This schedule called for the omission of all +exercise, other than as tutoring necessitated, and a general withdrawal +from the world of living women. But he couldn't get away from their +Unrest, even so.</p> + +<p>Late Thursday afternoon, as he was working out the last pages of the +time-killing fiction, the door of the Studio opened without a knock, and +Donald Manford walked in. Donald certainly continued to make himself +very much at home here.</p> + +<p>"Get out," said Charles, tired and cross. "What do you think this is, a +Wheelman's Rest?"</p> + +<p>The tall engineer said that he was passing and thought he'd drop in. But +with the aid of an eyebrow he made known, over Judge Blenso's snowy +head, that he desired private converse in the bedroom.</p> + +<p>The public talk between the two young men, continuing, was that Donald +wanted to borrow a white waistcoat from Charles, which Charles was +rather reluctant to lend him. Thus, gradually, they faded from the +Studio, much to the annoyance of the Judge, who had ceased typing on +purpose to listen, while ostensibly merely engaged in picking lint from +his types with a brass pin.</p> + +<p>When the door of the bedroom was shut, Donald Manford said, in low +hurried tones:—</p> + +<p>"Have you heard all this talk about Mary? I tell you the town's buzzing +with it!"</p> + +<p>Charles had heard no talk; he was disturbed, if scarcely surprised. But +when it became clear that the purpose of Donald's visit was to get him, +Charles, to "drop a hint to Mary," he refused at once, point-blank.</p> + +<p>The engineer was pained and astonished.</p> + +<p>"You don't understand the situation," said he, stewing. "I tell you +Mary's gone to work to make a heroine of that woman! Recommending her +for good jobs, with her morning, noon, and night, having people in to +meet her at <i>tea</i>! Now, of course, she just doesn't understand what +she's doing. She's too innocent; she's ignorant of the practical meaning +of this business. And it's my duty to protect her from her +ignorance...."</p> + +<p>Charles sat down on one of the parallel white beds—the Judge's. And +little as he sympathized with Miss Trevenna's Blow for Freedom, he +seemed to sympathize even less with his young friend's proprietary +absurdities.</p> + +<p>Whatever this stalwart youth was, Mary Wing had made him. An orphan and +poor, he had been taken to the bosom of the kindly Wings; and Mary, a +girl of twenty then, had been from the start his second mother. She had +fed and clothed Donald, helped pay his bills at college; she had trained +him, taught him, filled him with her own ambition. She had got him his +first opening, pulled wires for him, hewed out his ascending steps. Fine +and confident as Donald stood there, Mary Wing had made him. And now to +see him, as to her, clutching on the toga of the primitive male, to hear +him, the ignorant, ridiculously claiming overlordship in a field which +should have been supremely woman's.</p> + +<p>"Go ahead," said Charles dryly. "Protect her all you want."</p> + +<p>But Donald angrily told him not to be an ass. It was a delicate +matter—for him—he declared; besides, Mary wouldn't listen to him. He +wasn't <i>advanced</i>.</p> + +<p>"But you're another matter. You've got some influence with Mary, and—"</p> + +<p>"Stop right there! I've got more influence with the Weather Department +than I have with Mary Wing."</p> + +<p>Glowering at him over the foot of the bed, the engineer demanded reasons +for his strange unpractical behavior. Charles offered a few simple +selections from his complex feelings.</p> + +<p>"First, your cousin's personal behavior is none of my business. Second, +I'd have no respect for her if she gave up her principles because you +asked me to ask her to. Third, I despise a person who's scared out of +his wits by fear of what the neighbors'll think."</p> + +<p>Donald appeared momentarily speechless. Perceiving this, the author +fitted a cigarette into a holder Mary Wing had given him on his +birthday, and resumed his few remarks:—</p> + +<p>"Of course your mistake is in supposing that Miss Mary is acting through +ignorance. She's acting from principle, as I say, and doing a plucky +thing, too. For she doesn't think that because a poor silly girl has +once made a mistake, the thing to do—"</p> + +<p>But Manford recovered his voice with a bound.</p> + +<p>"<i>Mistake!</i> I'm surprised at you, Garrott! I did you the justice to +think that all this advanced rot of yours was just talk. Come!—say +right out you think it's a mighty plucky thing for a girl to go off and +live with a married man!"</p> + +<p>Charles smiled, and then hesitated. It was odd how instantly Donald +Manford modernized him, killing all reactions: But what was the use of +arguing with a fellow who honestly believed that a woman had but one +"virtue," who spoke of her frankly as "the sex," allowed her no honor +but "woman's honor," had but one question to ask about her "character"? +This youth had not budged since the fifth century.</p> + +<p>"The only way to punish this is by the disgrace of it, I tell you!" he +was arguing. "There's no punishment at all when you make a heroine of +the woman."</p> + +<p>"There'll be enough to punish, don't fret, without Mary Wing's taking a +hand."</p> + +<p>"Now look here, Charlie," said Donald, encouraged. "Just look at the +matter in a sensible way. You can feel sorry for her and all that. But +it isn't right, by George, it isn't decent and moral, to stand up and +practically say you admire a notorious bad woman! Just think of the +effect on other women! They'll argue, 'Well, if that's the way people +feel about it, there's no use being good any more.' And think, +Charlie!—what'll become of Society if all the girls get to skipping off +and living with married men!"</p> + +<p>Charles laughed and rose. "Of course I'd not dream of speaking to Miss +Mary about this."</p> + +<p>The young engineer exploded. But presently he gave it up.</p> + +<p>"Then I'll have to speak to her myself," he declared, and looked as if +he expected the hazardous audacity of such an enterprise to touch his +friend's heart, even then. "And you remember this," he added, angrily, +"when Mary's friends are all dropping her!"</p> + +<p>"Nobody who drops her for this was ever her friend."</p> + +<p>"More New Thought! And what about Mysinger? Suppose your idea is that +this plucky business will boost Mary's standing in the schools like the +devil?"</p> + +<p>"My dear fellow, you're seeing things! You never heard of politics, I +suppose? Nothing can shake us in the schools. 'Cause why? We own the +Board by two votes."</p> + +<p>Donald regarded him with the strongest disapproval. "Do you know you +make me sick?"</p> + +<p>"By the way," said Charles, pleasantly, "didn't I see you go by here +with Miss Flower the other day? Where did you—"</p> + +<p>"Absolutely sick, and I've—"</p> + +<p>"Meet up with her, old fellow? Isn't she a—"</p> + +<p>"Sick!" roared Donald, and banged the door.</p> + +<p>He was a hopeless ignoramus, and Charles was the peer of the greatest +authorities, living or dead. But the subject, beyond doubt, was the most +complex and baffling in the whole field of Womanology. And Charles, +standing and staring at that shut door, was possessed with the odd +feeling that Donald had got the best of the argument, after all.</p> + +<p>Why must Mary <i>always</i> be as independent as the Declaration, and more +militant than a Prussian?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h2> + + +<p>The emergency schedule withdrew Charles from the streets; he lunched in +twenty minutes at Mrs. Herman's and spent the hour gained at his +writing-table. With the completion of the short fiction, he resumed his +walks to Berringer's. And now on Washington Street, the principal scene +of his social life since he became a regular author, he saw again Miss +Angela Flower. In five days, suddenly, he saw Miss Angela three times.</p> + +<p>Twice, as it happened, the two passed on opposite sides of the street, +moving in contrary directions. But the third time he fairly overtook +her, not a dozen steps from the door of the rich little Deming boys, to +whom he taught the Elements all morning.</p> + +<p>He was pleased with the agreeable coincidence. He greeted Mary's so +different cousin with a genuine warmth, springing spontaneously from his +personal sense of a bond between them. And Miss Angela, it seemed, was +not less glad to see him.</p> + +<p>"You don't know how nice it is," she laughed, a tinge of color in her +smooth cheeks, "to see a familiar face, after blocks and blocks of +strangers. And you're almost the only person I know, too!"</p> + +<p>Suiting his long stride to hers, he assured her that this state of +affairs would pass quickly.</p> + +<p>"I got only a glimpse of you yesterday," he pursued. "Do you take your +constitutionals at this time, too?"</p> + +<p>But she said, elusively, that she took them at all sorts of times.</p> + +<p>"It's my chief form of recreation at present, you see! But—I thought I +might meet father up here—it's his time for coming home to lunch from +the college. Only I seem just to miss him every day."</p> + +<p>He and the Womanly Woman walked a good half-mile together that day, and +the authority enjoyed himself thoroughly. It was in the course of this +walk that he evolved another phrase of scientific justification, viz.: +"The Business of Supplying Beauty and Supplying Charm."</p> + +<p>The talk turned naturally upon the girl herself. Having failed to get +any biography from the embattled Miss Wing, Charles proceeded to the +source. Under his agreeable, yet artful promptings, Miss Angela sketched +with a charming simplicity the story of a commonplace family life: how +she and her brothers had grown up at Hunter's Run, a crossroads +post-office four miles from Mitchellton; how they had moved into +Mitchellton, which had seemed like heaven at first, but had palled after +seven years; how all the boys of Mitchellton grew up and went away, one +by one, to make their marks in the world (though there was one +exception, it seemed, a Mr. Dan Jenney, who was still in +Mitchellton—Aha! thought Charles); how lonely she was after Tommy, her +older brother, had thus gone away; how her father had had quite a large +practice in Mitchellton, but didn't seem much interested in getting +patients here; and so on. Tommy, it was learned, had married money in +Pittsburg, but appeared to be happy all the same. As for the younger +brother, Wallie, his ambition was to go to college and be an +electro-chemist, and he was now at work downtown, gathering funds for +that purpose. Mary Wing had got him a position, it seemed.</p> + +<p>Miss Angela's conversation, as has been noted, was not remarkable as +conversation. But what mattered that? Into an atmosphere too heated by +the Trevennas of this Unrestful world, her girlish unsophistications +blew like a primrose zephyr. Moreover, she had her moments, you may be +sure; her vivacities as honest as wit. She said that Mitchellton was +like a town in war-time.</p> + +<p>"That's the way a man described it to me once, a surveyor from the +North, when he'd only been there three hours! He declared he hadn't seen +a male between the ages of fifteen and sixty-five. They'd all gone off, +you see—"</p> + +<p>"And then the surveyor went off, too?"</p> + +<p>"He did!—exactly! Hopped on a funny little calico pony he had, the +minute he said that, and trotted off down Main Street. We never saw him +again."</p> + +<p>Charles, laughing, looked down at her. She wore a plain blue suit and a +simple hat with a yellow quill, obviously inexpensive both, and not new. +She was characterized, sartorially, only by that unobtrusive yet +exquisite neatness whose practice some women bring to a fine art. Pretty +and sweet she looked, none the less; feminine, too, without a doubt.</p> + +<p>And, quite unconsciously, she was giving by piecemeal an answer to that +fundamental question of her Modern critics, How do you spend your time? +A considerable part of Miss Angela's time went, it seemed, to the actual +care of the house. With her leisure she really had little to do as yet, +because of her lack of acquaintance. Even the table of bridge with +Cousin Mary had not developed so far. She walked a great deal, usually +alone, but mentioned having met Mr. Manford the other day; the +impression was left that she and Donald hadn't specially taken to each +other. She kept her mother company; she often went into the shops, "just +looking"; once or twice she and Wallie had been to the moving-picture +shows. She read also, it seemed, for she had just finished "Marna"—a +gift to her, this was—a certain late New Woman novel which Charles +himself meant to give an hour to some day. Her account of her domestic +business the old-fashioned girl concluded thus:—</p> + +<p>"I don't know very much about housekeeping yet, but I do the best I can. +I think mother enjoys the rest."</p> + +<p>And whatever criticism narrow utilitarians might have brought against +her management of her fifteen hours a day seemed to be morally destroyed +by that unconscious stroke. <i>Mother enjoys the rest.</i> Imagine Miss +Hodger, for instance,—to come no nearer home,—casually mentioning: "I +don't want to do this, but I will. I want to go there, but I won't." +"Why, Miss Hodger?" you would ask her. "Why must you mutilate your Ego +thus?" "Well,"—you are to fancy Miss Hodger saying,—"you see, I think +mother'd enjoy the rest!"</p> + +<p>But the girl herself remained delightfully unconscious of the reactions +she set in motion.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Garrott," she said suddenly,—"I hope you don't mind my asking, +but—when are you going to have some stories coming out? I'm crazy to +read one of them!"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" laughed Mr. Garrott. "Well!—I can't say definitely, at the +moment. I'm trying," he said, modestly, "to write books, you know, and +it's a slow business, with the little free time I have. My first one, +that I've just finished, took me four years."</p> + +<p>"Four years! How wonderful! But isn't it going to come out soon?"</p> + +<p>"I'm—ah—negotiating with a publisher now."</p> + +<p>"It must be fascinating! I—I never knew an author before."</p> + +<p>He warmed, expanding.</p> + +<p>At the parting of their ways, these two paused, talking like old +friends; and no parting took place here, after all. Angela said, with a +charming hesitancy: "Mr. Garrott, if you really want to read that +book,—'Marna', I mean,—I wish you'd let me lend it to you. We've +finished with it—for good!—and if you have time to stop a minute—" +And he, who never called, who had a special rule against borrowing +things from ladies, restored his hat to his head at once, accepting with +pleasure.</p> + +<p>So they turned out of Washington Street toward Center, and she +continued, with a laughing, sidelong glance:—</p> + +<p>"Do you know who <i>Marna</i> reminded me of? Quite a friend of +yours!—somebody you admire a great deal!"</p> + +<p>Knowing the nature of the book well from the reviews he was incessantly +reading, the young man smiled: "I wonder if you can possibly be alluding +to one of your most distinguished cousins."</p> + +<p>"It did, just a little! At first, I mean—where Marna goes away to lead +her own life, and everything.... Mr. Garrott, do you think she's really +going to take the position in New York, Cousin Mary, I mean?"</p> + +<p>"Take it! Why, of course she will, provided she can get it! It would be +a remarkable thing for such a young woman, and a great opportunity +besides."</p> + +<p>This the girl seemed to understand. She remarked, however, that Cousin +Mary and Mrs. Wing seemed so wrapped up in each other. Her extreme +domesticity was peculiarly refreshing to Charles just now; nevertheless, +he now took up the cudgels for Modernity, though in the gentlest way: +Why should not daughters have the same right to leave home for work that +the sons of Mitchellton had, for example? Daughters had always left +homes for another reason. Suppose <i>Marna</i> had married the first +whippersnapper that came along, and he had carried her off to Australia, +etc.</p> + +<p>But Miss Angela seemed to feel that, for her part, she would look long +at any lover who wished to separate her from her mother.</p> + +<p>Center Street, at this point, was a place of car-tracks, cobblestones, +and threatening small establishments of those personal sorts which are +always first to appear in a waning "residence district." At the corner +stood a Human Hair Goods Works. The Flower house was not intrinsically +pretty. It was one of a block of six, all just alike and evidently built +some time ago; rather dingy little brick houses, with weather-beaten +small verandahs set only a step or two above the sidewalk, and scantily +separated from it by grassless "lawns." However, Charles was not +repelled by poverty, to which he had been well used.</p> + +<p>Within, he had the pleasure of meeting Miss Angela's father, who was +encountered in the hall, in the act of removing his overcoat. Angela +left the two men together, while she tripped upstairs to get "Marna."</p> + +<p>Charles found the medical father a decidedly queer individual. A very +tall, thin, seedy man he was, with a neglected sandy mustache, and a +long neck punctuated with a very large Adam's apple, which he jerked +with a sort of nervous twitch as he talked. With his lusterless eye and +spare, remote manner, he looked like a man who had let himself dry up +from within. Yet, if Charles remembered aright, the Medical School had +counted this gentleman a distinct acquisition.</p> + +<p>He assured Dr. Flower that he had long desired this pleasure, and +explained:—</p> + +<p>"Your cousin, Miss Wing, is an old friend of mine."</p> + +<p>"My wife's cousin," said the Doctor, seeming to make a distinction. +"Quite so! Certainly!"</p> + +<p>"I believe it was she who first brought the Medical School to your +attention?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes! I fancy it was. Quite so. Have a cigar, will you? However," +continued the father, jerking his long neck, "you don't offer that as +something to be urged against her, I assume?"</p> + +<p>The young man, though surprised, smiled politely.</p> + +<p>"Possibly you're no more enthusiastic about teaching than I am, say?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, well!... It wants excitement, you maintain?—lacks the spice of +brilliant variety? You find no romance in it, you suggest? Well—"</p> + +<p>Dr. Flower fell silent, brushing his hat with the sleeve of his worn +coat, while he stared cheerlessly at nothing. Charles wondered at him, +with a certain sense of mild mystery. If he felt that way about +teaching, why had he thrown over his practice and left Mitchellton?</p> + +<p>"I believe," said he, with discretion, "your—that is, Mrs. Flower's +cousin, Mary Wing, is the only teacher I ever knew who could really be +called a 'fan.'"</p> + +<p>"Quite so. You won't have a cigar, you said? But even in that case, it +doesn't amount to a complete exhaustion of the energies, you would feel? +You'd contend there's an unused store for other enterprises, even +there?"</p> + +<p>"Quite so," said Charles, considerably puzzled.</p> + +<p>But then Miss Angela came skipping and smiling down the narrow stairs, +book in hand, and slipped her arm through her father's. She said that +Mr. Garrott could keep "Marna" as long as he liked, but that she would +be <i>so</i> interested to hear what he thought of it. The trio stood +chatting a moment together.</p> + +<p>Angela's last word, in her soft and pretty voice, was, "Don't forget, +we're going to have that bridge game some night soon!"</p> + +<p>So he took leave of her, not only with the book, but with the promise of +a party shortly to come. And, curiously, that was the first thing this +simple Nice Girl had ever said that the authority felt inclined to +criticize somewhat: the use of the word "that," now. Skilled and wary he +had grown since he became a regular writer, and he could not recall +having agreed to give a valuable evening to playing bridge soon. The +engagement had just developed along, it seemed.</p> + +<p>But that was a trivial matter, early lost sight of. Continuing his walk +to Berringer's and the good man-talk, Charles pondered upon the nature +of a Home.</p> + +<p>La Femme, as we know, was all over for this young man; through too much +knowledge he had analyzed the charm away. He did not (of course) +exaggerate Miss Angela's values, magnify anything about her whatever. Of +course she was but a Type, and a familiar one. Only, for him she had +happened to personify, with unexpected freshness, that aspect of the +Question which, he was more and more convinced, scientific thinkers +fallaciously slurred over: the business aspect of Home-Making, to wit. +Though few of the sounder authorities openly advocated the suppression +of Homes, was it not true that they—and he once among them—practically +did so by denying any value in their schemes to those emotional and +spiritual contributions which alone turned a house into a Home? There +lay the heart of the whole great problem. "Four walls," mused Charles, +as he swung rapidly down Center Street, "and three meals a day, and even +the banisters dusted, to boot—these mere utilities can never make a +Home."</p> + +<p>And he made a mental note of the sentence for his conservative Notes in +the exercise-book of the old lady.</p> + +<p>But this day, as it fell out, was memorable in the Studio for more than +meditation.</p> + +<p>When he left Miss Chorister's at four-thirty, which was when the +tutorial day ended, the author did not make straight for the Studio, +according to habit, but turned downtown again, instead. He had personal +affairs to attend to to-day, an accumulation of small shopping and +sundry errands that could not be longer procrastinated. They took much +valued time. It was after six, in the winter night, when he got home.</p> + +<p>At the foot of his own steps he encountered his and his relative's new +fellow-lodger, and their only one. Possibly he was still thinking +scientifically of Miss Angela, for it instantly occurred to him that +here was Miss Angela's full opposite.</p> + +<p>"Oh, good-evening, Miss McGee!"</p> + +<p>He spoke as pleasantly as possible, but the lodger only answered +"Evening," and turned her back at once.</p> + +<p>"How do you do to-night?"</p> + +<p>"Tired as a dog."</p> + +<p>"And no wonder, working such long hours!"</p> + +<p>No answer from the lodger.</p> + +<p>"You <i>are</i> later than usual this evening, aren't you?"</p> + +<p>"Keep me on purpose," muttered Miss McGee angrily (or something like +that), climbing the tall stairs.</p> + +<p>She was a dark young woman, darkly dressed and darkly scowling, it had +seemed, at the mere sight of Charles. As he knew from a rare letter on +the hall table, her official name was Mary Maude McGee, but to him she +was always and simply Two-Book McGee, on account of her apparent habit +of reading two novels a night, every night in the year. She had them +under her arm now, with the labels of the circulating library showing.</p> + +<p>Charles also had a book under his arm, "Marna": here was a topic!</p> + +<p>"Do you," he inquired, continuing the social chat, "find many good +novels these days?"</p> + +<p>"No, I don't!" said she, so sharply that you would have supposed he was +to blame for it. Imagine!</p> + +<p>"You must really look over my stock some day, Miss McGee. I'm sure I +have <i>something</i> you could read."</p> + +<p>But the invitation brought only a mutter from Miss McGee, and the door +of the Second Hall Back banged shut behind her.</p> + +<p>"Help! help!" mused Charles, and straightway was struck with an +interesting thought: How about taking over Two-Book McGee as a minor +character in the new novel?</p> + +<p>He considered the idea, mounting to his Studio. The lodger was known as +a self-supporting female, allied with a tintype and "art photography" +establishment. Certainly she seemed an odd sort of person to say "Look +pleasant" to anybody. Friends, engagements, pleasures, she had none, on +the word of Mrs. Herman. All day she helped to photograph the General +Public; all night, till sleep overcame her, she sat alone in her very +small room, reading novel after novel which she did not like. A dull +life, it might have seemed; but then, you see, she had, to bless her, +the priceless knowledge that she was a self-respecting and independent +being, a person and not a parasite. The authorities could not doubt that +Two-Book McGee was happy in her way.</p> + +<p>Charles, however, seemed to be doing just that, at the moment. He +conceived Miss McGee as one not joyful in her economic freedom; hence as +an "illustrative character" for conservatism, sowing doubts in the minds +of readers as to whether Leading My Own Life was, in fact, necessarily +the other name for happiness. Climbing the stairs now, he invented +words for Two-Book's mouth: imagining her as saying, "Oh, I'd marry +anybody to get out of this!"—and again, with sobs, crying out to some +modern arguer, "Oh, just to be a parasite again!—just to be a snug, +comfortable little parasite!..."</p> + +<p>So making fiction, Charles Garrott opened the door of his Studio. And +full upon the threshold, he encountered the great surprise of his life.</p> + +<p>The large room looked familiar and inviting. The lamp burned on the +writing-table; the drop-light shone over the Judge's typewriter; the +author's office-coat hung on his chair-back. By the typewriter stood the +Judge, pink and shining from his evening bath. Wrapped in a beautiful +lavender robe, he turned, smiling.</p> + +<p>But on the writing-table, beyond the lamp, there lay a strange package. +The author's eye had fallen on it even as he opened the door. Some +instinct in him seemed to divine the incredible truth instantly, but +something else within spoke loud and sharp:—</p> + +<p>"<i>What's that?</i>"</p> + +<p>Judge Blenso laughed agreeably, and lowered the bath-towel with which he +was rubbing his fine white head. To the secretary, the literary business +was still a sealed book indeed; so far as he was advised, a package of +manuscript back by express was doubtless a very pleasant little +occurrence.</p> + +<p>"Why, it's Entry 2, Charles!" he chuckled. "Your novel—just come in! +Must be! And gad, my dear fellow! Willcox wrote you a letter, too!"</p> + +<p>The young man bounded for the table.</p> + +<p>Long as he had deemed himself a writer, Charles King Garrott had as yet +sent out little manuscript, "Bondwomen" having absorbed all his creative +energies for years. Accordingly, the prevalent stupidity of editors and +publishers, amounting ofttimes to mere madhouse imbecility, as every +young writer can testify, was yet as a sealed book to him. With the +ultra-modern message of the Old Novel, he, personally, might have become +authoritatively dissatisfied; but that any publisher in his senses could +fail to jump at it had, of course, scarcely entered his mind.</p> + +<p>Hence, in the two seconds required to pounce upon and open Willcoxes' +letter, his mind was tossing out other explanations of that package with +the utmost lucidity and vigor. Willcoxes had been so pleased with the +Old Novel that they had put it in type at once: this package was the +proof. The package was the manuscript; but it had been sent back by an +office-boy by mistake, and the letter rushed after it to implore pardon. +Willcoxes, while delighted with the novel, had thought that possibly +some of the ultra-modernism had better be toned down a little, in the +interest of Homes; therefore....</p> + +<p>In short, Charles Garrott's mind executed exactly the processes that all +young writers' minds execute at these moments, in instinctive recoil +from the stupefying fact of Rejection. But when he got the letter open, +all this activity was quickly stilled.</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span> [it ran]:</p> + +<p>We have given careful consideration to the manuscript of the +novel, <span class="smcap">Bandwomen</span>, which you were good enough to submit, but +regret to report that the decision has been adverse. We fear +that the publication of the story would not prove a financial +success.</p> + +<p>The manuscript is returned to you to-day by express. Thanking +you for giving us the opportunity of examining it, we are</p> + +<p>Yours very truly,</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">WILLCOX BROTHERS COMPANY.</span></p></blockquote> + +<p>In this stunning letter the stenographer's error seemed the crowning +insult. <i>Bandwomen!</i> Charles, for once in his life, blew up.</p> + +<p>The proceedings ensuing came as a complete surprise to the secretary, +exciting in their way: he had really never thought that Charles had it +in him. That commonly sedentary and controlled young man had abruptly +become dynamic and vocal. Some of his remarks eluded the listener, as, +for instance, the menacing cry: "I'll rent the Academy of Music some day +to tell about this!" But on the whole Judge Blenso, who himself, in his +prime, had been counted an accomplished commentator on the world's +devilish ways, gladly gave tribute to Charles for verbal ingenuity and +somewhat arresting vividness of metaphor.</p> + +<p>But it was clear now to the secretary that this was no pleasant +happening after all. When the storm began to abate, he spoke in +mollifying tones:—</p> + +<p>"Now, my dear fellow,—this unfortunate occurrence. Unfortunate! But as +to that plan of mine—we might consider it now, Charles? What do you +think?"</p> + +<p>"What plan?" Charles said, in a let-down voice.</p> + +<p>"I regret this, about Entry 2," said the Judge, with his brilliant black +gaze. "'Bandwomen' is a fine novel, my dear fellow,—fine! But as to +that little plan of mine—giving our undivided time and abilities +henceforth to some more remunerative kind of work? Gad, +Charles!—wouldn't it be wise?"</p> + +<p>And then Charles, after staring blankly at his relative's odd handsome +figure, suddenly burst out laughing....</p> + +<p>But later he stood at his window, staring silently down into the lamplit +street. A rare depression had suddenly closed over him. Oddly enough, it +seemed to have little to do with his great repulse as a writer. After +all, "Bondwomen," good though he felt it to be, did not represent his +best thought now; moreover, that the next publisher would jump at it +still seemed to him as certain as Judgment Day. The young man's deep +dissatisfactions were with all the terms and conditions of his writer's +life.</p> + +<p>Long ago he had said to a friend once, "I can't afford to give my time +to making money," and the remark, being repeated, had gained him the +reputation of a fool's wit, none recognizing that he had practically +bagged it outright from a fellow of the name of Agassiz. And there (he +was thinking) was the measure of the degree to which he had withdrawn +from the accepted ways of men, from all the currents of stimulating +life. Making money, after all, was the "battle of life," and he—he had +thought it often before now—had placed himself with the noncombatants. +All day, downtown there, vigorous beings met and fought, crossed wills, +locked minds, pitted strength against strength; while he, Charles, spent +his days with women and children and his nights alone in this room, +palely pondering over ethical subtleties. He remembered something Mary +Wing had said to him one day last winter: "You're a great deal more like +a woman than a man; don't you know it?" On the whole, Mary had meant +that as a compliment, but the word had stuck in him like a knife.</p> + +<p>He had bent his life to be a writer—and for what? Merely that those who +knew him best might view him, tolerantly, as a member of the Third Sex.</p> + +<p>"A writer ought to go out once a month and do something cruel," he +thought moodily. "Assault and battery.... Blood in rivers...."</p> + +<p>He was disgusted with tutoring and writing, with Woman and all womanish +ways.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, the instant supper was over, he was found seated at his +writing-table, "Notes on Women" open before him. In fact, the bee had +stung this young man deep, whether he liked it or not. In sum, the +unimagined rebuff to his principal <i>opus</i> did not diminish, but +intensified the literary passion. Now he embarked upon his first attempt +to plot out a definite scenario for his new novel, "Bondwomen's" subtle +and superior successor. And it must have been that the novel thoughts +generated at the Redmantle Club had rapidly crystallized through the +days succeeding. For now it seemed to be quite clear in the author's +mind that he would take, as the central figure in his greater work, an +extreme specimen of lawless Egoette, against whom he would set, in +subtle but most telling contrast, the best type of Home-Maker.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI</h2> + + +<p>It was one of those slack hours in the domestic day when even the most +tireless hands can find no task to do. Miss Angela Flower sat by the +single window of her bedroom, the window that gave, over two sets of +back-yards, a sectional view of Washington Street. On the ledge beside +her stood the opera-glasses, employed sometimes for long-distance +vision. They were old glasses, somewhat shabby now, and the case to them +was long since lost.</p> + +<p>To be transplanted is hard on the young, as Charles Garrott had once +said, and to be a normal girl is to desire that pleasant happenings +shall occur. This was Angela's favorite seat in the house, because it +brought her nearest to the happenings of the Street of the Blessed: +nearest to them, while she was yet farthest away. Often in the early +weeks she had, indeed, felt quite forlorn as she sat here; she was a +stranger and friendless, of a poor family and with small opportunity. +Since the Redmantle Club meeting, however, the view from the window had +become more personally interesting, more touched with the sense of +participation. Here Angela had seen Mr. Garrott on his way to lunch; +here she had twice glimpsed Mr. Manford, striding along from his office +just at dark; here she had even made out Mr. Tilletts, whom once she had +mistaken for somebody's uncle, whirling by in a great automobile.</p> + +<p>And this afternoon, in her leisure hour, Angela did not feel forlorn or +out of things at all, nor did she so much as glance out of the window, +with a naked eye. She had sheets of note-paper upon a magazine in her +lap, and on one of the sheets she was writing blithely:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>Miss Angela Flower entertained at bridge Thursday evening.</p></blockquote> + +<p>As the Redmantle Club had been her first party in the city, so the young +girl, with real pleasure, now planned for a second, this one to be her +very own. It had occurred to her, more for fun than anything else, to +write out a little notice of her party for the social columns of the +"Post." Not being as experienced at writing as Mr. Garrott, she took +some time to get the wording of the notice just to her liking; but it +was a very happy sort of time.</p> + +<p>That finished, Angela turned again to the more practical aspects of the +party. Who were to be the guests at it, in fine? As yet she had only +herself and Mr. Garrott.</p> + +<p>Now, calling out suddenly to her mother in the front room, she learned +to her surprise that it was almost half-past four o'clock; whereon she +sprang up at once, and began to dress quickly for the street. About +quarter of five, after talking a little with her mother in the front +room, Angela set out to call on her cousin, Mary Wing.</p> + +<p>Now Angela knew that something rather unpleasant was going on in +connection with her Cousin Mary at this time. Being a well-brought-up +young girl, she was, of course, not allowed to hear bold, improper talk, +but still she knew that there was <i>something</i>. Mrs. Flower, though very +fond of Mrs. Wing, who was her double first-cousin, had, indeed, felt +obliged to forbid Angela to cultivate any undue intimacy with Mary; +which Angela, considering the differences between the two girls, was +hardly likely to do in any case. Nevertheless, relations were still +pleasant, and Mrs. Flower had agreed that, under the circumstances, +Cousin Mary and Mr. Manford should be invited to the bridge-party. It +was the cousinly thing to do, and besides, as Mrs. Flower had pointed +out, she could not very well invite Mr. Manford without inviting Cousin +Mary, too.</p> + +<p>The Wings lived in a pleasant house on Olive Street, four doors from +Washington and overlooking the Green Park. The house was bigger than it +looked, because of a two-story extension that ran out behind, converting +an ordinary dwelling into two quite nice flats. Building that extension +was the very first thing that Mary had done when she took charge of the +family. In the upper flat dwelt Mr. and Mrs. Crowther, who could +sometimes be heard recriminating each other in embittered tones. In the +lower flat Mrs. and Miss Wing were very comfortable, with four rooms, +bath, kitchenette, tiny back yard and patent clothes-dryer. The fourth +room, which had been Donald Manford's till he outgrew apron-strings, was +a convertible affair, now a dining-room, now a bedroom, according as the +Wings dined at home, on the one hand, or were receiving a visit from +Fanny Warder—Mary's younger but married sister—on the other. At +present the latter condition prevailed, and Fanny's two babies possessed +the room, the flat, and the world besides.</p> + +<p>Angela entered upon three generations, scattered widely over the +sitting-room floor. Fanny was out, but her place in the line was ably +taken by Aunt Mary, whose modernity did not stick out so much in these +purely domestic moments. Angela, watching her cousin explain to Paulie +Warder why the best little boys never, <i>never</i> ate green paint, thought +with a kind of surprise: "She really looks very nice." She was duly +presented to Paulie and Neddy-Weddy, who were coaxed to show off their +store of tricks for the Pretty Lady, and she did her best to shower +those eulogies which the relatives in the case invariably expect. But +Neddy-Weddy, for his part, appeared altogether too sleepy to care what +strangers might think of him, and it may be that to a coolly impartial +eye Paulie appeared more soiled than cute at this particular moment. +Angela really wasn't sorry when the babies' grandmother gathered them +and their belongings to her bosom and withdrew to an inner chamber.</p> + +<p>But when she broached the matter of the bridge-party on Thursday, Cousin +Mary said at once:—</p> + +<p>"My dear, it's very sweet of you, but I couldn't—possibly. I can't +dream of taking an evening off—oh, this side of Christmas!"</p> + +<p>Cousin Mary had a great stack of examination papers to mark, it seemed; +she pointed to them on her open desk in the corner. She also had ten +thousand leaflets to distribute for that Education League of hers; they +lay in bales in another corner, behind the sofa. Further, she had three +articles to write at once for the League's magazine: for it had a +special magazine all its own, it seemed. As for Donald Manford, she said +she could not speak. But Cousin Mary did mention, in a discouraging way, +that Donald also was doing a good deal of rush-work just now, clearing +his desk for his trip to Wyoming.</p> + +<p>"And besides, my dear," she concluded, "to the best of my knowledge, +Donald can't play bridge at all."</p> + +<p>"I could teach him, Cousin Mary—it's awfully easy! I remember, I taught +a man in Mitchellton to play once, in twenty minutes! Besides—why, of +course, it wouldn't make any difference!"</p> + +<p>Mary Wing, no doubt, desired to play fair. She could not say now, as of +old, that Donald never went out; for she knew that Donald was going out +that very evening, escorting Miss Helen Carson to the theater, in short. +Mary knew this, because she had arranged the matter herself, and +personally bought the tickets for Donald's account.</p> + +<p>So she said: "You must ask him, Angela—do! Use my telephone there, why +don't you, and catch him now before he leaves the office?"</p> + +<p>But no, that was just what Angela felt she could not do, for, while she +had enjoyed two short walks with Mr. Manford, the truth was that he had +never called. Mr. Garrott, on the other hand, besides everything else, +had called, the day she lent him the book.</p> + +<p>"I thought <i>you</i> might ask him, Cousin Mary. I thought you might just +bring him with you, informally. It's going to be very informal," said +Angela.</p> + +<p>"But as I can't go myself, Angela, you see ..."</p> + +<p>Angela concealed her disappointment as best she could. She was a +sweet-natured girl; moreover, Cousin Mary, after all, was the only +person who had tried to do anything for her. Nevertheless, her +disappointment was keen, and touched with a little irritation at Cousin +Mary's attitude. Her cousin, Mr. Garrott, Mr. Manford, and herself—they +made a natural table of bridge, a little coterie of friends and +relatives who instinctively met together now and then for congenial +diversion. It did seem rather hard that Cousin Mary should spoil it all, +with this firm stand against all social enjoyment. Only she and Mr. +Garrott, it seemed, cared for a little wholesome pleasure.</p> + +<p>And undoubtedly this attitude of Cousin Mary's did reduce the +bridge-party to a rather precarious position. Of course Jennie Finchman +could be secured for the other girl, or even Fanny Warder; but as for +the man to fill Mr. Manford's place, that was a more difficult matter.</p> + +<p>"I'm awfully sorry <i>you</i> can't come, Cousin Mary," she was saying in her +soft voice. "Mr. Garrott'll be <i>so</i> disappointed. He admires you so +much—indeed, he does! He told me so only yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Mary Wing; and added, as if it were a part of the same +sentence—"yesterday! You're seeing a good deal of him now?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes! We have a walk or something nearly every day."</p> + +<p>"He's quite attractive, don't you think?"</p> + +<p>The girl answered without self-consciousness: "Oh, I do—he's the nicest +thing! And so cunning-looking, too!—isn't he?"</p> + +<p>"I've always been intrigued, I admit," said the school-teacher, "by the +three brown freckles on his nose."</p> + +<p>She was looking with admiration at her cousin's fresh youthfulness, so +unmarked by experience, so innocent of knowledge of fierce conflicting +ideas. And Mary looked with a kind of compunction, too. She had honestly +wished and tried to "do something" for Angela; but, alas, she herself +had been so long and completely out of things that few connections +remained to her now, such as would assist to launch a somewhat belated +début. She had her hands full enough trying to do something of that sort +with Donald, an eligible man. Still—</p> + +<p>"Oh, Angela, here's a thought!" she said, suddenly. "If you'll only make +a decently long visit, you'll be almost certain to see Donald here! He +drops in nearly every afternoon to see the babies, you know—"</p> + +<p>"Oh!—does he?"</p> + +<p>"You never imagined such a goose as he is over them. And then you could +ask him to the party, in—in a casual way."</p> + +<p>Angela cheered up at once. Of course, if she could meet and ask Mr. +Manford in a casual way, it would be different. And it must be admitted +that Mr. Tilletts, who had hovered in the background of her mind, did +seem a rather remote possibility.</p> + +<p>So the talk passed easily from the bridge-party to Fanny Warder, and +other lesser matters.</p> + +<p>Mary Wing moved about as she talked. She was picking up fire-engines and +pieces of cake, overlooked by the grandmother in the suddenness of +departure. Angela's eyes followed her over the room, and she felt a +touch of envy. It was really a pretty room, much prettier than anything +in the Flowers' little house, large, light, attractively furnished, most +comfortable and livable. But, of course, it was a simple matter to have +pretty things if you had the money to buy them; which, in brief, was +just what the Flowers didn't have. It suddenly came over Angela that her +advanced cousin was, comparatively speaking, a <i>rich</i> woman.</p> + +<p>She said something of the sort aloud presently. Mary Wing replied that +she worked pretty hard for all she had.</p> + +<p>"Our furniture is so old and awful I can't do a thing with it," +continued Angela. "I rub and scrub and polish, but it just seems to get +worse. And then the parlor is that long, narrow shape, like a +sleeping-car, and needs papering so dreadfully! You know, Cousin Mary," +said the girl, with a rueful laugh, "we were never so poor in all our +lives! You don't know how hard it is to accomplish <i>anything</i>, when you +literally haven't a cent to spend."</p> + +<p>Cousin Mary, who could be very nice when she wanted to, expressed +herself very sympathetically. "And I do know something about it, my +dear, you see, for I've been that way myself."</p> + +<p>"If father'd only get some patients!" said Angela. "But he's so funny, +he just seems to think a family gets along somehow, and never even put +up his sign till I begged him to! And, of course, Wallie doesn't +contribute anything; he just puts away everything he makes for his +education—"</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> hard on you, poor dear—"</p> + +<p>"He has to, of course. But I <i>have</i> wished we had Tommy back, these +weeks since we've been here! He was the sweetest, most generous thing, +till he married...."</p> + +<p>But soon Cousin Mary gave the conversation a characteristic twist, with +the very suggestion that Mr. Garrott had once promised to make to +Angela, and then permanently backed down.</p> + +<p>"Angela," she said, suddenly thoughtful, "did you ever think at all of +going to work—regularly, for yourself?"</p> + +<p>The girl looked up, in surprise. "Going to work? You mean in an office?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—something of that sort. You—"</p> + +<p>"Why, no, Cousin Mary! I've never <i>had</i> to think of that. Of course, +father can still support me. I didn't mean you to think—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, of <i>course</i>! I understand that perfectly! I meant only on your own +account, my dear, so that you could have your own money, all you want of +it. It makes a difference, as I can testify! And then, too, I know a +good many girls with plenty of money already, who go to work—well, just +for the fun of it!—Helen Carson, for instance."</p> + +<p>Angela looked as if she hardly knew how to explain herself to one +holding her cousin's known ideas of fun. However, she endeavored, +sweetly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know. But in the first place, you see, I couldn't very well be +spared from the house. I do every bit of the work, except cooking and +washing, and mother doesn't expect ever to touch the housekeeping any +more. It takes so much time, and worry, and our cook is <i>awful</i>, because +we can't afford to pay but twelve dollars a month, and, of course, a +good servant won't work for that! And besides, father wouldn't dream of +allowing such a thing, Cousin Mary. He'd think it was—was just +charging him with being a failure, and not able to take care of his +family!"</p> + +<p>It was a sufficiently conclusive statement, as Cousin Mary seemed to +feel; she did not argue back, but replied understandingly, and mentioned +that Harold Warder felt the same way about women's working. So Angela +felt the moment to be favorable for explaining her deeper points of +view.</p> + +<p>"And, Cousin Mary, even if I made mother take back the housework, and +father'd let me do it," she said, with a girlish hesitancy that became +her well, "I wouldn't <i>want</i> to go into an office—or have a business +career. I—just feel differently about all those things. I have no +ambitions that way—at <i>all</i>!"</p> + +<p>Cousin Mary, who chanced to be standing near, surprised her by stooping +suddenly and pinching her cheek.</p> + +<p>"Tell me what your ambitions are, Angela, dear."</p> + +<p>"Well—you probably—I don't believe you'd understand exactly what I—"</p> + +<p>"On the contrary, for two cents I'll tell you what they are myself."</p> + +<p>"Well, what?" said Angela, gazing up with unfeigned interest. "Tell me +what you think?"</p> + +<p>"They really can be stated as one, my guess is," said Mary, smiling in +the nicest way: "To be a good wife to the man you will love some day."</p> + +<p>Color flowed suddenly into the girl's upturned face. By a strange +coincidence, Cousin Mary had stated the ambition in the very words +Angela herself would have used. But, though maidenly embarrassed, she +would not lower her gaze as if she were ashamed of her ambition, or +overborne by her cousin's hard masculinity.</p> + +<p>"I know," she said, pink and sweet, "you think that's just a—weak +womanly ambition! I know you aren't much interested in my kind of +things, Cousin Mary."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, you wrong me," said Mary, her smile dying. "I don't feel that +way at all."</p> + +<p>And through her shot the irrelevant thought: "Why does she call me +Cousin Mary, all the time? I'm only four years older than she."</p> + +<p>But, as the two girls thus gazed at each other, the interval in their +ages seemed, indeed, indefinite and immense. Angela's eyes could afford +that subtle expression of known womanly advantage. The light of +afternoon, flowing freely over the park and into the long windows, fell +full upon Mary Wing's delicate face. It was a face, to be just, not +devoid of a feminine attractiveness at times. But now the bright day +showed it colorless and tired; the marks of many "fights" lingered +indefinably about the mouth; tiny crow's-feet netted the corners of the +fine blue eyes. Yes, this school-teacher's first youth was gone. Full of +strange isms, she had lost sight of the real things of life, and now her +Woman's Opportunity had slipped away from her forever.</p> + +<p>It may be that Mary Wing would have given something of her honors to be +prettier than Angela just for that moment.</p> + +<p>"I think it would be hard to name a finer ambition. To be a good wife +to ..." And, breaking off, she added, with another smile, sudden and +merry: "To Dan Jenney, didn't you tell me?"</p> + +<p>Her young cousin lost her dreamy look rather abruptly.</p> + +<p>"Why, <i>no</i>, Cousin Mary! Please don't say that! I only told you that—"</p> + +<p>But Cousin Mary, having turned her eyes toward the window, interrupted +the womanly talk with a smashing announcement.</p> + +<p>"Here's Flora Trevenna coming in—good!" she said in her most +matter-of-fact way. "Excuse me a minute, Angela,—I'm bell-hop, you +know!"</p> + +<p>Angela, who at least knew the ill-omened name, gave one startled gaze, +and sprang up. The prospect of casually meeting Mr. Manford was +forgotten in her sudden panic alarm.</p> + +<p>"I must <i>go</i>!" she said, looking about her a little wildly. "I—should +have gone some time ago—really! I just stopped in to—"</p> + +<p>Mary's colorless face seemed to stiffen a little. So, perhaps, Mr. +Mysinger was wont to see it.</p> + +<p>"Well, wait just a minute," she ordered, rather than requested. "I'd +especially like you to meet Flora."</p> + +<p>Nice reward this for being cousinly and inviting Cousin Mary to the +bridge-party: <i>to meet that woman</i>!</p> + +<p>"I—really, I <i>can't</i>, Cousin Mary! I'll just run back and see your +mother a minute—and then—"</p> + +<p>"You can't well be so rude as that, can you?" said Mary. And then she +added, as if something within her threw out the words beyond her will: +"Why do you call me Cousin Mary all the time? I'm only four years older +than you."</p> + +<p>The question, of course, expected no notice. Mary was gone into the +hall. Yet Angela, left unpoliced, did not immediately fly toward the +bedroom region, or run and hide with the leaflets behind the sofa. It +may be she feared her hard cousin a little; but besides that, in the +strangest and most contradictory sort of way, it appeared that she did +not altogether want to fly. She was conscious of an excitement, of a +sort of unworthy curiosity.</p> + +<p>The front door opened; there were voices. And then Mary Wing returned, +her arm slipped brazenly through that of her astounding friend.</p> + +<p>And Angela, despite all of the injunctions of propriety, looked; looked, +with a sort of fearful fascination. Never in her life before, to her +knowledge, had her girlish eyes rested upon a Badwoman. Though virtue +went out of her, she <i>must</i> look this once....</p> + +<p>"Flora, this is my cousin, Angela Flower, whom you know of, I believe. +My friend, Miss Trevenna, Angela."</p> + +<p>A look of greeting came upon the Badwoman's not displeasing face, a +little smile upon the pretty, sinful lips.</p> + +<p>"Oh, how do you do, Miss Flower?"</p> + +<p>But Angela, with her upbringing, found it impossible to reciprocate +these friendly overtures. Take one shameful peep, she might. But that +itself brought a reaction, perhaps; and as well as Donald Manford, as +well as Judge Blenso himself, Angela knew, if only by intuition, that +good people must stand up for morals. Donald certainly would have +applauded her, as she inclined her graceful head about an inch and spoke +two cold words:—</p> + +<p>"Miss Trevenna."</p> + +<p>And then, her alarm mysteriously gone, she turned to her cousin and +said, formally: "Good-bye, then, Cousin Mary. Do come to see us when you +find time."</p> + +<p>Indeed, the two cousins viewed everything too differently to make much +intimacy between them probable. When the door had shut on Angela, Cousin +Mary put her arm about the shoulder of the Badwoman and said the +strangest, the most advanced thing possible:—</p> + +<p>"Dear Flora! You must let me say—I'm sorry."</p> + +<p>Miss Trevenna, with her deceptively cloistral countenance, seemed to +flinch a little. Her gaze looked rather bright; it fell away from +Mary's. But she produced a fair effect of uncomprehension and surprise.</p> + +<p>"Sorry? Why, what for?"</p> + +<p>"Well—I can't feel my little cousin showed to very good advantage."</p> + +<p>"Oh, didn't she? But it makes no difference. I—hardly ever notice what +people do—really! Are you too busy, or shall we walk?"</p> + +<p>"Let me get my hat," said Mary.</p> + +<p>Having put on hat and coat in her own bedroom, the fighting educator +looked into the room beyond, where the babies and their grandmother were +considerably spread over creation.</p> + +<p>"Angela gone?" asked Mrs. Wing presently, in the midst of cooing.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Mary; and let it stand at that.</p> + +<p>"Look how he cuddles in his granny's arm. I had to change his little +socks again. She was very strange with them, Mary, didn't you think so?"</p> + +<p>"Strange?—how do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Why, she just didn't seem to care anything about them! Didn't you +notice, she hardly looked at Paulie once! How could she help loving such +little darlings? And she seems such a nice, womanly girl, too."</p> + +<p>"Well, <i>all</i> women aren't maternal, mother, don't you know that?"</p> + +<p>"In my day," said Mrs. Wing imperturbably, "all good women loved +babies."</p> + +<p>But when Mary said where she was off to now, a shadow fell on her +mother's calm face, and Mary saw it. However, Mrs. Wing said nothing, +this time.</p> + +<p>Though Donald had never carried out that hare-brained threat of his, as +to "dropping a hint" to Mary, his voice could scarcely have been missed +amid the general feminine chorus. Indeed, everybody who possessed so +much as a hint to her name, in those days, seemed to be dropping it to +Mary. How far she minded her public unpopularity Mary did not say, but +her mother's unwavering disapprobation she unquestionably took to heart. +"Good women don't make mistakes of that sort," said Mrs. Wing, and was +shaken by no argument. And now, as Mary bent to kiss this wrinkled and +well-loved cheek, she was thinking that never in the world before had +there opened such a gulf between two generations; and she wondered why +life must be so hard.</p> + +<p>Later, Mrs. Wing sat for some time quite still, by her window, and her +brooding look was not grandmotherly now, but motherly, which is +different. For, of course, there was one person on earth to whom Mary +could never seem truly the mature, advanced and dangerous young woman of +Fights, Reforms and Careers. Through all her newnesses and strength, the +mother's eyes yet held her as the tiny, helpless, clinging little scrap +which she, a young girl then, had gone down to the gates of the world to +bring in.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII</h2> + + +<p>The "line" of the new novel refused to come straight on the first +attempt, or the second, and Charles had been compelled to leave his +preliminary scenarios to ripen gradually in his head. In the intervals +of intense plotting, he was tossing off short fictions; four such he had +now tossed since the completion of "Bondwomen" had set him free. +"Bondwomen" itself was in the hands of that discriminating house, +Messrs. Blank and Finney, Judge Blenso having risen up early on the +morning after the rejection to take it to the express office. Experience +was now coming with a leap; but yesterday the first of Charles's new +stories had been sent back by "Willcox's Monthly," with a mere printed +form of refusal. This was the fiction about Dionysius, who, it may be +remembered, had freed his eyes from the magic of sex and consequently +cracked walnuts with a sort of splendid sadness.</p> + +<p>Such episodes staggered belief; but, in a strange way, they seemed to +fan the fires of genius unrecognized. Hence it was without joy that +Charles confronted after supper this evening a memorandum he had lately +left for himself in the place where he left memoranda. It was brief, +containing but a single word,—<i>Bridge</i>; and, coming on it unexpectedly, +the author spoke but a single word, though a different one. No more than +Mary Wing, of course, did he have evenings to fling this way and that, +in mere idle frivolity. Why did people have this mania for playing +cards, going to places, calling, all the time? Why the mad rage for +doing things?</p> + +<p>As to this engagement, it seemed just to have developed along; the +first he knew of it, you might say, the thing was settled and arranged. +Still, it was admitted that from the young Home-Maker's point of view, +it was all quite simple and natural and human. Charles, even in the +first flush of author's revolt, really felt no bitterness.</p> + +<p>Shutting his table drawer with a bang, he withdrew to the bedroom and +began to assume one of those garments which first brought renown to +Tuxedo Park.</p> + +<p>Charles's acquaintance with Miss Angela had developed smoothly, without +any unusual effort on his part. That they had a walk or something every +day was not mathematically accurate; but he had seen the girl several +times since the day of the call, when he got the book. The very next +day, as it fell out, he had met the pretty cousin again on the +promenade, at about the same time and place, and as she was out only for +exercise, and had done her stint, she said, she very charmingly turned +around with him. In no sense was it repellent to the authority thus to +see, by pleasing signs, that the old-fashioned girl liked him, in the +good old-fashioned way. At the same time, of course, he was, by +deliberate choice, a fiction-writer, not a dancing-man; and his position +about the bridge-party, as he saw it, was that he was doing a kindly +deed, to give pleasure to a rather lonely young girl. Moreover, it +should not occur again.</p> + +<p>And when he set out on the brisk walk to the Flowers', he was not +thinking of Angela at all, but of Angela's cousin, Mary. He understood +that Mary was to be at the bridge-party—indeed, he understood that the +party was being given principally in Mary's honor—and he was genuinely +concerned as to what his manner toward that young woman now should be.</p> + +<p>His perplexity dated from an episode two days earlier. On Tuesday +afternoon he had met Mary Wing over by the High School, not entirely by +chance, and had turned and walked with her. She was alone, for a wonder; +but she had begun at once to talk of the unhappy Miss Trevenna, fairly +bursting out as to the way she was being persecuted, and so forth. Miss +Trevenna had "lost" two places already, it seemed. And Charles, seeing +how much to heart Mary took the luckless girl's troubles, suddenly felt +sorry for her—yes, he ventured to feel sorry for Mary Wing!—and did +what he had positively resolved not to do. He, also, dropped a hint to +Mary.</p> + +<p>The memory of that unwisdom was with him yet, as an exasperation and a +hurt.</p> + +<p>It had profited him nothing that he approached the task, circumspectly, +in his light, humorous vein. "Did you ever hear what Susan B. Anthony +said when she had tried using bloomers for a year?" he had inquired, +positively jovial. "Said she was convinced that one reform at a time was +all that one person could manage!" But Mary Wing had said instantly, +"You apply this to me," and right there had the trouble begun. "Aren't +you crippling yourself needlessly?" he had amiably suggested. "Is it +wise to feed the popular delusion that any sort of reformer is all sorts +of an anarchist?" To which she replied, quite indignantly, "This isn't a +question of <i>reform</i> at all with me!—if you must have it explained to +you." And when he asked her what she expected to accomplish exactly, she +declared that in point of fact a great deal had been accomplished +already; Miss Trevenna's father had seen her, for one thing, and it +seemed but a matter of time before she would be forgiven and taken back. +"But if nothing was accomplished in a thousand years," said Mary, "I'd +still do exactly what I am doing!"</p> + +<p>The worst of it was that one large disunited side of Charles stuck it +out that Mary was doing exactly right: he knew, indeed, whatever she +might say for argument, that all this was chiefly a matter of her +sympathies, and she no more believed in this sort of Freedom than he +did. Hence his counter-argument had not been up to his best standard, a +mere urging of timid prudences, it seemed. And very soon she had swooped +on his weakness, silencing him at a stroke:—</p> + +<p>"I'll not drop an old friend just because it's <i>safer</i>! I'll not. Mr. +Garrott, you disappoint me."</p> + +<p>Now, no man on earth enjoys being told that he has disappointed a +friend, least of all a woman friend, in a matter involving courage. Mr. +Garrott held that word ungracious from Mary. And now, as he strode +silently toward his evening of pleasure, he seemed to feel that there +was, indeed, a kind of hardness in her, and, as to him, a certain air of +assured superiority such as could not be further tolerated.</p> + +<p>How, then, should he deport himself toward Mary now, seeing her again at +the bridge-party? Through long blocks, Charles pondered the question. +While leaning from the first toward a manner of brilliant tolerance, +slightly aloof, indeed, yet splendidly witty, he really had not settled +the point finally in his mind, when Miss Angela opened her front door +for him, and said, almost in the first breath:—</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Garrott, what do you think? Cousin Mary and Mr. Manford both +backed out! <i>I hope you don't mind playing three-hand!</i>"</p> + +<p>Taken completely by surprise, the young man hardly repressed a bitter +mirth.</p> + +<p>But that, after all, was for his wasted evening only. And in a moment he +was himself again, doing his deed of kindness, distributing pleasure +among the young and lonesome.</p> + +<p>He was not, indeed, he considered, one to think the less of a girl for +being poor but hospitable, for desiring to "entertain," when, the too +obvious fact was, she had nobody to entertain. The three-hand's party +rather touched than repelled Charles; he criticized not Angela, but Mary +Wing, who had stayed away. Moreover, the other guest turned out to be +Fanny Warder, which suited him unexpectedly well. Grieved though he was +by Fanny's broken beauty, she had become a Case to him now, one more +exhibit in the growing gallery of Woman's Unrest.</p> + +<p>And certainly, when it was all over, it never once occurred to Charles +to think of this evening as a waste, exactly.</p> + +<p>Into the mysteries of three-hand, as pursued in the Flower parlor that +evening, it will do well not to follow. The play really was not the +thing, as Angela had implied to her Cousin Mary, when speaking of +Donald. Fanny Warder played a poor game; everybody said that. Of course, +she had only come to help out, but still, one could not avoid observing +how treacherous were her bids, or crying out upon her when she was +discovered slumbering with the three highest hearts. A great deal of +jumping up and changing seats there was, a great deal of discussion each +time as to which one had better jump and change, constant demands of, +"Whose bid is it?" and, "Who dealt these cards?" But there was much +girlish laughter, too; merry prattle flowed unceasingly; "a good time +was had."</p> + +<p>And Angela's bridge-party had, as Charles viewed it, one sterling merit: +it ended early. It is a point which, as is well known, rests entirely in +the hands of the hostess, according to when she elects to bring on her +refreshments; and when Angela rose soon after ten o'clock and tripped +away alone to get "the party," as she called it, the author's whole +opinion of her went up at a bound. He had known women, thus having you +at their mercy, to keep you sitting around till midnight before ever +mentioning "the party," and then sometimes those horrible jolly girls +made you romp back to the pantry and help.</p> + +<p>And when, after a considerable interval, Miss Angela returned, bearing +her refreshments on a large tin tray, the young authority again took the +large view, sympathetically seeing the general behind the particular. +The refreshments consisted of lettuce and tomato salad, together with +crackers, a little cheese, ice-water, and a small box of candy. Charles +could not conceal from himself that the salad was poor, the dressing had +"run," the crackers were without crackle, the candy cheap, the ice-water +warm; but, in a subtle sort of way, all this made him feel not less, but +more, friendly toward his simple young hostess. Not knowing that she +could not make mayonnaise, or suspecting that her little brother had +reluctantly stood treat to the candy, his fancy pictured the girl as +preparing the modest spread for her (two) friends with her own hands and +thought, her heart full of pleasant anticipations the while. And this +seemed normal and human to Charles, and sweet enough, and just a little +pathetic besides. Angela, gayly setting out her three plates, was again +a type and a symbol. She was all the poor Nice Girls in the world, ten +million poor Nice Girls scattered over the earth that night who, the +day's justifying labors done, were trying to create a little joy for +themselves and others, sweetly pursuing their great business of +Supplying Beauty and Supplying Charm....</p> + +<p>But while Angela was still in the rearward regions, making ready her +tray, Charles engaged in a scientific talk with his old friend Fanny. It +both interested and depressed him.</p> + +<p>Mary's young sister had taken Harold Warder out of a field unusually +large for these lean days. Harold had been in love with her from his +knickerbocker days, and was considered to be "doing very well"; the +match had been a most promising one. But ill-luck had pursued the young +couple from the first, assuming the worst of all forms, unceasing +doctor's bills. Fanny, beyond any counting, had had long illnesses +following the births of both her children; and the expenses of the first +one had swamped Warder, wiping out at once the rainy-day margin he had +married on. That Mary Wing secretly sent money to Fanny, Charles was +morally certain. But Fanny was well again now, and poverty and debt were +wont to be the butts of young love. Why, then, was her pretty face drawn +to a birdlike thinness; why this beaten look in eyes that were once so +gay?</p> + +<p>Tête-à-tête over the three-hand table, Mrs. Warder surprised Charles by +saying that she wanted to go back to work; her husband, however, would +not hear of such a thing. Charles, though a modern, said naturally not.</p> + +<p>"I can earn a hundred a month," said Fanny, "and get a perfect nurse for +twenty-five."</p> + +<p>He explained the error in her utilitarianism. Intently shuffling the +cards on the table, he pointed out the injustice of orphaning Paulie and +Neddy-Weddy of their mother-love. Fanny's own mind seemed greatly +unsettled. But she could be as straightforward as Mary with those she +was fond of.</p> + +<p>"Harold supposed," she said, presently, "that he was marrying a lively +young person, one that he, at least, would find indefinitely +entertaining. He discovers instead that he's got an ailing woman on his +hands, one with no spirits or looks at all worth mentioning. Could you +blame him if he woke up some day and said, 'I've been cheated?'"</p> + +<p>And the Young Wife slowly added: "It'll be years before he gets his head +above water again. And that's my doing, Charles,—I, who'd have cut off +my right arm to help him the least bit."</p> + +<p>Charles scolded her roundly for her morbidness. "Great heavens!—you +must know <i>he</i> could never think that way! Look how you have helped him! +If your health went, you gave it to him—let him hold that to his heart! +There's Paulie and the baby, that you brought him, more than +compensating—"</p> + +<p>But Mary's sister broke this argument with her old laugh.</p> + +<p>"Don't tempt me, Charles! I'm all kinds of a hypocrite but that kind! Of +course, I wanted children a great deal more than Harold, and they're my +compensation—for everything—not his at all. You know all that +perfectly well. No, no," said Fanny, lowering her voice as Angela's +returning steps were heard. "If Harold ever tires of me, I'll go, you +may be sure. He won't find me clamping on his shoulders, claiming to be +taken care of for life because of my two little darlings...."</p> + +<p>Charles had expected to walk home with Fanny, continuing the sad but +interesting talk, but he was frustrated in that intention by the arrival +of an escort of Fanny's own. This proved to be none other than Mr. +Tilletts.</p> + +<p>It developed that the seeking widower, who was known as a sort of public +Former Suitor, had called on Fanny this evening, and, finding her about +to go out, had begged the privilege of squiring her to and fro. Had +Angela understood this in advance, how willingly would she have raised +Three-Hand to a Table! But at least she could do her best now to remove +from Mr. Tilletts's mind the idea that she was rude,—derived at the +Redmantle Club, where she had made her unfortunate mistake,—and +apparently she was successful, for Charles heard the plump seeker say, +"May I call?" quite distinctly, as they moved into the hall.</p> + +<p>The door shut on a chorus of good-nights.</p> + +<p>The bridge-party was over; and it was only quarter of eleven. Charles +turned toward the hat-rack and the Studio. And in turning, he surprised +a look in his hostess's dark eyes, which seemed to say, in the most +ingenuous way: "At last, a few minutes to ourselves!"</p> + +<p>All evening, he had been aware of a subtly more personal note in Miss +Angela's manner; a coyer and engagingly proprietary note, which he, with +his known dispassionateness toward this sex, considered as intended for +Fanny Warder's benefit. Charles had not been annoyed by this: few men +repel the adoration of a pretty girl. And now this soft simple +expectancy of hers, this girlish lingering over her somewhat pathetic +party, seemed beyond his kind heart (as he would have put it) to +disappoint. "You're not going!—it's so early!" she exclaimed, and +coquetted prettily enough: "I'd think you were displeased with +me—promising to have Cousin Mary for you, and then not doing it!... But +you don't mind <i>very</i> much, do you?"</p> + +<p>Kindly Charles capitulated at once. "Pay my party-call right now—?" he +threw out, gallant and yet thrifty withal. "If you're sure I'm not +keeping you up...."</p> + +<p>So these two reëntered Miss Angela's little parlor, with its +sleeping-car shape and too prominent Latrobe heater: a room poor enough +in itself, but having an institutional significance when considered as +the Waiting Room of the Womanly Woman. Here they sat down, side by side, +upon a dented sofa. And here, before a great while, there took place a +somewhat strange occurrence.</p> + +<p>There began an animated flow of girlish chatter.</p> + +<p>"I haven't seen you on Washington Street for three days now, Mr. +Garrott. I believe you're avoiding me! I met Mr. Manford this afternoon, +and what do you think he said? That he couldn't play bridge as well as +he could build them, and was afraid he'd be mobbed at a party! I don't +think he <i>could</i> play any worse than Fanny, do you? But Mr. Garrott, why +does he want to go to <i>Wyoming</i>? I'd <i>lots</i> rather go to New York, if I +were a man! I asked him if that river out there he was going to dam was +pretty, and he said he'd send me a picture post-card of it, when he +went. But I suppose he'll forget all about it...."</p> + +<p>Mr. Garrott, pleasantly relaxed, made suitable replies as need arose. In +his scientific way, he was noting how fine and clear Miss Angela's skin +was, what shining soft eyes she had, how soothing and sweet was her +voice. Certainly this girl did not try to create the air that she was +your manly superior, or address you like a Self-Made Man reproving his +wife.</p> + +<p>"Fanny's broken so dreadfully, hasn't she? She was so lovely and +attractive as a girl. Tommy was crazy about her when she visited us in +Mitchellton, a long time ago. He gave her the loveliest presents! But +Tommy was always the most generous boy. They were getting up a +drinking-fountain as a memorial to Major Beesom—he was postmaster for +years and years, you know—and Tommy headed the list with twenty-five +dollars, and he was only making forty a month! I just wish you could +have known Major Beesom! I know you'd want to put him in a book. Mr. +Garrott, I'm <i>so</i> anxious to read some of your stories! What are your +heroines like, generally?"</p> + +<p>Out of which, she said presently, laughing and whisking her hand behind +her back:—</p> + +<p>"You were looking at my ring!"</p> + +<p>"Why not?" said Mr. Garrott, starting a little. "A cat may look at a +ring."</p> + +<p>That was reasonable surely. Angela, after a few teasing pretenses, held +up her modest gimcrack for him to see. And Charles, naturally, accepted +the hand so presented.</p> + +<p>As to what subsequently occurred, there was always a divided house +within the many-sided Charles. But all his sides insisted that, at this +point, he had no interest in the matter whatever; some held that he had +not even seen the ring till she called attention to it. Now, bending +over the hand, he examined it, and said:—</p> + +<p>"Well! This is news to me, you know!"</p> + +<p>"Not at all!" laughed the owner of the ring. "Why, what do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"I've seen an engagement ring once before, you see."</p> + +<p>"You're very clever! But—does it have to follow that I'm engaged?"</p> + +<p>"That was the rule, in my day."</p> + +<p>"You don't seem at all curious!"</p> + +<p>"I'm very curious."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm not, of course!"</p> + +<p>"I'm glad to hear it."</p> + +<p>He made, as it were, a sort of sketch of a move to release the small +hand at this point. However, nothing seemed to come of it.</p> + +<p>"Are you?... Why?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, because—it's rather sad for an old bystander like me to see all +the nice young people going off two by two, for happiness and the great +adventure."</p> + +<p>To that, the girl made no reply. She merely gave a little laugh, and +withdrew her hand. The house seemed very still. And Charles was at once +aware that he had been found somehow deficient at the simple game of +parlor conversation. In a scarcely definable way, he felt himself +rebuked for timidity, wariness.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, in her simple, natural way, the girl made known that the +ring was properly the possession of a man in Mitchellton—Charles +recalled Mr. Jenney—and was now worn only by courtesy, reminiscently, +as it were, with no obligations attached.</p> + +<p>"You see, his brothers all went off, like all the other men, and his +sister married and went away, and so he said he would stay in +Mitchellton with his mother. And it's truly the most hopeless place! He +doesn't seem to have any ambition at all—it provoked me so! I think all +men ought to have ambition, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"I do, indeed. And he owns that pretty ring, you say?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. You see," she said, laughing and coloring, "when I felt I must +break it off,—well, he wouldn't let it stay off exactly! I—I'm telling +you all my secrets! He said he'd still consider himself—oh—you know!"</p> + +<p>"Naturally. He had enough ambition for that."</p> + +<p>And, as if to show Miss Angela that, in point of fact, none knew better +than he how to talk to a girl on a sofa, Charles carelessly took up that +betrothal hand again, saying: "So he made you keep the ring all the +same?"</p> + +<p>"The day we left Mitchellton. And I said I'd wear it—oh, just till I +met somebody I liked better! It was really more of a joke!..."</p> + +<p>"Ah! And you haven't met such a person yet, I gather?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—I'm not to send it back till I know—"</p> + +<p>"How long," said the young authority, at once completely conscious of +the supreme inanity of the proceedings, and finding them enjoyable +enough, "how long do you allow yourself to find out?"</p> + +<p>"That isn't easy to tell.... Do you know you're the strangest man!"</p> + +<p>"Am I? How do I seem so strange to you?"</p> + +<p>The little hand was warm, not unpleasant to retain. The eyes, gazing up +at him, were liquid and bright; they were woman's eyes. "Consider me," +they seemed to say. "Am I not sweet, desirable? Am I not worthy to be +held dear? Was I not made to delight? See, I am Woman, beside you...."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said the soft voice, "the way you do. Cousin Mary says you're the +new sort of man, that isn't interested in girls at all. You're too +clever to care anything about them. Are you?"</p> + +<p>"Clever? I'd call that the stupidest thing in the world."</p> + +<p>"Then you do like them! I'm so glad. I've wondered, you see...."</p> + +<p>The feminine speeches, the appeal of these eyes, seemed all at once to +create an enveloping pressure, softer than nothing, yet extraordinary. +Or possibly the trouble was that Dionysius, after all, had freed his +eyes of the magic more brilliantly than his creator.</p> + +<p>"What sort of girls do you like? Tell me?" said the voice of Woman, +nearer.</p> + +<p>And then in the suddenest way conceivable there took place the Strange +Occurrence referred to. Without the smallest premeditation, Charles bent +and touched his lips to that smooth invitational cheek.</p> + +<p>On that central point there is not the slightest room for doubt. Let +there be no wriggling or evasion here. Charles Garrott, who scorned La +Femme and viewed Woman exclusively as a Movement, did bend his neck and +kiss the Mitchellton Home-Maker upon a sofa.</p> + +<p>He meant the salute, he was afterward certain, as but a fatherly tribute +to youth and beauty, or (considered in another way) but the expected, +and in a sense purely conventional, move in the ancient parlor-game. But +on such a move as this homes have been broken, families set to mutual +slaughter, thrones shaken, history changed. Charles, to put it in a +word, found it easier to begin paying his tributes than gracefully to +desist from them.</p> + +<p>Prompted by a not unnatural curiosity, the lady (who had not proved more +than maidenly surprised or rebuking) said:—</p> + +<p>"Oh!... Why do you do this?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus4" id="illus4"></a> +<img src="images/illus4.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>"OH!... WHY DO YOU DO THIS?"</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Who knows what trusting heart first voiced that immemorial question? +Charles Garrott, at least, was not the first gentleman on earth to fail +to utter promptly the one satisfactory commentary on his behavior. Miss +Angela made that little, gentle note of interrogation which cannot be +written, and then she said again:—</p> + +<p>"Tell me—why do you?"</p> + +<p>Then it was as if the intrinsic pointedness of that query penetrated the +man, suddenly and sharply. It was the mere force of iteration, no doubt; +but all at once the soft voice seemed possessed of a certain insistence, +tinctured with a certain definite expectation, you might say. Now that +Charles stopped to think of it, why was he doing this?</p> + +<p>The young man's arms fell, as if something had burned them. He rose +abruptly and strode away to the mantelpiece, where, however, the Latrobe +heater spoiled any hope of an effective pose.</p> + +<p>If he meant thus to signify that the little episode was closed and done +with, life, unluckily, was not quite so simple as that. The pretty +Home-Maker, having gazed at his back- or side-view a moment, as if +bewildered, said in an uncertain voice:—</p> + +<p>"I—I don't understand you at all. Why did you do that?"</p> + +<p>Putting down the impulse to bolt, and the even more astonishing impulse +to return to that fatal sofa, Charles Garrott braced himself to reply. +In this effort he was handicapped by emotions altogether unknown to most +young men who sit upon sofas. For example: What would the lady in Sweden +have to say to this little affair?</p> + +<p>He confronted a fact which he had temporarily lost sight of: that he who +pays these tributes must pay for them to the full. Half of him might +feel resentful and furious, but it was clear that the whole of him, the +net Charles, must cut a sorry figure for a while. Half of him might be +crying out, stern as science itself: "Come, girl, be honest! Don't go +about dropping matches into gunpowder, and then pretend to be surprised +at the explosion." But the net Charles, brightly flushed, was speaking +lamely as a schoolboy:—</p> + +<p>"Well! Do you think I could be <i>blamed</i>—exactly? It—it seemed such an +awfully natural thing to do. You—ah—it seemed I—I couldn't do +anything <i>else</i>!..."</p> + +<p>"I see," said the girl slowly.</p> + +<p>"Ah—you—you're a very kissable person, you must know—"</p> + +<p>"And do you always go about kissing people you think are kissable?"</p> + +<p>The young man shrank as from a blow. Not looking once in her direction, +he did not note that she had spoken with a quivering lip. With a great +effort at lightness, he stammered:—</p> + +<p>"Well, hardly! It must be that I don't often meet people who—who are as +k-k-kissable as you—"</p> + +<p>"I suppose I ought to feel flattered."</p> + +<p>There was a miserable silence.</p> + +<p>"I was mistaken in you," continued the Nice Girl's stricken voice. "I—I +trusted you. I supposed you were too honorable—I didn't think—"</p> + +<p>That word seemed to touch him to the quick. He spoke with desperate +stiffness.</p> + +<p>"I <i>am</i> honorable, I hope. Miss Flower—aren't you taking this too—too +seriously, perhaps? After all, you—"</p> + +<p>She astonished him by bursting into tears.</p> + +<p>And all modernity became as nothing then, and Charles was a simple man, +horrified by the sight of woman's grief. Now his abasement became +complete; now he groveled most properly; never, he vowed, would he cease +to censure himself most severely for this Occurrence. He wheedled, he +implored, he cajoled. But, of course, all this but made the matter +worse, threw his wary, inexcusable omissions into sharper and sharper +relief. And presently Miss Angela referred to him as <i>brutal</i> (did she +not pause even after that, in a sort of expectant way?) and then ended +the tragedy by begging him to leave her, her fatally ringed hands held +fast before her eyes.</p> + +<p>No such conclusion to the evening of wholesome pleasure could have been +devised by the wit of fiction-writers. Charles gathered up his hat and +coat like a thief, and let himself gently out into the night.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII</h2> + + +<p>He turned in at the Green Park, in the still night, and stood gazing +with bitterness at a dim gigantic Citizen, who rose in bronze at the +intersection of two walkways. The Citizen gazed back with no bitterness +at all; but then, he was dead.</p> + +<p>Charles Garrott, being very much alive, was thinking cadlike thoughts +with clarity and vigor. In the romances, men who won a maiden's sweet +kiss instantly besought her to name the day; failing that, they were +cads. But Charles was resolved to fail that, and he was struggling +determinedly not to feel a cad. He simply did not consider that Miss +Angela's kiss had such a pricelessness, entailing cosmic +responsibilities. Why was her kiss any sweeter than his own, to come +right down to it?</p> + +<p>Now pure remorse had faded: self-interest, outraged self-respect, fought +to have their say. Indeed, Miss Angela herself could not well feel more +mortified over those unimagined salutes than he, the New Man, did. And +it was as if his humiliation had destroyed all that restraining sense of +a bond here, and the brutal Charles was free now for a frank facing of +his new reactions.</p> + +<p>"Well, I won't marry her! I won't," said he to the calm Citizen. "I'll +call myself names for her, yes; I'll send her bonbons—flowers—that +sort of thing. I'll land Donald for her—that's a thought! I'll get her +invited to the Thursday German. But <i>marry her</i>!... No, the kindest +thing would be never to see her again."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus5" id="illus5"></a> +<img src="images/illus5.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>"WELL, I WON'T MARRY HER! I WON'T!"</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>And, gazing up in the silent darkness of the park, the unheroic young +man began to think how he could go to Berringer's by the Center Street +cars, and take his walks henceforth in the manufacturing district, and +in far countrysides.</p> + +<p>Between Miss Flower's and the park, Charles had been briefly unnerved by +a disruptive thought. This girl loved him. Recollections from his salad +days rushed on him, memories of swift violent fancies women took to him. +He was cursed, it seemed, with a fatal fascination. Women might be +practically engaged to other men; they might be at the altar's hinges; +but he could not stroll among them with his devilish gift without +scattering ruin amid the troths. If he was not openly rude to them, they +took it as direct encouragement; if he was civil, from him they viewed +it as wooing; and when actually crowned with the deliberate kiss ...</p> + +<p>But these bachelor terrors he had exploded with one "Piffle!" spoken so +loudly that two young street-car conductors, passing to or from a +car-barn, no doubt, nudged and jeered. Oh, no, Miss Angela was not in +love with him. She had merely conceived that he, Charles, was in love +with her. (A stinging thought this, even while it vastly reassured.) +Yes, this rudimentary country cousin, whom he had felt sorry for because +of her loneliness, whom he had been interested in purely as a Type (he +maintained), with which to cudgel the hard utilitarian egoism of another +sort of woman—this little creature must needs suppose that he, Charles +Garrott, who knew the most attractive women there were, had fallen a +victim to her village arts and bucolic wiles.</p> + +<p>Great heavens!—Oh, the cheek! Oh, the naïve complacence of the naïvest +sex the Lord ever made!...</p> + +<p>Why, he had never paid the smallest attention to this girl; never taken +dog's notice of her, you might say! Booting pebbles this way and that in +the darkness, the angry young man reviewed the circumstances with +scientific dispassionateness (as he considered). Compulsorily introduced +by the firm Mary, he had spoken politely to the girl; kindly presented +a suitable young friend or two; and therewith considered that the whole +matter was closed. But no, on the contrary; one pleasant smile from him, +and the Womanly Woman was up and doing.</p> + +<p>She had pumped out of him the hour at which he took his walks (he knew +nothing about the opera-glasses as yet); and straightway she began +waylaying him on the street, nothing less. She had all but forced a book +on him, which he would have to return with a "call"—she supposed; when +he did not call, she did something which could only be described as +inveigling him to her home (that was his word now), by the shallow ruse +of a bridge-party; and then and there she had (you might say) flung both +arms about his neck and kissed him. And by these proceedings, it +appeared to her, in that queer world where Nice Girls lived, that she +had affixed a claim upon him, fairly bagged his heart, in short. "Why do +you do this?" said she, insistently. Oh, how simple life looked to such +as these, her and her sisters of the Naïve Sex! Forever putting that +stereotyped query, forever expecting to elicit the hoarse but extremely +welcome reply, "Because I love you so!" No conquest too extraordinary to +seem at all surprising to their quaint little self-approval!</p> + +<p>There was humor now in his imagining of the Womanly Woman as quietly +waiting at home to be wooed. It appeared that Miss Angela had done +everything but that.</p> + +<p>A church clock boomed suddenly: it was half-past eleven. The young man's +eyes fell from the face of the Citizen. Through the stark stems of the +winter trees a yellow light glowed strongly in a lower window. That was +Olive Street there; this light shone in the Wings' house. He noted it +absently, wondering why Mary worked so late to-night. On the heels of +that came another wonder, more personal: What would Mary think of these +proceedings upon a sofa?</p> + +<p>There must have been a bracing quality in the thought of Mary Wing, for +Charles's hot desire to justify himself chilled instantly. Mary had her +faults, heaven knew; but she had nothing to do with sofas. In a wink, +the young man became staggered at himself. For there was nothing he had +been thinking just now that he had not seen clearly for many years past. +What, then? Had his vision of late been blurred in the cheapest way +conceivable? When he told himself that he was scientifically commending +the supplying of Beauty and Charm, was it possible that he, Charles +Garrott, had been subtly allured by La Femme?</p> + +<p>From outraged and resentful, Charles became let down and depressed. +Standing and gazing at Mary Wing's bright light, he found his whole +point of view shifting. He, of course, was blameworthy, not this soft +bit of unthinking femininity. Turned out without a lesson and with but +one way of life—what could she do but signify, like her mothers, that +she was ready to twine about her oak? So again, Charles saw the girl he +had left in tears as a being mysteriously wistful and pathetic. And +still she was a type to him, still a symbol of myriads of girls, waiting +over the world: Girls brought up by simple parents who assumed that life +was still as simple as they; girls made to stake their whole lives on +the vague expectation that, because they are girls, some man or other +will be sure to want them some day; a million girls waiting, day by day +and year by year, while all they have to offer life fades away under +their eyes....</p> + +<p>The young authority trailed out of the park feeling much like the cads +of Romance, after all. And yet it seemed to be settled now, definitely +and positively, that he would not make a Womanly Woman the heroine of +his new novel.</p> + +<p>A light snow had begun to fall. Other people than Charles Garrott moved +homeward from evenings of beauty, charm and pleasure. Motor-cars rolled +on Washington Street. Emerging from the Green Park, Charles moodily +saluted two young men who stood there on a corner; one was his good +friend, Talbott Maxon, but the author passed him almost like a stranger. +To all intercourse with his kind he felt utterly averse. Nevertheless, +when he passed the door of the Bellevue Club, presently, he found his +privacy ruthlessly invaded.</p> + +<p>Down the wide steps between the two columnar lights—exactly as on that +other evening when it had all begun—came shambling the loose figure of +Uncle Oliver Wing. Only now Uncle Oliver's large face was faintly +flushed, his large felt hat was pulled over his eyes, his very large +cigar was rakishly uptilted toward the heavens. From which it was +concluded that Mr. Wing was not less than five drinks and five dollars +the better for <i>his</i> little card-party at the Club.</p> + +<p>"Let's see now, Charlie,—what was it you asked me?" said Mr. Wing, +catching stride and slipping his arm through the silent young man's. +"Did I believe in this Woman's Movement, wasn't that it?"</p> + +<p>Resenting the intrusion, Charles replied coldly: "That was it, I +believe."</p> + +<p>Mr. Wing appeared no whit abashed. "Well, Charlie, fact is I believe in +most any kind of a movement, as I reckon you know, and all I ask about +any of 'em is, where's the harm of moving kind of slow, and taking a few +good squints around as we go. That'd about give my view that you asked +me for," said the money-lender, a known reactionary in theory and +practice—"Move slow and squint."</p> + +<p>Genially, he took a fresh grip on the arm Charles had almost detached, +and therewith went off into an ill-timed long rigmarole. So convivially +windy was Mr. Wing that he had talked steadily through two blocks before +it came over Charles, with force, that Mary's uncle had had a sharp aim +from the beginning.</p> + +<p>"Now, you take, for instance, this privilege of work they're all +clamoring for, Charlie. Women mustn't be parasites; give us the +privilege of work, they say. And that's right, too; give 'em all they'll +take's my view. But, Charlie, my observation is that when a woman +clamors that way, it's ten to one she's thinking of work like being +governor, or a great public speaker maybe, or Miss Jane Addams, out to +Hull House there. But if you ask <i>me</i>, are they willing to work like men +do, just so's not to have you call 'em parasites—well, that's where I +say, let's stop and squint around. Of course, now, whenever you see a +rich man's daughter refusing to touch her daddy's money, and jumping up +mornings by an alarm-clock to catch the 7.42, and when you see her +working nine hours a day, winter and summer, at a job it makes her sick +to look at, for ten little dollars a week, and no brass band or +fireworks anywhere—why, then you got a right to say, <i>that</i> woman hates +being a parasite. But, Charlie, you're so quiet, you don't say anything, +I don't guess you're following while I try to answer that question you +asked me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I follow you," replied Charles, with annoyance.</p> + +<p>Mr. Wing shot one keen glance at the young man's face, and another ahead +as if to measure the distance yet remaining to his domicile.</p> + +<p>"Well, now, morals, Charlie!" he continued, most agreeably. "Lor', the +things our little gals do say nowadays! Make you laugh right out loud. +Ain't it funny how innocent women can keep, now? Up and take their +cocktails, yes, and smoke their cigarettes, and talk right out, white +slave this, and red-light that, and all the time—no more <i>notion</i>!... +Why, Charlie, you wouldn't believe the pretty-faced little gal, no +more'n twenty-two years old, I heard making a public speech once, and +what do you think her subject was? 'My plea,' says she, 'is a single +standard of morality for men and women. Whatever man may do,' says she, +'that we claim woman's right to do also.'"</p> + +<p>The old gasbag broke off to say, "How-do, Ed," to a passer in the +filtering snow, knocked the ashes from his cigar with the large hand +that was not clutching Charles, and resumed.</p> + +<p>"Well, Charlie, I'd been sitting there meek as peaches while that little +gal explained to us all about men and women, but when she gets that off, +and right away asks if anybody in the audience has got any questions, +seemed like I couldn't sit still any longer. 'Excuse me,' I says, +standing up, 'but d'ye make a plea for the single standard of physical +courage also, miss?' I says. 'What say?' she sings out, pretending not +to hear me, while she tries to think what it said in that book she'd +been reading. 'It's a little thing, miss,' I says, 'only an old fellow's +way of saying if maybe Godalmighty didn't figure a little variety'd be a +good thing in this hard world he gave us. When the ship goes down,' I +says, 'do you call on your sisters for the single standard of courage, +miss, or do you hold by the men's rule of the sea and the land, and hop +into the lifeboats with the kids? Excuse a plain old fellow from +speakin' up this way, miss,' I says, 'but seems to me maybe Godalmighty +might have known what he was doing when he gave women more feeling, and +men more fighting strength; when he appointed women to give life and men +to guard it; when, as you might put it, he appointed some virtues for +both to hold in common, and then some for each of 'em to grow and +cultivate specially. And maybe, miss,' I says, 'Godalmighty made the +distribution fairer than some of our college gals realize.' Well, +Charlie, you ought to have heard the hand the crowd gave me, though +there was some hissin' by Suffragettes, I own. And what d'ye think that +cute-lookin' little thing does? 'I deny,' she sings out, her voice +shaking, 'that God gave more strength to men. I deny there is a God,' +she says. And right there she bu'sts out crying, and runs off the +stage.... Yes, she did!—first speech in public maybe. Well, Charlie, +all I say is, that's the kind of loose talk our gals're hearing all the +time nowadays. And that," said Mr. Wing, coming to a halt before his own +steps, and glancing hastily over his shoulder toward his door—"that's +why I can't help feeling sorry for this little gal here that got into +the trouble, and taking sides with her, too, against my public duty and +morals. Why, Charlie, <i>she</i> thought all the talk was meant, not seeing +it was only half-foolin', like in a play."</p> + +<p>Now it was that Charles Garrott's bored eye upon Uncle Oliver suddenly +became fixed.</p> + +<p>"Taking sides with her?" he said, speaking for almost the first time in +the walk. "What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Well, that's just what I did, the effect was," said Mr. Wing, his own +eye wandering, "and against my conscience, too. Why, Charlie, if I +wasn't an early retirer by habit, and this snow comin' on, too, I could +show you quick enough where all this Single Standard was +damfoolishness—unless, of course, you mean Perfect Purity, like I +preach myself. And when a woman jumps up and hits a crack at marriage, +that the rest of us are sacrificin' ourselves to build up for the good +of Society, why, she's a bad woman, you can talk till you're black in +the face, that had ought to be punished. Yes, and those that help her, +they're lending encouragement to the enemies of the Republic, seems +like, and they'd ought to be punished, too. But, shucks," said Mr. Wing, +crushing the fire from the cigar against the iron railing, and putting +the stump carefully in his pocket, "blood's thicker'n water, like they +say. And I don't regret voting the way I did, though the majority was +against me from the start."</p> + +<p>The two men stood fronting each other in the silent street, and the +young man's face had become rigid. And he was now perfectly aware of the +faint gleam in the old man's eye, a gleam of distinctly malicious +enjoyment.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Wing, what are you talking about?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I thought you must have heard, Charlie, you seemed so kind of +glum. Why, I thought you must be on your way from Mary's now."</p> + +<p>He glanced again at his door, as if to say that he really must not be +expected to stop for further conversation at this late hour. And then he +said what exploded Miss Angela Flower off the horizon.</p> + +<p>"Why, Charlie, you see the School Board fired Mary this afternoon. On +account of this little friend of hers, Trevenna, that she—"</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">What?</span>"</p> + +<p>"Well, transferred's really the word, Charlie," said Uncle Oliver, +edging up a step or two. "She's sent over as a teacher to Lee Grammar +School, reporting Monday. Johnson Geddie's the new assistant principal +at the High School, commencing Monday, too. Well, Charlie, good—"</p> + +<p>Charles seized the burly arm in a grip sufficiently strong for a writer, +and threw all his turmoil into three words: "<i>Who went over?</i>"</p> + +<p>"Creamer and Honeykamp, I guess you mean. Of course, there was right +smart feelin' aroused, and it seemed Creamer's got a growin' daughter in +the High School, that's got to be protected and all. 'Twas only Mary's +good record saved her being dropped entirely, I guess, considering how +Mysinger'd worked the case up against her. Well, <i>good</i>-night, Charlie."</p> + +<p>Wrenching away his arm, Mr. Wing rolled rapidly up the steps and +vanished into the dark cave of his hall. But Charles stood still as a +snow-man on the sidewalk, feeling as if the skies had fallen.</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX</h2> + + +<p>So Mary Wing's name flared in newspaper headlines once again.</p> + +<p>In matters of school politics, the editorial writers of the city were +habitually gun-shy, but it was noted next morning that the reporters had +treated Mary with marked consideration. "Of all the changes and new +appointments ordered by the Board in its three-hour session," wrote the +kindly youth on the "Post," "none created such amazement as the demotion +of Miss Wing, she having for long been conceded to be possibly the most +valued teacher in the city school system. Members of the Board, however, +refused to explain their totally unlooked-for action, Chairman Garcin +merely claiming that 'All changes were for the good of the schools.' +Charges of politics were freely heard in the lobby, and one well-known +citizen, who prefers not to be quoted at just this juncture, said," etc.</p> + +<p>Reporters, as everybody knows, must severely repress their personal +opinions and stick like mucilage to the bare facts. But which facts are +the bare ones? Judicious selection is a wonderful thing.</p> + +<p>However, one of Miss Wing's admirers read the "Post's" amiable sentences +with no abatement of his burning indignation. Print made the thing +immensely concrete, and that was all. In Charles's mind, every hard or +critical thought of Mary had fallen instantly in the face of her +astonishing disaster; "I told you so" was not in him. That his old +friend's struggle upward had collapsed in sudden disgrace: this was bare +fact enough to possess him completely throughout the tutorial day. Here +fell a Modern principle from which he had never wavered, the great +principle that a woman should have a fair field to work, and fair +judgment, without prejudice of sex. All Mary Wing's success had been +entwined with that principle; since she was in her teens, she had +fought for it, in sunshine and in thunder; and in that town at least the +way was smoother for all women henceforward, because of what she had +done. And now to break her, after all these years, only because she, a +woman, had refused to throw a stone at a mistaken sister ... By Heavens, +this could not be endured.</p> + +<p>Thus Charles communed with himself, crisply teaching the Elements, +French and Sociology. And he snapped his watch at Miss Grace Chorister +five minutes ahead of time and, writing forgotten, went rushing to the +support of his "demoted" friend.</p> + +<p>But he did not rush by way of the frequented promenade. As he had gone +to lunch by street-car to-day, so his journey to the High School was +conducted in the same discreet manner. Through all this unimagined +disturbance about Mary, the young man had not lost sight of his last +night's resolve, formed in the Green Park, as to Mary's so different +cousin. Cad he might be; understand it she might not (in view of the +kiss); but Charles was clear that it was for the best that he and Miss +Angela should meet upon Washington Street no more.</p> + +<p>The "Post's" story had made one thing certain at least: Mary did not +mean to tear up her teacher's certificate and pitch it, with her +resignation, in the faces of the School Board. In the still watches, +Charles had thought she might be capable of just such reckless repartee; +now he divined that she was reserving her resignation, to discharge it, +like a bomb, upon her expected election as Secretary of the Education +Reform League. That prospect in the Career blurred the situation +considerably, without doubt. Still, the secretaryship was three months +away, at the worst. And meanwhile the immediate problem thundered for +attention, namely, how to get Mary back into the High School at the +earliest possible moment? Charles, who as a man considered this problem +his own no less than Mary's, arrived at the School with three promising +plans in his head.</p> + +<p>It was Friday, commonly a late day for Mary, but you could count on +nothing on such a day as this. However, when he had dashed into the +great building and up the two tall stairways, there sat the late +assistant principal in her little office, hard at work before a regular +man's desk. She was discovered deep in the sorting of papers, and swung +around at his step with a start and a smile.</p> + +<p>"Good-afternoon!—and excuse the mess, please! The notice to move caught +me a little unawares, you see.—Don't look so solemn, please!"</p> + +<p>Whatever emotions she might have wrestled with last night, when her +light shone so bright over the park, it was clear that Mary Wing had put +them all down to front the world to-day. Neither did she seem +embarrassed by any memories of recent conversations on these topics, of +hints dropped and too firmly repulsed. Her manner, her sensitive fine +face, were as composed as ever.</p> + +<p>It may be that this, at the outset, was slightly upsetting to Charles, +who was himself not composed at all.</p> + +<p>He scooped a pile of "The New School" from a chair and sat with an elbow +upon the writing-leaf of her masculine desk. Dumping papers from +pigeon-holes, Mary calmly explained how complete was her overthrow. +Senff, who was known as Mysinger's "personal representative" on the +Board, had preferred the charges, she said, recommending her outright +dismissal from the schools. The train had been carefully laid; it +appeared that Mary had received an official warning from the +Superintendent—an obliging man, elderly and weak, whom Mysinger meant +to succeed before long—all of two weeks ago. Beyond influence and +politication, much weight was attached to the simple fact that Mysinger, +as Mary's immediate associate and superior, felt this persistent +antipathy toward her. All the same, the Board had debated the case a +full hour.</p> + +<p>"Dangerous ideas," she summarized. "I'm not a suitable person to have +authority over the education of—young women and men."</p> + +<p>"What they said about Socrates, too—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I don't want a monument after I'm dead!"</p> + +<p>She laughed, without self-consciousness, and said: "Oh, if I'd tried, of +course, I couldn't have put a better club into Mr. Mysinger's hands. +Ideas!—I'm really amazed I wasn't electrocuted on the spot. Of course +it isn't as if I were a man, you see, with a right to have ideas. That's +my real fault, from the beginning—at least with Mysinger. I'm a woman, +and so should never have been suffered 'to teach, nor to usurp authority +over the man, but to be in silence.' Dear St. Paul!"</p> + +<p>It was rare to find bitterness in Mary. Charles asked hastily if there +had been much talk about the building to-day. She said that the School +had been buzzing with it.</p> + +<p>"It's almost been worth having it happen, to see how many friends I've +got. And the children are the best, of course. All afternoon my boys and +girls have been streaming in here, in threes and fours—just to say +they're sorry I'm going...."</p> + +<p>A shadow fell on her oddly fragile-looking face, and the author struck +the writing-leaf with a large fist.</p> + +<p>"By George, you shan't go!"</p> + +<p>"By George, I've got to," said Mary.</p> + +<p>"Well, by George, you'll come right back. Listen to me."</p> + +<p>Leaning forward over her desk, he eagerly unfolded his leading plan, +elaborated by him in the night season. This plan involved an immediate +appeal to the State Board of Education, which body had the power of +overriding all acts of local school boards. Chalmers Brown, the young +Attorney-General of the State and Charles's good friend, was an +<i>ex-officio</i> member of this august body. Brown would arrange to have a +meeting called at once, ostensibly on other business, if necessary. Mary +Wing would find herself triumphantly back in this office within two +weeks from to-day. And as for—</p> + +<p>But at the first mention of the State Board, Mary had begun to shake her +head, and before Charles had got his plan fairly set out she interrupted +him, rather (it seemed to him) as an older brother interrupts.</p> + +<p>"No, I've thought that over very carefully. Mysinger's pull has me +beaten there before I begin. I'd only be playing into his hand, don't +you see—giving the State Board a public opportunity to indorse and +approve my punishment."</p> + +<p>"But, great heavens! Mysinger's not the whole show here. You overrate—"</p> + +<p>"He is, and he isn't. Some good men, like Creamer, are against me now, +it's true. And yet, if Mysinger let either Board know that he wanted me +back here, I'd come back to-morrow. He's that much of the show, Mr. +Garrott."</p> + +<p>Charles argued warmly. He was chagrined at the ease and decision with +which the sure young woman brushed his arguments aside. Nor did the +consciousness that she was probably sound in her positions soothe his +masculine sense of the fitness of things at all. With a subtle loss of +enthusiasm, he broached his second plan; and it too was summarily thrown +out of court. That plan had called for an investigation of the "due +cause" by the City Council—an intention attributed by the generous +"Post" reporter to the well-known citizen, unnamed. Finding his +supporting shoulder thus rejected, Charles demanded what was <i>her</i> +plan, then. And it seemed that Mary's plan was merely to wait until May, +when the terms of three members of the local Board expired (all of them +Mysinger men), and then to see to it that these places were filled with +men friendly to her.</p> + +<p>The plan seemed to the young man so feeble and remote, so +uncharacteristic and tame, as to indicate a certain indifference in her. +He sat eyeing her a moment with intent speculation, and then said +deliberately:—</p> + +<p>"That's good enough for publication purposes, I suppose. But—you're +thinking of something very different, aren't you?"</p> + +<p>"Am I?—what do you suspect?" said Mary, continuing her labors of +paper-sorting.</p> + +<p>"It's occurred to me that you have rather a brilliant revenge up your +sleeve all the time. What'll you care for little pigs like Mysinger, +when you go off as General Secretary of the League?"</p> + +<p>The self-contained young woman surprised him by throwing both arms above +her head and saying, passionately. "If I only could! Oh, oh! If I only +could!"</p> + +<p>Charles's gaze became fixed. "But you're going to, aren't you?"</p> + +<p>Her arms fell and she said, in another voice: "No, I don't think I'm +going to land it, you see!"</p> + +<p>"Not going to—! Why, I thought you were practically sure!"</p> + +<p>"That's the worst of it—I <i>was</i>, for a few wild weeks. Now I'm positive +I'm not."</p> + +<p>"Why!—but what's happened?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," said she, light and calm again, "merely reading between the lines +of Dr. Ames's letters. I hear from him all the time about the State +work—once a week, at least. But he's never referred at all to the talk +we had—about my being Secretary—from the first. Of course, I've +wondered. And then yesterday—no, day before—I had a letter asking if I +expected to be in New York any time before fall. He said he'd like to +talk with me about my work here."</p> + +<p>The straightforward sentences carried a painful conviction. Charles's +eyes fell from his friend's face. For this crowning disappointment of +hers he was distressed enough, indeed; and yet he was perfectly +conscious that there was a side of him which could not lament at all. +Publicly speaking, he had not honestly viewed the secretaryship as a +"revenge"; since to get Mary out of the schools, by hook or crook, was +the exact object in life of her adversary, Mysinger, who so earnestly +held that woman's place was the Home. And then, there were those more +personal and secret reactions in him, which had somehow recoiled from +this development of the Career from the start.</p> + +<p>"How long have you felt this way—that you weren't going to get it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—for two months now, at least."</p> + +<p>"Two months! Why, you've never said anything about it to me!"</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't remember your asking anything about it."</p> + +<p>"No, because I supposed it was virtually settled—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, indeed. In fact—oh, it was just a mad dream for me, of course! +I'll live and die a Grammar School teacher."</p> + +<p>"No! I swear you'll not!" And, seeing the way cleared of all +extra-complications now, the young man flung out with unwonted +exuberance: "You trust <i>me</i>! You'll come back here so quickly you'll +not remember you ever went!"</p> + +<p>But the male protectorship, he should have known well, scarcely thrived +in this atmosphere. Mary tied a package of papers, gave him a look and +smile, and dropped it efficiently into the suitcase at her feet.</p> + +<p>"Well, that's on the knees of the gods as yet. Meanwhile—there's no use +crying over spilt milk."</p> + +<p>"My point is, don't you see, this milk shan't stay spilt! <i>I'm</i> not +going to wait till May to have you back here."</p> + +<p>It was on the tip of his tongue to confide to her then, for her comfort, +the third plan he had for her, a plan more circuitous and elaborate than +either of his others, but yet, given time, his personal favorite from +the beginning. However, Mary's little laugh checked him. The laugh may +have been the best cover she had for feelings deeply bruised, after all, +perhaps: but the breath of it chilled the young man's ardors +effectually.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid you must, though! This milk—"</p> + +<p>"I decline. Trust me, I say. I intend to help you here."</p> + +<p>But her reply was to put into words of one syllable, at last, what her +manner had been saying plainly from the beginning:—</p> + +<p>"My dear friend, you <i>can't</i> help me, in this."</p> + +<p>She added, quietly snapping on a light: "Don't worry your head about it +any more, please. Whatever, can be done,—I can and will do it, you may +be sure."</p> + +<p>It was odd how completely this silenced the young man. It was as if she +had suddenly blown up the whole line of their communication.</p> + +<p>And it seemed to Charles, all at once, that Mary had accidentally stated +exactly what was the matter with her, as a woman and a friend. It seemed +to him suddenly that ever since he had known this girl he had been going +to her and saying, "Look here, I'll help you do such and such," and she, +in one way or another, had always been replying, "Why, <i>you</i> couldn't +help <span class="smcap">ME</span>!"</p> + +<p>The conversation between the two old friends thus abruptly thinned out. +It became almost desultory on his part, not untouched with dignity. And +as they so chatted of Lee Grammar School and its unfavorable location, +he, the authority, was eyeing Mary Wing askance, unmistakably +reacting.... Was hardness, then, the necessary corollary of +"independence"? Was it true, exactly as Old Tories said, that a woman +could not grapple long with actuality without rubbing away that natural +sweetness and charm of hers which, it might be, the grim world needed +more than duplicate Careers? Certainly there was no charm for him in +this slip of a girl's self-assertion: "I'm a better man than you, don't +you know it?" Splendid, indeed, was her Spartan calm in a defeat serious +in every way, and with the peculiar sting conferred by Miss Trevenna's +fame. Why was it that he would have warmed to her so infinitely more, +have felt quite a new depth of affection for her, if, rather, she had +turned to him helpless and wildly weeping, "Help me! Help me, friend, or +I perish!"</p> + +<p>"And at least you'll get out much earlier in the afternoons," he was +observing courteously....</p> + +<p>But his secret thought continued to engross him, this fantastic thought +of Mary weeping. Now he remembered Miss Angela's girlish outburst last +night, after the bridge-party; and he saw that there was something +subtly fitting, engaging on the whole, in a woman's weeping over her +troubles. But Mary, of course, could not weep; she simply didn't have +the plant, as you might put it. No—you could picture Mary asking you to +sit on the sofa and look at her ring, more easily than weeping.</p> + +<p>And then, becoming aware of a teacher hovering about in the corridor +near the door,—a fellow named Hartwell it was, who had long seemed +rather attentive to Mary,—Charles Garrott rose to go, a mere polite +caller.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it time you were knocking off?"</p> + +<p>"I think I'd better clear up a little more of this, now that I'm at it."</p> + +<p>"I wonder if I couldn't help you with some of that?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, thank you." (Why, of course he couldn't help <span class="smcap">HER</span>, even to tear +up old papers.) "Nobody could understand it but me. But +I've—appreciated your visit."</p> + +<p>He wished her a good-afternoon. In a stately silence, he traversed the +spacious corridor, stalked down the handsome stairways. For the moment, +he could not get his thought back to the concrete; the sting of defeat +possessed him, the bitterness that is the portion of the friend of +women. And then, in this mood, shaking the dust of the High School from +his feet, he encountered, of all inopportune people under the sun, Miss +Flora Trevenna.</p> + +<p>He came upon the unhappy girl standing in a corner of the outer +vestibule, beyond the great bronze doors; she stood alone, looking off +down the twilight street. Her head turned at the sound of Charles's +feet; recognition came hesitatingly into her glance, and she bowed, +smiling remotely in the absent or reserved way which seemed to be +characteristic of her. It was clearly on a second thought that she spoke +suddenly, in her fluty voice:—</p> + +<p>"Oh!—could you tell me whether Miss Wing is still in the building?"</p> + +<p>Pausing, his hat stiffly raised, the young man said that Miss Wing was. +"You'll find her in her office—on the third floor at the front, you +know."</p> + +<p>"Thank you."</p> + +<p>But, as he bowed and passed on, the Badwoman made no move to enter and +ascend. She stood as he had found her, waiting, aside: a solitary and +withdrawn figure, for the moment to the perceiving eye not untouched +with pathos.</p> + +<p>But Charles, proceeding, could see in this figure only the witting cause +of all the trouble. He had spoken kindly enough to Miss Trevenna: now +suddenly all his accumulated and complex resentment seemed to gather and +pour out. Couldn't the woman leave Mary alone, even on this day? But +no—of course she couldn't! She who had claimed her Happiness over her +mother's heart would see nothing amiss in seeking to scramble back to +good repute by the same general route. It was her Higher Law to throw +her blight over all who might assist her: over her friend, Mary Wing, no +more than over her own young sisters, from whom (Judge Blenso said) +people were already silently dropping away, now that it was known that +the "free" Miss Flora came sometimes to the house.</p> + +<p><i>Free!...</i> Was not here, indeed, that underside of "Freedom," that true +reverse of Taking My Happiness, which the New speakers never mentioned? +This girl conceived freedom just as a Developed Ego would conceive it, +as an order of things in which she should be "free," while everyone +else, going on as usual, sacrificed and denied to uphold her comfort and +support her illimitable selfishness. In her goings out and comings in, +she would take no thought but for her Self. And there she stood, no +leader of a new dawn, but a true enemy of the common good: a female +Anti-Social, a lawless Egoette, who maintained that the world was +ordered and the sun set in the heavens, that she only might indulge +herself where her whim led....</p> + +<p>On the corner the young man halted, shook himself slightly, and glanced +up and down. A brief anxiousness crossed his face, followed by an air +of irresolution.</p> + +<p>This street, Albemarle, was three blocks from Washington, and certainly +not a street that a pleasure-walker, like Miss Angela, would be likely +to pick out. Charles's legs seemed to thirst for exercise. But it was +clear to him that it would not do to run any superfluous risks; +especially just now, when it was all so fresh and new. Therefore, after +a moment of struggle, the authority once more set his face ingloriously +toward the street-cars.</p> + +<p>And as he went he began to think again, more intently than he had +thought in all the thoughtful day. He had taken that challenge of Mary's +full in the face, as it were. She had said, as if in final summary of +their relations, that he was incapable of helping her. Very well; he had +a clear field now to show her, once and for all, whether or not that was +true.</p> + +<p>That third plan of his (of which she should hear no inkling now till the +thing was done) was nothing less than to roll up such a body of Public +Opinion as would overwhelm the School Board—a body somewhat sensitive +to Opinion—forcing it to reverse itself. This could not be done in a +day, of course. To gather momentum enough to rouse the local papers +would mean to start far back. So Charles's mind had fastened at once on +his old idea of a thoroughgoing eulogistic "write-up" of Mary, to begin +with, in some national magazine of the highest standing. Only now his +soaring ambition was to "plant" three such write-ups at least—cunningly +differentiated in matter and manner, and signed with different names. +Nor did this seem by any means a dream. From the periodicals themselves, +he saw that there was a demand for just such "stuff" nowadays, just such +little smartly-written sketches of "people who were doing things." Mary +did things, without a doubt. And once he got the write-ups in +print,—even two write-ups, or one,—he had a powerful bludgeon to +swing at the local editors. "Look here," he would say to them, "why do +we have to go away from home to learn the news? Are you fellows going to +sit still and say nothing while some live city gets this woman for +Superintendent of Schools? Why don't you ..."</p> + +<p>The imaginary exhortation ended there. Round the corner ahead of Charles +a man came swinging just then, rapidly drawing near. And all small +plottings were catapulted from the mind of Mary's friend as he looked +into the face of Mr. Mysinger.</p> + +<p>The principal of the High School approached with a native swagger, on +much "shined" shoes. He was what is called a careful dresser; a heavily +built man, fair and not ill-looking. Ten steps away, his eye fell on +Charles, and, while his lips assumed a gracious smile, the eye in +question seemed to lighten with a flash of triumph. And the sight of +Miss Trevenna was nothing to that sight. All the blood in the young +man's body seemed suddenly to be pounding in his head.</p> + +<p>"Well, Garrott! How goes it to-day?"</p> + +<p>It had not occurred to him to "cut" Mysinger, but so the matter seemed +to be written in the stars. In silence, the passing author looked the +principal through and through. And his head grew hotter, and the pit of +his stomach icier, as he saw Mysinger's smile become fixed, saw it waver +doubtfully and die, saw open hostility slide into the hated eye. So Mary +Wing's conqueror and her unhelpful friend went by at half a foot.</p> + +<p>"By George! I'll beat up that rascal yet for this!"</p> + +<p>The unliterary words were ejected, it seemed, by a demon within. But no +sooner had they fallen on the ear of Charles than all the rest of him +leapt upon and seized them, as one recognizing a long-felt want, an +unconquerable need. And thus his writer's imagination was off upon yet +another plan, the last and the best.</p> + +<p>Yes, that was what he wanted, needed now, more than anything else. He +would humiliate this swaggering Teuton past all endurance; he would go +and kick him till his weary legs refused the office; he would batter him +till his own wife passed him by for a stranger. Lord, what a plan! And +then, the moment he could leave the hospital, Mysinger would crawl +around to Olive Street, hat in hand. "Miss Wing, I'm petitioning the +Board to invite you back to the High School at once," he would say. "I +humbly beg you to come, and try to forgive me for my contemptible +conduct in the past. I don't know why I've always acted like such a +dirty dog" (Mysinger would say). "It's just my low, base nature, I +guess." And Mary, starting up in surprise (but, perhaps, already +half-suspecting the truth), would say: "But this is astounding, Mr. +Mysinger! How come you here, saying these things to me?" And that +insolent fellow, whiter than death, would mumble through swollen lips, +"It's Mr. Garrott's orders, miss."</p> + +<p><i>Then</i> Mary would, perhaps, understand a little better whether or not a +<i>man</i> could help her....</p> + +<p>The author turned suddenly on the darkling street, moved by an instinct +to look after his retiring enemy. By an odd coincidence, Principal +Mysinger had been moved by an instinct to turn and look after him, +Charles. Both men turned hastily round again.</p> + +<p>So Charles, halting on the corner for his car, shook himself once again, +reined in his imagination, and remembered that he was a modern and +civilized being. For the moment, the reminder seemed to accomplish +little. The blood continued to pound in the sedentary temples, redly. +Charles saw that the idea of primitive male combat, over a manly +woman's Career, was unmodern and grotesque. But the idea lingered all +the same.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He spent the evening upon the first of his write-ups, scenarios shut +fast in the drawer. This piece concerned Mary Wing the Educator, and the +intention was to have Mary's friend, Hartwell, read, sign, and father +it. Every precaution must be taken, of course, to give the whole thing a +spontaneous air, avoiding the appearance of a concerted boom. By +midnight, the first draft of the Educator write-up was finished, and, +wearied, the young man picked up the "Post," where he had had eyes but +for one story that morning.</p> + +<p>Here his wandering glance fell presently upon this:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>Miss Angela Flower entertained at bridge last evening at the +residence of her parents, Dr. and Mrs. Oscar P. Flower. Miss +Flower's guests included a limited number of the younger set.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>At this description of himself and Fanny, Charles smiled, for almost the +first time that day. But as he continued to gaze at that small hopeful +item, his mirth faded, and soon he began to stroke the bridge of his +nose, his look distinctly worried.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>X</h2> + + +<p>In the little house of the Flowers, Miss Angela sat forlorn at her +favorite post. She entertained the younger set no more. It was the +middle of December, and a cold rain poured. With a ragged bit of +chamois, the old-fashioned girl polished her already comely nails. The +window-curtain, shrunken and twisted with more than one washing, was +hooked back on a convenient nail; now and then Angela picked up her +shabby opera-glasses and peeped over into the fan-shaped sliver of +Washington Street. But few pedestrians passed over there to-day, and the +motor-cars of the Blessed slid by in curtains of waterproof.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus6" id="illus6"></a> +<img src="images/illus6.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>ANGELA PEEPED OVER INTO WASHINGTON STREET</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>It was the slack hour again, it seemed, leaving home-makers with idle +hands. Even that subtle business to which but one modern authority gave +a scientific rating, the Business of Supplying Beauty and Supplying +Charm, was here at a complete standstill. The men of Angela's family, +who must be refreshed and made joyful for their battlings in the world +without, were at this hour out, battling. Mrs. Flower was lying down in +her room, doing her own refreshing. As for the cook downstairs, she had +her orders, and recked not of Charm. Angela, thus, had her strictly +earned leisure; and, on the other hand, she had not those intenser +occupations for leisure, reforms, fights, and attacks on Morals, such as +engrossed the mind of her advanced Cousin Mary. As a womanly woman, she +naturally thought a great deal about people, her friends, and as an +unassisted stranger in the city, she really had very few friends to +think about. Hence, it was the most natural thing imaginable if she was +now wondering, for the thousandth time, what in the world had become of +Mr. Garrott.</p> + +<p>Angela could not understand about Mr. Garrott. He simply never seemed to +walk any more. That she had hurt his feelings very badly that night +after the bridge-party she had understood, from the start. But perhaps +she had never meant to hurt them so badly as this; and that Mr. Garrott +could vanish utterly from Washington Street had, indeed, not entered her +thoughts. This, however, was precisely what Mr. Garrott had done, from +the very day following the misunderstanding.</p> + +<p>For so, in the lapse of days, had Angela generously come to think of the +occurrence on the sofa. She and Mr. Garrott had had a terrible +misunderstanding.</p> + +<p>It was half-past four o'clock; the dreary day was shutting in. Angela +looked down into her own back yard, which was small, mean-looking, not +devoid of tin cans, and now running with dirty water. A dingy old shed +or outhouse, where some previous tenant had thriftily stabled a horse, +contributed not a little to the wintry desolateness of the scene. +Beneath the window the cook, Luemma, emerged, a ragged print-skirt +turned over her head, and emptied ashes into a broken wooden barrel. +Angela yawned, and picked up a hand-glass.</p> + +<p>The girl's more kindly view of Mr. Garrott's demeanor had been, of +course, a gradual growth. Her mortification and rage against the young +tribute-payer had lasted two days, at least, and chancing to see her +poor Cousin Mary at this time,—who was now being talked about from one +end of the town to the other,—she had taken occasion to speak most +disparagingly of Mr. Garrott, though, of course, in an indirect manner. +She had described him as a person of the <i>lowest ideals</i>. At this Cousin +Mary had protested, quite indignantly; and, though Angela well knew +there were phases of Mr. Garrott which her mannish cousin was not likely +ever to see, that stout championship had doubtless done much to check +her first resentment and make her see things in a truer light. Moreover, +she was naturally a sweet-tempered creature, and the long days +following, and the long empty walks, may have been just the things +needed to appeal most subtly to her higher nature. After all, Mr. +Garrott had been remarkably nice to her, paying her every attention from +the beginning. And even if he <i>had</i> been carried away, for once—what +did that show ...</p> + +<p>A ring at the doorbell made Angela jump a little. While the Flowers had +a small house, they had a loud bell. Though its clanging nowadays rarely +meant anything exciting, the diversion, on the whole, was not unwelcome. +The young housekeeper rose, went out into the hall, and listened down +over the banisters.</p> + +<p>Below, there was nothing to listen to. Receiving only twelve dollars a +month, Luemma seemed to think she must take out the residue of her wages +in inefficience and impudence, and did; sometimes she answered the bell, +sometimes she "had her hands in the lightbread," etc. The present seemed +to be one of the latter times. The bell pealed again; a voice from the +front called, "Angela!—are you dressed?"—and Angela, replying to her +mother, went down to the door herself, smoothing her hair and trimming +her waist as she went.</p> + +<p>The caller proved to be none other than her disgraced cousin, Mary Wing.</p> + +<p>"Well, Angela, how are you?" said she, entering confidently, and kissed +Angela's cheek. "I hope I didn't break into your nap, or anything +unforgivable like that?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, indeed, Cousin Mary. How d' you do? I wasn't asleep."</p> + +<p>Cousin Mary was enveloped from neck to heels in a becoming gray +raincoat. Beneath that were seen glimpses of a costume rather elaborate +for bad weather and a workaday world. Nor did Cousin Mary's manner seem +in the least crushed or subdued, as morals demanded that the manner of a +disgraced person should be.</p> + +<p>All the same, Angela greeted her cordially enough, with only a faint +conscientious stiffness traceable to her mother. For one thing, she was +really sorry for Mary now; right or wrong, she genuinely wished they +hadn't expelled her from the High School, and sent her off to a Grammar +School, in a low quarter of the city. And then besides that, whatever +Cousin Mary's strange ideas and behavior, the fact remained that she +happened still to be one of her, Angela's, particular little +coterie—that small group of friends and relatives with whom she herself +seemed to be sadly out of touch just now.</p> + +<p>Mary entered with the air of being in a hurry. In the car-shaped parlor +she unbuttoned her coat, nevertheless, the Latrobe heater being, like +the doorbell, small but powerful. Angela, seated on the famous sofa, +said:—</p> + +<p>"Cousin Mary, you're all dressed up! I believe you're going to a party!"</p> + +<p>Mary glanced down at herself with indifference.</p> + +<p>"No," said she, "but I've been to a little sort of one, a luncheon. And +we didn't leave the hotel till half an hour ago, either—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, a luncheon! They're fun, I think. Where was it?"</p> + +<p>"At the Arlington—very fine and beautiful, but it took hours! That's +why I'm so late getting around here. I've wanted specially to see you +for several days, Angela, but I haven't seemed to find a minute, and +this was my last chance. I wondered if you had any engagement for +to-morrow afternoon?"</p> + +<p>"No, indeed, Cousin Mary, I haven't any engagement."</p> + +<p>"Then I want you to come with me to a lecture," said Cousin Mary, "at +four o'clock."</p> + +<p>The young girl's face, which had become brightly expectant at the +mention of engagements, fell perceptibly. She covered her disappointment +with a little laugh.</p> + +<p>"Well,—thank you, very much, Cousin Mary,—but you know I don't +appreciate lectures very much. I'm not clever enough—"</p> + +<p>"But this isn't an ordinary lecture. In fact, I shouldn't have used that +word at all. It's a talk, a personal talk to women by a woman, and a +wonderful one—Dr. Jane Rainey. You may have heard of her?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm not sure. What is she going to talk about?" asked Angela +politely.</p> + +<p>"The subject that means most to every woman, no matter what she thinks +or says! And Dr. Rainey, I do believe, knows more about it than anybody +else living. Jane Clemm she was—but that was years ago, before you +could remember. I got her to come here to speak, myself,—and expect to +lose some money on the transaction, too,—heigho! But I don't mind +really, it's such a privilege to have the whole subject lit up, from the +modern point of view, by a speaker like this. Jane Rainey's a practicing +physician, a fine human being, the mother of four children herself, and +she—"</p> + +<p>"But what <i>is</i> her subject, Cousin Mary?"</p> + +<p>"That's it!—marriage and motherhood."</p> + +<p>Angela stared at her cousin, and then looked rather shocked. Next, faint +color appeared in her smooth cheeks. It really seemed that Mary had +learned nothing, from the painful lesson she had just received. Why did +she have this persistent interest in the unpleasant side of life?</p> + +<p>She said more decisively than was her wont: "No, Cousin Mary, I really +don't think I'd care to go—thank you."</p> + +<p>Mary Wing, checked in her forensic by Angela's expression, looked +surprised, though, perhaps, not taken aback, and certainly not rebuked.</p> + +<p>"Now, why not? I honestly hoped the subject would have a special +interest for you. You—"</p> + +<p>"For me!—Oh, no! I—"</p> + +<p>"My dear, you know you told me once what your ambition was—to be a good +wife some day, when the right man came for you. And that's the ambition +of every normal woman, I believe,—or one of them,—no matter what else +she may have in her head! Well, you see, that's exactly what this +brilliant student—and woman—wants to advise us about—how to fulfill +this ambition; how to prepare ourselves to be good wives and—"</p> + +<p>"But I don't think of it that way at all, Cousin Mary. I hope," said +Angela, pink-cheeked, but once more standing firm for propriety against +all the astonishing Newness—"I hope I'll know how to be a good wife—to +the man I love—without going to any lectures—"</p> + +<p>"Do you think anybody on earth knows as much as that, just by intuition? +It seems to me ... But perhaps your feeling is—you don't like the idea +of a public talk on the subject?"</p> + +<p>"I don't, Cousin Mary—frankly. I know I seem to you dreadfully behind +the times—and all. But that's the way I was brought up to feel, and +it's the way I do feel. I'm not advanced at all, I thought you knew."</p> + +<p>There was a silence in the dingy little parlor, during which the pouring +rain became audible.</p> + +<p>"Of course I don't want to press you against your will, Angela," said +Mary slowly. "You know that? But—I can't get away from feeling that +being a good wife—and mother—in this awfully upset, transitional age, +when men's ideals are changing step for step with women's—and perhaps a +little in advance of them, who knows?—I believe it's the most +complicated and difficult vocation in the world. Compared with it, any +ordinary man's profession—like engineering, for instance—looks to me +like simplicity itself. And, Angela, I can't believe that every woman is +born with all this understanding, all this difficult expert knowledge in +her head, any more than I believe that every man is born knowing by +intuition how to be a good engineer. Of course we'd think it quite +strange—shouldn't we?—if Donald, as a boy wanting to be an engineer, +had thought he mustn't read any books that mentioned engineering, and +must stop his ears if—"</p> + +<p>Angela, feeling almost ready to stop her ears herself, interrupted with +some warmth:—</p> + +<p>"Cousin Mary, we simply don't understand each other! I don't think +of—of romance—and marriage—as anything in the least like +<i>engineering</i>—not in the least! I don't think of them as subjects for +lectures by <i>experts</i>! And I was brought up to feel there were some +things not very—suitable to talk about. I was brought up not to think +about them at all."</p> + +<p>"Of course, my dear!—I understand. But every woman thinks about +marriage—doesn't she? She can't help it. Take me," said Mary, +good-humoredly—"a confirmed old maid school-teacher who's just +scandalized half the city, and been publicly dismissed from her job. I +haven't the slightest idea of marrying, ever, and yet I think about it +often, and would like to feel—"</p> + +<p>"You do? Well, I am different. I <i>don't</i> think about it."</p> + +<p>"You don't think about marriage?"</p> + +<p>"I never think of it at all," said Angela.</p> + +<p>That settled Cousin Mary. After a brief pause she said, in the nicest +way: "Well, then, forgive me, Angela, and forget everything I've said."</p> + +<p>Angela forgave her readily enough. Shut your eyes to the horrid, +unwomanly streak in her, and Mary Wing was really a very pleasant +person. She had always said that, to her mother and others. So talk +flowed easily into other channels, and the air of cousinly amity was +soon restored. But just when that was accomplished, Mary rose +unexpectedly to go, and Angela found herself left with several topics +not yet mentioned at all.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't go yet!" said she. "I want to—"</p> + +<p>"I <i>must</i>! I really had no time at all to-day, but came anyway, whether +or no. How pretty you look, Angela," said Mary, and kissed the now +unblushing cheek again.</p> + +<p>"I wish the lunch-party hadn't kept you so long! I haven't—"</p> + +<p>"I do, too! A whole good afternoon! And the worst of it was," said Mary, +eyeing her with a sort of speculative archness, "I stayed after +everybody was gone just to talk to Charles Garrott, whom you dislike so +much! Still," she added, with a fading of archness, "I had something to +tell him for his own good, at least."</p> + +<p>Cousin Mary's changes of expression were lost upon Angela. "Mr. Garrott! +Was he at the lunch party?"</p> + +<p>"He gave it—didn't I say? It was just a little <i>bon voyage</i> party for +Donald—and Helen Carson! Donald's leaving to-morrow for Wyoming, you +know, to be gone a month—"</p> + +<p>"No—you hadn't told me.... Who else was at the lunch, Cousin Mary?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, just those I've mentioned, and Fanny for chaperon, and Talbott +Maxon."</p> + +<p>Angela, naturally, felt more lonely and out of things than ever. In +fact, she felt blankly depressed. Mr. Garrott's luncheon had included +exactly her coterie, only she herself being omitted.</p> + +<p>"Why do you say I dislike Mr. Garrott, Cousin Mary? Of course I like him +very much. You know I told you long ago he was much the most attractive +man I've met here."</p> + +<p>"Well, but I thought you must have changed your opinion, when you told +me the other day that his ideals were so low."</p> + +<p>"Why, of course I didn't <i>mean</i> it, Cousin Mary! I thought you knew I +was angry when I spoke."</p> + +<p>The two cousins regarded each other, in the dark little hall by the +hatstand. Angela felt her position to be annoying. But she explained +with that complete lack of embarrassment characteristic only of women +conscious of rectitude:—</p> + +<p>"I can't tell you <i>all</i> about it, even now. But what happened was that +Mr. Garrott and I had a terrible misunderstanding, and at first I put +all the blame on him, and was awfully mad with him, I admit. But since +then, the more I've thought of it, the more I've seen that I was very +unjust to him—in what I thought and said, too. He really has much more +cause to be mad with me—now—than I have with him."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm glad to hear it. Don't quarrel—that's my motto," said the +stormy Miss Wing. "And Mr. Garrott thinks you are charming!—I know, for +he told me so. Well—"</p> + +<p>"Yes—that's what has changed my feeling about it all, you see. Cousin +Mary—when you see him again, you might just say—"</p> + +<p>"My dear, I never see Mr. Garrott!" said Mary, rather hastily.</p> + +<p>"Why, you've just seen him!"</p> + +<p>"The first time for a week, and probably the last time for a month. He's +going down to his mother's in the country on Saturday, to stay over +Christmas and New Year's. Angela, I must <i>run</i>!"</p> + +<p>Left alone, Angela remained standing in the hall for a moment, gazing +into space, of which the hall really afforded little. Her despondency +now had a certain edge; it did seem hard that, while her friends and +relatives—and Cousin Mary, of all people—were going to jolly lunches +of the younger set, <i>her</i> invitations should be only to New-Woman +<i>lectures</i>. And still, the girl's feeling had no bitterness, even now. +Of course she understood that she would have been at Mr. Garrott's +luncheon, too, but for the misunderstanding....</p> + +<p>As she went upstairs, her mother called out to her, and Angela pursued +her way to the front bedroom, as she had meant to do anyway. Here, her +mother was discovered prone upon a pillowless lounge, dangerously facing +a gaslight and reading a magazine which had no covers. Having laid the +magazine, broken open, on her lap, Mrs. Flower listened attentively to +her daughter's report of Mary's call, and at the end said:—</p> + +<p>"I must say I think it's very kind of Mr. Garrott to stand by her in +that way. Men secretly can never admire that sort of woman, whatever +their theories may be. And that's just it—that explains Mary's whole +lurid course. If she had ever had a ray of attention, of course she +would never have dreamed of these wild goings on."</p> + +<p>Angela's mother was still a pretty woman, and long habit, it seemed, had +impressed her voice with a permanent plaintiveness. She had kicked off +her slippers for comfort; her high-bred feet were clad in faded cotton +stockings; she herself looked high-bred and faded. Her air and tone were +those of one to whom life had brought rude shocks—such as, that lovely +woman's portion was sacrifice ever, and that men cared only for the +first bloom of girlish beauty—and who found her only consolations in +her religion, and in the noble words, My Duty.</p> + +<p>"You must see her when she calls, I suppose, but that is all. Until she +completely changes her ideas on all subjects, I cannot allow any +intimacy. I cannot."</p> + +<p>"She means to be nice to me, mother. And besides—that's the sort of +connections you and father have given us, you know."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Flower denied any responsibility whatever for the advanced Mary. +She continued her remarks with interest, the theme being one of her +favorites. Angela, having moved restlessly about the room for a time, +had halted at the window. Hence, she gazed out at a board fence billed +all over with advertisements of a celebrated spring tonic. A trolley-car +went rumbling by, its wheels throwing off jets of icy rain-water. It had +been a long, long day.</p> + +<p>"The things women will do when they discover they're not attractive to +men! They simply get defiant. They get all reckless and bitter!"</p> + +<p>Into the narrow walkway below turned a very tall man, under a small +greenish umbrella. In the silence of the house, the front door was heard +to open and shut. Then there were footsteps along the hall below, and +another door shut quietly, toward the back.</p> + +<p>"Anything, anything to distract their minds!"</p> + +<p>"Mother!—where on earth do you suppose father <i>goes</i>! His lecture was +over at half-past three. If only, <i>only</i>, he'd try to get some patients! +But he's not even in for his office hour half the time!"</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I do not know," replied her mother, generally, and picked up +her coverless magazine.</p> + +<p>Angela fidgeted at the window, drumming on the dripping pane. Presently +she said:—</p> + +<p>"Oh, mother! Why <i>couldn't</i> you or father have some relations that would +help us! We're the only family I ever heard of that hasn't a <i>single</i> +rich relation!"</p> + +<p>Her mother, not looking up, mentioned complainingly the branch of her +family to which she always referred in such discussions.</p> + +<p>"Much good the Ashburtons have done us!" said Angela truly, and also as +usual. "When they think we're not good enough to speak to. I have nobody +to help me but myself."</p> + +<p>It was as if the girl was herself struck with the truth of her own +observation. Her gaze out the window became thoughtful, and then intent. +Suddenly, without more speech, she left the window and the room.</p> + +<p>In the hall there came an interruption. An untutored voice bawled up, +without the slightest preamble:—</p> + +<p>"<i>Sugar hasn't came!</i>"</p> + +<p>"All right," responded the young housekeeper, after a short annoyed +pause.</p> + +<p>And then, returning to her own room, she thought: "If I telephone from +Mrs. Doremus's now, it'll be too late for supper. I'll have to ask +Wallie—just to step around ..."</p> + +<p>Angela shut the door behind her and lighted a flaring gasjet. Then she +stood still, knitting her brows slightly, glancing about. She wanted +writing-paper, and didn't know where to put her hands on any, exactly.</p> + +<p>In the sharp light of the gas it was now seen that Angela's little +bedroom lacked Beauty, of the purely objective sort: Beauty of that kind +depending, as all know, on fathers being good providers, which was not +the case here, alas. Everything in Angela's room was cheap when it was +new, and everything was far from new now. A very large old walnut +wardrobe occupied all one side of the room, awkwardly substituting for a +clothes-closet. The bed was of yellow imitation-oak, and sagged +considerably in the middle from worn-out springs. The bureau was to +match; its somewhat wavy mirror was the nearest Angela came to a +dressing-table; its three drawers would never quite shut, and frequently +wouldn't quite open. There were also two chairs in the bedroom, one +straight, one a re-seated rocker, and a small walnut work-table, which +trembled dangerously if you brushed against it.</p> + +<p>Nor was the room specially spruce, at the moment at least, people's +tastes differing in these matters, even in the same family. Angela's +young brother, for example, kept his small room shining like a new pin, +and let himself personally go till he was a disgrace to the family. +Angela, on the other hand, whose exquisite personal neatness had +attracted the notice of Charles Garrott himself, was more or less +indifferent about a room which nobody but the family ever saw. The door +of the wardrobe stood open now, with one of the yellow bureau-drawers; a +pair of shoes rested on the straight chair, with a pair of stockings +curled on the rag-carpet below. On the sway-backed bed were strewn +various things—a towel, two old summer dresses that she had been trying +on a little earlier in the afternoon, a pair of soiled white gloves, a +paper of pins and two new dress-shields.</p> + +<p>In the drawer of the wardrobe, Angela presently found several sheets of +note-paper, and, after a longer search, a single envelope. The envelope +was not what it had been once. It had knocked about the world a bit in +its time; its bright youth was gone. Upon its face was a dusky smudge, +souvenir of some forgotten encounter, and, near the smudge, some hand +had once written the word "Mrs.," and then lost heart and abandoned the +whole enterprise. Still, it was possibly the only envelope in the house. +Angela found, after due trial, that the smudge yielded, quite +satisfactorily, to the eraser on the end of a pencil. As for the +reminiscent "Mrs.," that was easily enough worked over into a "Mr.," +though not, to be sure, without a slight blot.</p> + +<p>Angela sat on the edge of the bed. She pulled the rickety work-table +into position before her. Having addressed the remainder of the +envelope, after the "Mr.," she sat biting the penholder for a space. But +when the business end of the pen was put into action, it went ahead +quite steadily:—</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Dear Mr. Garrott</span> [wrote Angela from the bedside]:—</p> + +<p>When you left here the other night, I did not think it would be +so long before I would see you again!</p> + +<p>I have been very sorry about our misunderstanding—and I have +felt that I should not have said what I did. I have thought it +all over, and I understand better now.</p> + +<p>When you are not so busy, you must come in to see me—and I +will explain just what I mean. I couldn't that night.</p> + +<p>Yours most cordially,</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Angela Flower</span>.</p></blockquote> + +<p>She had hardly written the final letter of her pretty name when the +front door was heard to open again, this time with a bang. Having +hastily tucked the note into the experienced envelope, Angela got +downstairs before her little brother, Wallie, had finished taking off +his dripping overcoat.</p> + +<p>Wallie was quite the queerest, gravest boy Angela had ever known. In her +whole life, she had never seen him laugh but once. That was one summer +day in Mitchellton, when she, having undertaken to paper the walls of +her room, had fallen backward off the stepladder into a bucket of paste. +Wallie was an eccentric, undoubtedly. Still, he was admitted to be +obliging enough about little things. Now he made no special objections +to going for the sugar; and when Angela then asked him please to step by +at the same time, and give the note to Mr. Garrott, he only said, with +one of his absent stares: "Step by? That's six blocks further."</p> + +<p>"Well, I haven't anybody else to take it for me, Wallie," said Angela, +in a voice rather like her mother's.</p> + +<p>"And, Wallie," she added, presently, "I'm not sure whether there'll be +an answer or not. You'd better just ask him, that's the best way. Just +say, after he's read it, 'Is there any answer?'"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI</h2> + + + +<p>To the host, the luncheon party at the Arlington had not once presented +itself as a jolly gathering of any set, young or old. He had conceived +it as a duty, and an expensive one; he approached it, truth to tell, +with a certain secret complacence as to Mary Wing uppermost in his mind; +and he left it (after Mary's private talk with him) with chastened +reflections and a group of new reactions on the subject of Egoettes.</p> + +<p>For two weeks, Charles had been very busy in the Studio. The luncheon +stood as his first whirl in Society since Angela Flower's bridge-party. +Donald Manford, departing to seek his biggest commission, seemed to need +a friendly send-off. Miss Carson seemed to be indicated as the logical +co-sharer of the same. At the Redmantle Club, as he had never forgotten, +Charles had taken Donald bodily away from the firm beautiful girl Mary +had selected to be his wife. Now, as it were, he was handing Donald back +to her again—loyal Moderns all. Beyond the match-making, however, this +function was intended to cheer up Mary, and to indicate to the Public +that Charles Garrott was her supporter in adversity as in success. Thus, +from every point of view, the "demoted" school-teacher was the real +guest of honor, and the host, when not fomenting conversation of a +matrimonial nature between the two young persons on his right, found a +peculiar pleasure in conversing with her. Indeed, he could hardly look +at Mary to-day without a lurking smile.</p> + +<p>Later, as noted, Charles sobered. What Mary lingered to tell him, "for +his own good," was that Flora Trevenna had gone away. As it was the one +thing he had supposed Miss Trevenna incapable of doing, he was +proportionately taken by surprise. But, for a moment, he saw in the +tidings only that the great obstacle in his and Mary's way back to the +High School, their common Old Man of the Sea, had been amazingly +removed.</p> + +<p>Endeavoring to conceal his immense relief, he said: "Gone away! Why, +where'd she go to?"</p> + +<p>Mary's reply was meant to shake him, and it did.</p> + +<p>"Oh—anywhere! She went, not because she had anywhere to go, but just +because she wouldn't stay here."</p> + +<p>"But—I don't understand you! I thought this was where she wanted to +stay."</p> + +<p>"More than anything else in the world. And that was why she went—don't +you see? She went because of her mother and father and sisters—whom you +supposed she never gave a thought to. She went because of Mysinger and +me."</p> + +<p>The two advanced friends stood among the shrubs of the Arlington winter +garden, beside a little tinkling grotto. In silence, Charles dropped a +pebble down among the dusky forms of fish.</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Mary, slowly, "I told her a story about—my trouble at +the High School. But I could see that she knew all the time. I'm sure +now that was what decided her to go—by herself. Some friend or other +got her some sort of position—in Philadelphia. Of course she went +without saying anything to me...."</p> + +<p>Her voice, which could be so annoyingly calm at times, was deeply +troubled. Charles expressed sympathies, with haste; and, indeed, he felt +them now, oddly and disturbingly. It was as if Miss Trevenna, by that +simple act of getting down off other people's backs, had too suddenly +upset his whole opinion of her.</p> + +<p>"Don't you think, after all," he said presently, "it may be easier for +her somewhere else for a while, than—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, easier in a way, yes! But I know she felt, and I think, too, that +her only hope of really putting her life together again, ever, was +here—where she broke it in two. To go and bury herself among strangers +won't ever settle anything. Oh," exclaimed Mary, "if she could only, +only <i>marry</i> now! I suppose people might stop thinking of her as a +pariah then, I suppose she might come back! But what's the use of +hoping? She's still crazily in love with that man, you see."</p> + +<p>"What!—she <i>is</i>! Why'd she leave him then—?"</p> + +<p>The former principal regarded him, drawing on her gloves. She had dark +eyebrows, well-marked and unusually arched; they gave a peculiar +intentness to her blue gaze, and a faint habitual interrogativeness. +Now, perhaps at the young man's expression, she laughed, suddenly and +naturally. Her spirit was not broken certainly.</p> + +<p>"And women are really so awfully simple, too! Of course she left him, +Mr. Garrott, because she didn't think he cared enough for her any longer +to—justify her."</p> + +<p>And, grave again, she asked, directly: "Have you really doubted that she +has a higher ideal of love than half the good people who've wanted to +run her out of the city and stone her?"</p> + +<p>This, indeed, Charles had had no reason to doubt. He, of course, had +never shared the low opinion of a woman, that she had but one virtue, +and that one too crudely appraised. His complaint against this girl had +been upon a wholly different ground—now abruptly fallen beneath his +feet. He was troubled with the sense that this young figure, in +vanishing, had suddenly touched the dignity of tragedy. He had +remembered, with a little shock, that Miss Trevenna was not yet +twenty-five years of age.</p> + +<p>And still, he, the authority, knew that having a high ideal was not +enough.</p> + +<p>As the two moderns left the hotel, he said in a grave manner: "Let me +take you home."</p> + +<p>"No, don't think of it! I'm only going to the car-line," said Mary; and +added absently: "I've been trying all week to go to see Angela, and now +I must."</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes!—certainly!" said the luncheon host hastily, and a look that +could only be described as guilty flitted visibly over his face.</p> + +<p>But this disappeared; the somewhat chastened authoritative look returned +at once. Pursuing his tutorial round, Charles seemed able to think of +nothing else but Mary's ill-starred friend, who had so damaged Mary, who +had so staked and smashed her own life, on a sentence in a book.</p> + +<p>And who put that sentence into a book, and who was going to wipe it out +with another, if not he, Charles? Here, it might be, he had a pointer or +two to give to that great compeer of his, the lady in Sweden.</p> + +<p>He had done Miss Trevenna a serious wrong, of course; he had judged her +by the company she kept. It was an age when cheeky "prophets" were +shouting from every bush a New philosophy which amounted to this: that +civilized society must be made accommodating to self-indulgent people. +They did not mention, very probably they did not know, that it had not +been easy to civilize society, and that self-indulgent people had not +done the job. With such shallow egoists he had classed Miss Trevenna; +and now, silent still, she had finely refuted him. There was, indeed, a +quality not for little folk in this girl's fierce imprudences. At the +test, she had repudiated the Ego, kicked off all the meanness and +flabbiness of her teachings. But in the meantime, unfortunately, these +teachings had done for her.</p> + +<p>And it seemed to Charles Garrott, tramping intently along (for the +downpour gave him the freedom of the streets to-day) that it would be a +sweet and glorious thing if, say, a dozen of these leathern-lunged +professors of a new chaos could be gathered up, from the studies and +libraries where they sat so snug around the world, and brought here to +share this girl's catastrophe and go with her in her exile. And by +George!—they shouldn't squirm out by trying to blame it all on a mere +ignorant Public Opinion either! No, he, Charles, having a lot of them +together thus, would improve the occasion to explain, once and for all, +that freedom was not a thing that any chance passer could pick up and +use, like a cane; but, rather, the last difficult conquest of a unified +race. He would inform them that it was only too fatally easy to act +"free," at others' expense, the difficult and important thing being, +precisely, not so to act. And as to love, he would hammer into their +thick heads that the way to freedom was <span class="smcap">NOT</span> through the delightfully +easy course of "demonstrating experiment" by self-elected Exceptional +People, but by the far more difficult demonstration that men and women +could be strong and constant in their affections, and trustworthy in +their passions.</p> + +<p>There, indeed, was a demonstration for Exceptional People to get to work +on at once. Why write large books to declare that "the great love" was +its own justification. Why waste good ink upon an ideal truism? On what +day would a New book-writer teach men and women how to love greatly, or +how to tell even a little love from love's baser counterfeit? So long as +every schoolboy, drawn by a brief spark, will swear that his is the +great love; so long as men greatly love one person this year, and next +year quite another; so long as they will gladly deceive themselves, or +ape emotions above them, lest they must deny themselves a passing +indulgence: thus long would untrustworthy mortals need the hard +restraint of Law.</p> + +<p>"Why, if men and women had the quality of love needed to make 'freedom' +work," thought the tutor suddenly, sloshing along toward the +Choristers', "they wouldn't need the freedom! No, then they'd be +perfectly satisfied with monogamous marriage."</p> + +<p>Decidedly impressed with this epigram, Charles thought at once of "Notes +on Women." To draw the ruined life of Miss Trevenna across the line of +his new novel had, of course, come into his mind while he yet talked +with Mary. But he was fully aware that not one novel, or five, would +ever plumb bottom here.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, these thoughts pursued the young man through his lesson +with Miss Grace Chorister, and up to the very door of the Studio. There, +he suddenly became a working author again.</p> + +<p>It was now five-thirty o'clock in the rainy afternoon. The demands of +hospitality had forced the postponement of Miss Grace a full hour, and +the cutting altogether of the old lady who was studying French. Entering +his retreat thus belatedly, Charles shot a look ahead at the +writing-table, according to his habit. A letter lay on the table, +wearing a distinctly business air; and when the young man was still +several paces off, he saw that the envelope bore the name of "Willcox's +Weekly."</p> + +<p>For the most part, Charles's communications from editors had come to him +in long envelopes of an ominous, a rejectional, fatness. Now it was his +hour to see other samples from the editorial envelope supply, square +envelopes, gratifyingly thin. Breaking the square thin envelope of +"Willcox's Weekly" with nervous hurry, Charles read:—</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Dear Mr. Garrott</span>:—</p> + +<p>We have pleasure in accepting your interesting sketch of Miss +Wing, for early publication in the <span class="smcap">Weekly</span>. Our "Persons in the +Foreground" department is always in the market for entertaining +material of this character.</p> + +<p>Check for $20 will follow in due course. We are, with thanks,</p> + +<p>Yours sincerely,</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Willcox's Weekly</span>.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Having read these few lines once, the author, still standing, read them +again, and yet again. Upon his lip was the faint smile it had worn when +he looked at Mary at the luncheon—before she began telling him things +for his good. He was fairly entitled to wear this smile; but now it +seemed in danger of becoming fixed for life.</p> + +<p>He was selling write-ups of Mary like hot cakes; there was no other word +for it. He had written and sent out three write-ups—an unprecedented +number about a single person—and now he had sold two of them already. +He had hoped to plant, say, one write-up among the weeklies—to get +quick results—and now he had planted two in the weeklies. Moreover, the +third write-up had been in the hands of a famous weekly for ten days +now.</p> + +<p>That he had managed it all with remarkable adroitness, the young man +could not conceal from himself. Cunningly enough, he had based all the +write-ups on the fact that Mary Wing, at thirty, had risen almost to the +top of a large city school system, where no woman had ever risen before. +For that made Mary a public figure; that justified the write-ups. But, +the bait thus thrown, he had given to each eulogy a special character +and thesis of its own, always with an eye to local effects. This piece +here, for example, which "Willcox's Weekly" found so extremely +interesting and entertaining, concerned Mary the Freewoman, and touched +delicately yet with vigor upon her late persecution for righteousness' +sake. And this piece, the most personal and the best of the lot, alone +bore the signature of Charles King Garrott. He had got Hartwell to sign +one, Elsie White Story, President of the State Equal Suffrage League, +to sign another. And only yesterday, Mrs. Story had telephoned that +<i>her</i> piece (Mary the "Feminist"—only you may be sure Charles had not +used that horrible word) had been gobbled up by the "Saturday Review," +and sent around the "Review's" delightful letter.</p> + +<p>So Charles could recall Mary's hard saying, that day at the High School, +with a sense of triumph now. She, who had said he couldn't help her, had +rather overlooked this gift he had, his power and his art. +Unquestionably, the thing was going to break big: she would have the +surprise of her life....</p> + +<p>"Great heavens! <i>How I can write!</i>" suddenly exulted the young man, +throwing out his arms. "I'll beat 'em all some day!"</p> + +<p>Upon which, exactly as at a cue in a play, the door from the bedroom +opened, slowly and quietly. And there stood Judge Blenso in the crack, a +flat package in his hand.</p> + +<p>Between uncle and nephew there passed a long stare. The uncle began to +turn a little pale. But it was the nephew who spoke first, nervously and +yet expectantly too:—</p> + +<p>"Prepare yourself, Charles, my dear fellow! I much fear it's +'Bandwomen'!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It was a long time before he was alone again.</p> + +<p>There were moments in every writer's life, of course, when he was +obliged to wish frankly that he didn't have to have a secretary. What a +writer most wanted at times was solitude, just a chance to sit quietly +and think things over.</p> + +<p>A great while Judge Blenso had pottered about under his little red +"Nothing But Business, Please" sign. Now he was posting elaborate +entries in his secretary's book, now he sang sweetly to himself over +wrapping-paper, paste, and twine. For if his sedentary employer's +failure to blow up, this time, had momentarily nonplussed the Judge, the +sight of the letter from "Willcox's Weekly" had raised him to the +highest spirits again at once. That distant people, entire strangers, +were actually proving willing to exchange real money for words written +by Charles there, and typed by him, Judge Blenso,—here was a delightful +thing, full of novelty and promise. And nothing would do, of course, but +that he must start the rejected novel out upon another journey to New +York without loss of a moment's time. Business <i>before</i> pleasure, rain +<i>or</i> shine. That was <i>his</i> way.</p> + +<p>But he went at last, to make his toilet for the express-office. And +Charles, alone, sat taking stock, with no more exultation.</p> + +<p>Blank and Finney's letter had proved to be twin-sister to the remembered +letter from Willcox Brothers Company. That is to say, it was rejection, +flat and unqualified. But this time, after the first shock, Charles had +perceived that he did not seem to be much surprised. It appeared that +his expectation of the old novel had, after all, died violently on that +other day. It was almost as if he himself had come to despise the old +novel, because the publishers despised it—as if that were any +reason...</p> + +<p>From the mantel he had plucked a thick ledger entitled (on a neatly +typed label), <span class="smcap">THE RECORD</span>. This ledger was the great work of Judge +Blenso's life, and large enough for twenty authors. Here the Judge set +down, with much pains and a striking assortment of colored inks, the +detailed progress of each of Charles's manuscripts: "When Finished," +"When Sent Out," "Where Sent," "Editor's Decision," "Editor's Comments +if Any," "Remarks," etc. On these pages, the essential part of +"Bondwomen's" career (officially known as Entry 2) was thus recorded:—</p> + +<table cellpadding="5" cellspacing="5" width="80%"> +<tr><td> </td> <td><i>Decision.</i></td> <td><i>Comments<br />if Any.</i> </td></tr> +<tr><td> </td> <td> </td> <td> </td></tr> +<tr><td>1. Willcox Brothers<br /> Company</td> <td>Adverse. </td> <td>Declined for<br />financial reasons.</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td> <td> </td> <td> </td></tr> +<tr><td>2. Blank and Finney </td> <td>do. </td> <td>do. </td></tr> +</table> + +<p>The Record now showed nine entries, including the novel. Entry I was +"The Truth About Jennie," which the Judge had insisted on posting in, to +give a tone of success to his work at the outset. Entries 3, 4, 5, and 6 +were short stories; Entries 7, 8, and 9, the write-ups of Mary. The +pages devoted to the write-ups made, as we know, stimulating reading, +but with the fiction entries the case was otherwise. Here under +"Comments if Any," the words "See printed form, on file," appeared with +monotonous, indeed sickening, regularity. The Record did show, indeed, +that the "Universal," in rejecting Entry 5,—"When Amy Left Home,"—had +written a personal letter furnishing the Judge with this "Comment": +"Excellently written, but claimed unsuited to his present needs. Let him +hear from us again." Otherwise, rejection was unmitigated.</p> + +<p>A scant showing for the work of four years, look at it how you would. +One examining these coldly dispassionate annals would probably say, +offhand, that there was but one form of writing Charles King Garrott was +qualified to do: that was the write-up form. He had just read his two +letters again, his acceptance and his rejection, side by side. Unusual +and peculiar it seemed that the only writing he had sold for money, +since "Jennie," was this series of articles designed to bring fame to +Mary Wing. Of course, as far as that went, a man would like a little +fame for himself, now and then....</p> + +<p>"Why, I'm a fool to think I can write!" groaned the young man, suddenly. +"I'm wasting my life! I ought to be carrying bricks up a ladder."</p> + +<p>His fall from complacence was, indeed, complete. However, every writer +knows these little ups and downs. It may be, that Charles did not +believe his bitter words, even then. And now his secretary reëntered, +checking thought.</p> + +<p>"Well! Now for the express!"</p> + +<p>Judge Blenso wore a new English mackintosh and an olive felt hat, +rakishly turned up in front. No board of social investigators could have +commended him for spending virtually all his wage upon his back; but the +results seemed always to justify him none the less.</p> + +<p>"And, my dear fellow!—you shouldn't worry, as the expression goes! +Bandwomen's a charmin' novel, a charmin' sweet love-story, and James +Potter Sons'll be sure to take it—gad, by the first mail!"</p> + +<p>Having seen it with his own eyes in Willcoxes' famous letter, the Judge +was now finally convinced that "Bandwomen" was the correct title of +Entry 2, just as he had said in the beginning. Further argument being +useless, the young man returned a vague reply.</p> + +<p>"And there's that other idea of mine, too," said the Judge genially, +halting with his package under his arm—"bringing your sketches of Miss +Wing out in book form! Put in Entry 1, too 'Jennie's Truth,' if we +liked—make a regular holiday giftbook! Gad, you know, Miss Wing's +little pupils at the school would give us a whackin' sale!"</p> + +<p>He went out blithe upon his duty. After an interval, the adoring voice +of Mrs. Herman floated up, beseeching him to put on his ar'tics.</p> + +<p>At the Studio table Charles sat, struggling to get down to work. He had +put away The Record, put away embittered thoughts. But he did not get +down to work with much success all the same, the reason being that his +great Subject, unluckily, was no longer clear in his mind.</p> + +<p>From the table-drawer he had produced a stack of manuscript, an inch +high; and now he sat, not reading it, but merely disapproving it <i>en +masse</i>. The stack was his premature effort to begin, really to begin his +new novel—six chapters of the new novel written, fifteen thousand +words. Launching upon this draft an hour after he finished Mary the +Freewoman, he had pushed on, night after night, at first with confident +rapidity. Latterly, he had become conscious of an increasing sense of +resistance. And now he knew that all this was mere waste stuff, +accomplishing nothing but to show him what not to write.</p> + +<p>Well, but what to write then? What did he really want to say? It was +absurd; but he did not know. It really seemed that he saw too much to +settle, with enthusiasm, upon anything. By constant accessions of fresh +understanding, his centre of balance, his novel's chief prerequisite, +was kept in a continuous state of flux....</p> + +<p>Of "material" on the Unrest, Charles possessed a superfluity; of +"plots," of "significant characters" and "illustrative incidents," his +head was fuller than his pencil would ever write. His problem, of +course, had always been for the fixed point of view and the moral +"line." No longer could he be satisfied with that crude, simple line +which had contented him in his first book, which still contented the +other fellows: the line which "proved," as <i>Lily Stender</i> proved, that +economic independence was the automatic salvation of women. He knew that +wasn't the whole story now. As for writing a book to show that Woman's +Place was the Home, of course that had never crossed his mind, even when +most strongly gripped by conservative reactions. His quest was for a +framework which should develop conflicting values on a far finer scale.</p> + +<p>Of course, what he should have liked to show was a wholly admirable +woman: one who combined all the sane competence and human worth of the +best new women, with the soft faculty for supplying beauty and charm of +her old-fashioned sister. But that day in Mary's office had left him +with the honest suspicion that such a goddess did not exist, and +couldn't. From the other direction also, as noted, his delicate scales +had been joggled, with unsettling literary effects. The too hasty +manuscript on the writing-table by no means followed the "line" the +author had first plotted, prior to his meditations in the Green Park, +after the bridge-party. No, in this draft the Home-Maker was married and +had three children in Chapter One. Through all, the desire to rebuke the +egoism of the day had persisted, as clearly the point of view most +inviting to him, fullest of possibilities. And now Miss Trevenna, in +some way, had disturbed and unsettled him there too....</p> + +<p>The rain beat against the Studio windows. The green-shaded lamp burned +dully on the author's table. Big Bill, without surcease, ticked off the +author's minutes. Charles rubbed the bridge of his nose, pondering +deeply. Just now, as he turned the pages of his private book—where the +essay form had long since been abandoned, where appeared the most +surprising vacillations of authoritative opinion—he had made a somewhat +striking discovery. It had suddenly come upon him that "Notes on Women" +had, gradually but distinctly, dwindled down into "Notes on Mary," +"Notes on Angela Flower," and "Notes on Flora Trevenna." In short, it +appeared that, in the most unconscious way, he had been seeking to +extract his "line" from his own story, as it were, from "life."</p> + +<p>The discovery came upon the young man as most arresting and significant.</p> + +<p>"And I don't know where I stand, that's just the trouble! I ought to +wait awhile," he thought, aloud. "See how it all works out.... Things'll +be turning up...."</p> + +<p>On which—once more—Judge Blenso's picturesque head came sticking +through the Studio door, and Judge Blenso's rich voice said, +officially:—</p> + +<p>"Young gentleman here with a letter, Mr. Garrott. Admit him?"</p> + +<p>Returning to actuality with a slight start, Charles replied, "Admit +him—certainly!" A day for letters, indeed!</p> + +<p>Forthwith, the Judge standing aside, the young gentleman stepped into +the Studio. A grave-looking young gentleman he proved to be, of some +sixteen years, perhaps, with a dome-like forehead, a resolute mouth, and +thick spectacles. He entered in silence, in silence held out the missive +referred to.</p> + +<p>"Good-evening," said Charles. "Thank you. This comes from—?"</p> + +<p>"My sister, Angela Flower."</p> + +<p>The young man's heart seemed to drop a little.</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes! And—ah—is there—an answer?—"</p> + +<p>"I'll wait and see," said Wallie Flower, following instructions, in a +deep, calm voice.</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes. Sit down a moment, won't you?"</p> + +<p>He essayed a bright negligence which he was far from feeling: this thing +had come suddenly. No amount of scientific argument, no recollection of +sharp rebukes received, had ever convinced Charles that he had cut a +fine figure in the affair on the sofa. Indeed, the very ease with which +he had avoided all further consequences of his Rash Act, by the purely +mechanical device of street-cars, had deepened, rather than diminished +his consciousness of obligations unfulfilled, of caddishness, in short. +To salute a girl tenderly after her bridge-party, and then never go +within a mile of her again—well, that <i>was</i> a little crude, say what you +would.</p> + +<p>Hence Mr. Garrott, opening Angela's envelope with the blurred "Mr.," +anticipated bitter reproaches, anticipated being termed a brute again, +and called on to be honorable without further delay. Hence again, as his +eye leapt over the neat lines, and found only sweet forgiveness and +generous friendliness, he felt a sudden upstarting of relief and +gratitude. A more perfect note had never been written! Why, the charming +girl wasn't expecting anything of him at all!</p> + +<p>Or, rather, nothing at all worth mentioning. On a second glance through +the perfect note, the hypercritical young man did observe an expression +or two not up to the general standard, perhaps. "I did not think it +would be so long before I would see you again." "When you are not so +busy, you must come in to see me." On the whole, it could be argued that +it was rather a mistake to put those sentences in. Fine as the note was, +it would have been a little finer still without them. Yet, under the +circumstances, what more natural? And of course, as far as that went, he +and the city traction system had the issue in their hands.</p> + +<p>So Charles looked up buoyantly at the bearer of good tidings, to speak.</p> + +<p>The bearer, however, had clearly forgotten his presence. He had remained +standing, three feet from the table-end, and was found to be gazing, in +the most pointed manner, at the old Studio lamp. The grave face of Miss +Angela's brother plainly expressed amusement, and a certain good-natured +contempt.</p> + +<p>"Hello!" said Charles, diverted. "Anything wrong there?"</p> + +<p>Without turning, the boy answered with a small dry chuckle: "Yes. +Pretty near everything."</p> + +<p>"Well! I've noticed it hasn't been burning well. Need a new mantel, I +suppose—"</p> + +<p>"New mantel won't do you any good long's your air-draft's choked that +way."</p> + +<p>"Oh! So that's the trouble, is it?"</p> + +<p>"That's one of them. P'r'aps you like it that way?"</p> + +<p>The proprietor of the lamp having disclaimed such a fancy, the strange +lad said: "Well, I'll fix it for you, then. Sit steady."</p> + +<p>He reached up an arm long as a monkey's, which shed drops of water on +the writing-table, and the green glow suddenly faded out, leaving the +Studio in total darkness.</p> + +<p>Out of the Stygian gloom Charles said: "There's another light there. +I'll—"</p> + +<p>"I know. Thought I might as well look into that one, too, while I'm at +it. Just give your globe and chimney a minute to cool."</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course!—certainly."</p> + +<p>"Don't s'pose you want to stand a new mantel for the lamp?"</p> + +<p>"I'm enough of a sport, but I fear there's not a new one in the house."</p> + +<p>"Hold it for me, please," said the boy.</p> + +<p>A pinpoint of light had appeared in the blackness; it moved toward +Charles's hand. He received the little searchlight, let it go out, +hastily found and pushed the button again. And then Miss Angela's +brother began to take his lamp all apart, cleaning it, blowing through +it at unexpected places, and wiping the parts with a dark oily rag, +which, luckily enough, he seemed to have in his coat-pocket.</p> + +<p>The lad's single-mindedness, his un-selfconscious matter-of-factness had +attracted Charles at sight. He recalled what Mary Wing had told him of +Wallie Flower's struggles to get an education. Thus, as the +light-repairing proceeded in the almost total darkness, a conversation +grew up, at first largely question and answer. And the upshot of it was +that Charles, as a tutor, offered to instruct Wallie Flower, free +gratis, in German and English, the two college entrance subjects in +which he was still somewhat deficient.</p> + +<p>This odd development came at the end of the talk, when the illuminating +power of both Charles's and the Judge's lights had been notably +improved. When the brother understood that further education was being +offered him for nothing, a gleam came suddenly into his oddly mature +gaze.</p> + +<p>He almost exclaimed: "Do you know German?"</p> + +<p>"You might say I wrote it."</p> + +<p>He pondered. "That means you do know it?"</p> + +<p>"Like a member of the family."</p> + +<p>"Do you teach nights?"</p> + +<p>"I'm going to teach you nights."</p> + +<p>And it was so arranged, the lessons to begin directly after Christmas. +The boy became briefly embarrassed, boggling over his thanks. But +Charles cut him short. "I'm doing it because I want to. That's the only +reason I ever do anything."</p> + +<p>Relieved, Miss Angela's brother turned to the door, for all the world +like one who had come to mend the lamps, and nothing else.</p> + +<p>"By the way," said Charles, casually. "Thank your sister for her note, +and say that I'll send an answer by mail."</p> + +<p>He was left pleased with the interview, and with himself. In the +generous gift of three hours a week to Angela's brother, he perceived +something fitting and compensatory. If obligation existed—and it did, +in a way—did not this discharge it, subtly and modernly? Kiss the +sister on the sofa, tutor the brother in the Studio—what more fair or +honorable than that?</p> + +<p>One thing had rather struck him, of course—Wallie Flower's saying that +he had hated to come away from Mitchellton. This, it seemed, had been +chiefly due to Mr. Bush, the boy's science teacher at the Mitchellton +Academy, whom Wallie clearly adored, whose eyebrows he had blown off in +an experiment only last summer. As he had previously understood that +both the Doctor and Mrs. Flower had also been attached to Mitchellton, +it really appeared that Miss Angela was the only member of the family +who had actually desired to make the move. And she had moved.</p> + +<p>But this thought—like the hypercriticisms on the note—merely knocked +at the door of the young man's mind and passed on. He felt himself +warming anew toward this simple Type, with its charming friendly +instincts and its sweet forgiveness of the stormy ways of men. On his +return from his holiday, he resolved that he would give Angela some +token of his regard more substantial than a note by mail: send her, say, +with that book of hers, a costly box of appreciative blossoms.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII</h2> + + +<p>Unlike the ladies in the books, Angela, regrettably enough, did not get +a "sheaf of letters" every morning. Mr. Garrott's answer to her note, +which lay beside her breakfast-plate on the second day following, was, +indeed, her only mail that week. Hence it was with feelings of +excitement that she seized a table-fork and hastily slit the envelope.</p> + +<p>Angela read:—</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Dear Miss Flower</span>:</p> + +<p>May I say how deeply I appreciate your note? And will you +please believe that I have blamed myself entirely for what you +so generously call our misunderstanding? While, of course, I +must continue to blame myself, you cannot know how pleasant it +is to be permitted to feel that you have forgiven me.</p> + +<p>With the deepest appreciation, and all the good wishes of the +season, believe me,</p> + +<p>Yours sincerely,</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Charles King Garrott</span>.</p></blockquote> + +<p>It must be said of this note that it was the sort that puts its best +foot foremost. First impressions of it were agreeable, but it did not +wear. On the second reading, Angela perceived that, though as nice as +possible, Mr. Garrott's reply said nothing about calling, which, in a +manner of speaking, was the true subject of the correspondence. By the +time she had read the reply half a dozen times, she found it flatly +disappointing. Two days later, when she heard through Cousin Mary Wing +that Mr. Garrott had gone to the country, not to return till after the +New Year, she was conscious of a sudden and pervading hopelessness.</p> + +<p>The feeling applied, not to her principal friend alone, but to all the +conditions of her life.</p> + +<p>Angela understood, of course, that Mr. Garrott's remarkable offer to +tutor Wallie for nothing was an attention to her, and a very handsome +one. Still, it was not just the sort of attention that a young girl +prizes most, perhaps; and in especial it did not meet the needs of this +particular situation. To have a busy man-friend teaching German to your +little brother on your account is very flattering, indeed; but it does +not necessarily lead to the early clearing-up of a personal +misunderstanding. That Mr. Garrott had been much worried by their +misunderstanding, all along, Angela had known, by means of that womanly +intuition of which we read so much; now his note said so, in so many +words. But, manlike, he still did not see that, at heart, she was the +same girl that had attracted him so in the beginning, and that if he +would but call, she would make everything as it had been before.</p> + +<p>How was she ever to see him again now?</p> + +<p>At nineteen, youth accepts life's vicissitudes unquestioningly, but at +twenty-five, a womanly woman (if still without a home, a husband and +three curly-headed little children) has had time to whittle a number of +observations to a fairly sharp point. Angela thought her situation a +hard one, and it was. Wealth, influence, valuable connections—these +aids were not for her. All the ordinary opportunities enjoyed by girls +"in society," she lacked—in chief, opportunities of meeting people +casually, as at parties, of seeing the same people again and again, +under the most agreeable auspices. Her family simply failed to put her +in a party position, as it might be called; in consequence of which, it +came to this, that really her only meeting-place for the few people she +knew was on the street, walking. And even at the best, of course, that +method (by the mere laws of choice and chance) was most unsatisfactory.</p> + +<p>Suppose that Mr. Garrott <i>had</i> been taking walks all the time, for +instance, but, by reason of her having called him a brute, was choosing +other streets—how was she to know? A city is a big place, and one young +girl in a tight skirt cannot walk very fast or far, or cover a large +amount of space in a given time.</p> + +<p>"Marna" alone was outstanding; and it carried but the slenderest +anticipations. Moreover, that question, all these depressing questions, +were academic now, and would be for weeks to come. The little coterie +had scattered far, and she had no means of filling the empty places.</p> + +<p>There followed the dreariest days Angela had known since winter before +last in Mitchellton.</p> + +<p>"How can you <i>expect</i> anybody to notice us, mother?" she exclaimed, one +day. "The family of a poor, obscure doctor, living in a <i>hut</i> on a back +street, with not a living soul to help us! I think it's remarkable I +accomplish as much as I do."</p> + +<p>It was on this day, a cold Sunday afternoon shortly before Christmas, +that the lonely girl carried out a good intention she had had in mind +for some time. She wrote a long, intimate, sisterly letter to her +favorite brother Tommy, who had got so far away since he married money +in Pittsburg.</p> + +<p>Angela had just come in from a freezing, eventless walk with Fanny +Warder. (Fanny, who as Mrs. Flower said, had made a great success of her +life, marrying at twenty, seemed to be on an indefinite "visit"; there +was talk, of course.) Having first thawed her hands at her register, +which was supposed to waft up heat from the stove in the dining-room +below, but didn't particularly, Angela drew up her rocking-chair into +the zone of ostensible warmth. She sat with one slender foot curled +under her, by a trick that no man has ever mastered. And this time she +had not searched for the formal tools of a note-writer, but employed a +stub of a pencil and a pad upon her lifted knee.</p> + +<p>"Dearest Tommy," wrote Angela, and followed with a solid paragraph of +very affectionate greeting. She went on:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>Well, Tommy, I promised to write you how things were, after we +got settled down. I must say the outlook is rather discouraging +at times—and home isn't what it was as you remember it! Do you +remember what fun we used to have even in Hunter's +Run—driving in to "the balls"—and how fine it was in +Mitchellton as long as you were there? Well, everything is +<i>sadly</i> changed now! Wallie, I'm afraid, hasn't improved as he +gets older, he seems to rarely or never think of anybody but +himself—and, of course, having fun is simply something he +<i>doesn't care for</i>! He shuts himself up in his room every +night, making horrible mixtures in a "sink" he's put in—that +smell up the whole house, and never <i>dreams</i> of contributing to +the housekeeping expenses—though he's been raised now to <i>ten +dollars a week</i>! Father is sadly changed, he gets quieter and +quieter all the time.</p> + +<p>Sometimes I'm really worried about him, he's so <i>indifferent</i>! +He never jokes any more, and doesn't try to get any patients, +though I <i>know</i> he could get lots with his reputation. He seems +despondent, Tommy, and sometimes doesn't even come in for his +office-hour—and the other day he lost a patient that way that +the Finchmans sent, she waited half an hour and then went! But +though he may have liked the country life better; and let us +all <i>vegetate</i>; that can't be it—for he certainly made no +objection when the family <i>consensus</i> seemed to be that we +should move here! Of course, we have to face the fact that he +and mother aren't very <i>congenial</i>, it is her problem, and +while I wouldn't criticize mother for worlds and she certainly +does her duty as wife and mother—I do think it's a <i>great +mistake</i> for her to always make her attitude a sort of +<i>reproach</i>, saying how "she's sacrificed herself to him" and +all—you know what I mean—</p> + +<p>Mother really gets along better than any of us—especially as I +now do <i>all</i> the work of the entire house!</p></blockquote> + +<p>The young writer paused, staring chillily at the register. She rarely +looked out the window now, hers being the blank certainty that there +would be nothing to see. Moreover, it was dusk. So, rising presently, +she lighted the gas, and resumed her sad sisterly letter.</p> + +<p>Of her mother she wrote in some detail: of the various friends of her +girlhood she had renewed acquaintance with, and how she was always +exchanging calls with Cousin This or Martha That, who was So-and-So +before she married. To Angela, it had really seemed funny how all these +connections of her mother's, whose social possibilities they had so +often discussed before they left Mitchellton, had resolved themselves +into dejected old ladies who had had unhappy marriages, and whose +children had also had unhappy marriages, as a rule, or were in some +other way unavailable as friends. Out of five families thus exhumed by +Mrs. Flower, positively only one unattached young person had emerged, +and this one, named Jennie Finchman (!), while certainly well-meaning, +was a shy, anxious, painfully homely little thing who had never had a +good time in her life, and gave all her pocket-money to a mission in the +Dutch East Indies.</p> + +<blockquote><p>Well, Tommy [continued Angela], I've tried to give you a +picture of the new home like I promised—and I only wish it was +more encouraging! As for myself—the only outside person I had +to help me was Cousin Mary Wing, and she is a "New Woman," as I +wrote you in my Thanksgiving Day letter, and doesn't go with +anybody but <i>advanced older</i> people!—and, besides, she got +into a terrible scrape, poor dear, and was dismissed from the +school! Cousin Mary, it's only fair to say, has done more for +me than anybody else, introducing me to her older woman +friends—who have called on me, and several have invited me to +teas, lectures, and etc.! But, of course, none of them were +<i>social</i> people really, or at least of the younger set—and I +practically haven't been invited to a single party, except +"dove ones"! The one exception was a meeting of an "advanced +club," where I met several attractive men, who have been as +nice to me as you could <i>possibly expect</i>.</p> + +<p>But the truth is, Tommy, money counts a great deal more here +than it did in Mitchellton; all the girls who are prominent +socially have wealthy families behind them! I think I would +hold up the family end quite well on very little—but I have +hardly a decent "rag to my back," my <i>clothes</i> let everybody +know I am a person of <i>no importance</i>, so the little inner +circle sees no reason to take me up,—mother and I have figured +that with only <i>fifty dollars</i> I could get a really nice new +suit, and a simple evening dress as well,—and perhaps hat and +shoes, all of which I <i>sorely need</i>! But, of course, poor +father simply hasn't got such a sum, and Wallie puts all his in +the bank—for college next year, he has $240 there now! Tommy, +you know I don't mean to accuse the family of being +selfish,—father told us in advance that we would be poorer +here,—but besides that—nobody in the family but you ever +seemed to <i>understand</i> that a girl can't accomplish anything +unless she is given some sort of a <i>chance</i>. Even mother +doesn't understand, she just thinks "things happen"! She is +always telling how in <i>her</i> day men would work hard all day +"superintending the farms"—and then at night ride twenty miles +on horseback, to just talk for an hour to some girl of no +special attractions! I can't make her see that men simply +<i>aren't like that</i> any more.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The concluding paragraph of the letter merely described the writer's own +daily round, especially touching on the dull walks, so rarely broken by +a familiar face, which remained almost her only form of recreation. Here +Angela decided to put in one sentence in a less reserved vein, which she +did: "Well, Tommy, if you mean to make any thank-offerings to 'the poor' +this Christmas, you know where they will be <i>most appreciated</i>!" But, as +she loved her brother devotedly, it was also natural for her to return +to a sweet and generous note in farewell: "For your sake, Tommy, I am +glad you aren't here, with all the trials and hardships, but out in the +world having a happy life of your own!"</p> + +<p>The completion, stamping, and sending-off of the letter to Tommy left +Angela with a sense of definite accomplishment. It was as if something +pleasant had happened in the family at last, or at least was going to +happen very soon. Unfortunately, however, this agreeable feeling, having +such small relation to reality, was born but to sicken and die. Time +proceeded with no pleasanter happenings than before, and a letter from +Daniel Jenney, of Mitchellton—whose ring had caused the trouble—became +a positive event.</p> + +<p>By now, no doubt, the first natural excitement of "going to the city" to +live had subsided. Enthusiastic anticipations had been rubbed bare by +hard actuality, poverty, Finchmans, and so on. By this time also the +young home-maker had systematized her housekeeping, as she herself +said, and commonly ordered from butcher and grocer by means of Mrs. +Doremus's telephone, three doors away. With experience, too, Angela had +cut down the daily area of cleaning and polishing, from her first +youthful excesses. Small incentive there was to rub your fingers to the +bone on a house which was hopeless from the start, and which practically +nobody but her mother's sad friends ever set foot in. Thus—and also +through the all but eccentric indifference of the men of her family to +beauty and charm—Angela had more time than ever for thinking. And the +more she thought, the more clearly she saw that social progress in a +strange city was solely a matter of what might be called favorable +self-advertisement, and that this sort of advertisement, in her case at +least, was solely a matter of just a little money.</p> + +<p>But where was money to come from? Little could be expected from Tommy, +even at the best. As for the housekeeping allowance (on which +home-makers properly rely for some personal "pickings"), that held out, +alas, yet frailer hopes. So closely had her father and mother calculated +the budget, indeed, that in three months she had squeezed but five +dollars and a half out of it: this, though she had early investigated +the cheaper cuts of meat and learned the desirability of never paying +cash.</p> + +<p>"Oh," thought the girl, again and again,—"if father'd <i>only</i> get some +patients!"</p> + +<p>Mary Wing's pretty sitting-room had, indeed, established definitely in +Angela's mind the close connection between money and work in an office. +But, for the sound reasons explained by her to Cousin Mary, Angela could +never consider work in an office as a possibility for herself. What, +really, would become of the Home, while she went rushing daily to an +office, to make money for her personal adornment? Besides, she could not +but see that Cousin Mary was herself proof of the fact that going to an +office had a very unfortunate effect upon a girl. Argue as you liked, +the fact remained that, even in this so-called advanced age, the normal, +sweet, attractive girls, the girls who were prominent socially, were +never office-girls.</p> + +<p>In short, how to get money without working for it? That, truly, was the +great question confronting every nice girl, every womanly woman....</p> + +<p>To Angela, it gradually came to seem that nothing pleasant was ever to +happen to her again. Not only that, but the pleasantest sort of things +seemed to be happening all the time to everybody else.</p> + +<p>Returning Mary Wing's call one day, in the hope of news (Cousin Mary's +disgrace was being generously forgiven, now that the Badwoman had gone +away), Angela picked up two items that depressed her curiously. One was +that Donald Manford had got that position he was trying for in Wyoming: +that meant that one member of the coterie would vanish for good within +three months' time. The other item concerned a remarkable series of +articles about Cousin Mary that were coming out in the magazines all of +a sudden, and which Cousin Mary said were written by Mr. Garrott, though +admitting that his name wasn't signed to them. The Finchmans, whom +Angela had met on the street, said, "How do you like having a celebrity +for a cousin?" Cousin Mary, for her part, seemed to like being a +celebrity immensely. Angela had never seen her in such high spirits; it +really seemed in bad taste, considering the recent past. And, of course, +Angela wondered a little if Mr. Garrott, the departed, wouldn't have +written something about her, too, but for the misunderstanding.</p> + +<p>A chance meeting with Mr. Tilletts, on the way home from this visit, +hardly helped much. The seeking widower, afoot for once, had seemed +hurried; he merely paused for a hasty word or two, and then was on his +way again.</p> + +<p>"Considering I haven't a soul to help me, I think I've done remarkably +well," the girl protested once more, as if answering an inner voice, to +her mother next day. "We've been here only a little while, and I have +three men-friends already."</p> + +<p>"Who is the third?" inquired Mrs. Flower.</p> + +<p>When Angela mentioned Mr. Tilletts, her mother said, laconically: "He +has never called."</p> + +<p>"Men don't call any more, mother, I've said again and again! It's +practically gone out."</p> + +<p>Not feeling very well to-day, she lay in an old wrapper atop the +sway-backed bed. Mrs. Flower sat, for company, by the outlooking window, +dutifully stitching at a frilly "waist" which Angela had begun, but not +finished. But her mother was a beautiful seamstress and really enjoyed +an occasional task.</p> + +<p>"Besides," said Angela, listlessly making a dimple in her pretty cheek +with the end of a bone-handled button-hook, "I think Mr. Tilletts will +call. He specially asked to—only a little while ago."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Flower, after a speaking silence, observed: "Donald Manford never +sent you the post-card from Wyoming."</p> + +<p>"Well—all the time in the world hasn't passed yet, mother!"</p> + +<p>"Your Cousin Ellie Finchman says he is deeply interested in this Miss +Carson. She hears he has made her an offer."</p> + +<p>"How could Mrs. Finchman possibly know that, mother? Besides, <i>I</i> don't +care! I like Mr. <i>Tilletts</i> better than Mr. Manford!"</p> + +<p>Coming to bloom in the age of Chivalry, Angela's mother had enjoyed a +great deal of "attention" before she decided to bestow herself upon the +worthy Doctor. Hence it was constitutional with her to take a belittling +position toward less successful young women, including even her own +daughter. Equally natural was it for Angela, with no such opportunities +as her mother had had, to hold fast to what successes she had, and even, +it may be, for memory to magnify them somewhat. And yet, in the +freemasonry of women, she never resented her mother's coolly judicial +summaries, and in this case, frankly felt the maternal slap to be +justified. Really, Mr. Manford had never paid her any direct attentions, +which perhaps had something or other to do with her admiring him so +little as yet.</p> + +<p>On this day, the lonely young girl's spirits seemed to touch their +nadir. How <i>could</i> anything pleasant happen? There was no imaginable +way.</p> + +<p>"Oh, mother!" she exclaimed, with an exasperation rare to her. "Why, +<i>why</i>, couldn't you and father give us <i>one</i> relation that would help +us? Did you ever <i>hear</i> of any poor people before that didn't have a +<i>single</i> rich relation?"</p> + +<p>Then she cried out: "Oh, <i>please</i> don't mention Mrs. Ashburton!"</p> + +<p>It was surely the most natural, reasonable, and human complaint in the +world. In family talk, it had an established standing, too, having first +been formulated far back at Hunter's Run. But now it was as if Angela +had flung her challenge in the teeth of fate once oftener than fate +could stand.</p> + +<p>On the very next day, in brief, the fairy godmother came rolling up to +the door.</p> + +<p>We read how it is always darkest just before the dawn. Angela, who knew +that pleasant things rarely just happened, indoors, had gone out, so it +was that she missed the direct distribution of gifts. But, as it +chanced, she had been having her first really good time, since the +earlier part of the bridge-party. In fact, on Washington Street, at +about the same time and place, she had met Mr. Tilletts again; and now +he was not hurried at all. It pleasantly developed that Mr. Tilletts's +doctor had ordered him to stop riding around in his great car, and that +henceforth he would be walking constantly. Moreover, the genial gallant, +after a considerable promenade, had taken Angela to tea at Mrs. +Hasseltine's famous shop, and, at parting—sure enough—made a +provisional engagement to call "one evening this week." Altogether, the +coterie seemed in a fair way to pick up a new member, after all.</p> + +<p>Whether fascinating or overplump, Widower Tilletts unquestionably +possessed the magic power, wielded by man alone, to restore the +self-esteem of a neglected young girl. Angela opened the front door of +home in a livelier humor than had been hers for weeks. And so entering, +she found her mother standing in the hall, and heard at once tidings +which, though not for her exactly, yet made her forget herself +altogether.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ashburton had been, and gone. Mrs. Ashburton was going to send +Wallie to college, at once. Mrs. Ashburton was going to give Wallie +<i>five hundred dollars a year</i>, till he had got his education.</p> + +<p>This oft-cited lady, at last the waver of the magic wand, was Mrs. +Flower's first cousin. Close friends in their girlhood, their ways had +long ago parted; and, since Dr. and Mrs. Flower's visit to New York in +1896, amenities between them had hardly gone beyond an exchange of cards +at Christmas. But now it happened that Mrs. Ashburton, <i>en route</i> to a +balmier clime than hers, had "broken her trip" here, after the frequent +way of tourists, and, having duly viewed the sights of the city from a +cab window through the morning, had bethought her to look up her +resident kin. So the rich relation came to the little house on Center +Street.</p> + +<p>By chance, it was Saturday afternoon, and Wallie was alone in the house. +It seemed that an experiment he had been working on for days had just +turned out a failure, and he had opened all the windows and the front +door by way of letting out the smell. But even then he did not see the +lady standing on the steps, so intent was he on the large glass retort +in his hand. His face was quite white, and beaded with perspiration. So +Mrs. Ashburton had described it to Mrs. Flower, who came in to find her +just leaving for hotel and train. She had asked: "What are you looking +at that brown liquid so hard for?" "That's it; it's brown," Wallie had +muttered, still without looking at her. "You mean it ought to have +turned out white?" said she. "No, green," said Wallie, frowning and +squinting. "Where'd the chlorine go to?" "Why do you care so much?" Mrs. +Ashburton asked, more and more interested. "Why do I <i>care</i>?" he said, +scornfully; and then, as if becoming conscious of her, personally, for +the first time, he turned his spectacles on her and said calmly: "You +wouldn't understand, ma'am. A—a problem here.... Well, I don't +understand it myself." And then, losing her again, as it were, he +actually endeavored to shut the door, with the lady outside. Mrs. +Ashburton had had to push against it, she said, and put her foot in the +crack, to attract his notice. "I'm your cousin—<i>your cousin!</i>—Mrs. +Ashburton!" she cried. "And I want to come in and talk to you, please." +And this she had done, with the amazing result mentioned above.</p> + +<p>Angela felt that the family tide had turned at last. She would scarcely +have been human if it had not occurred to her how easily she might have +been the one to be struck by the golden lightning; but such passing +notions in no sense marred her sincere, though vicarious, joy over this +great news. Moreover, it did seem, of course, that such a sum as five +hundred dollars could not percolate into a family at any point without +raising the whole level of prosperity very appreciably; and it was with +whole-hearted happiness that she skipped upstairs to congratulate her +lucky brother in the little bedroom she would not have to clean or +"make" any more.</p> + +<p>"Something <i>very</i> nice is going to happen to <i>me</i> soon, too!" she +thought gayly, as she undressed that night. "I feel it in my bones!"</p> + +<p>Her mind naturally slanted toward her favorite brother, with an +intuitive increase of hopefulness. And, true enough, it was from +generous Tommy that the more personal blessings presently came, though +in a form that had not entered Angela's dreams.</p> + +<p>Tommy's reply to her sisterly letter promised at first, indeed, to be as +disappointing as Mr. Garrott's had been, and for the same reason: it +omitted the essential thing. Angela, having shaken the letter, and then +shuffled the pages, early discovered that there was no thank-offering in +it. Similarly, Tommy's sentences seemed to contain nothing more +substantial than affectionate regrets: setting forth what a struggle he +had trying to keep up with the set that Nina had always moved in; how he +was five thousand dollars in debt now, getting deeper, and never had a +nickel to jingle for himself, and that was the God's truth; how it had +always been his dream to do something big for his sister, and certainly +would do the same when old Mottesheard (Nina's father) died; how the old +chap hung on in a way you wouldn't believe....</p> + +<p>Angela read with a certain sense of chill. Truly womanly, she, of +course, never questioned the superior claims of wives. And yet it did +seem a little hard that Tommy (who made a large salary as a bond +salesman, or something like that) should lavish everything on a girl he +had never heard of three years ago, while she, his own sister—</p> + +<p>And then, turning into the fourth page, she came on a passage which +checked all minor-key reflections instantly. In their place, rose and +grew a startled astonishment. Tommy, noting what she had written about +her long, dull walks, was offering to <i>give her an automobile</i>.</p> + +<p>At first, Angela simply could not take in this offer as a solid reality. +It sprang upon her like some wild, exciting joke. She read, with her +breath coming faster and faster, and her soft eyes as big as saucers:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>Now, Sis, I know a car may strike you offhand as a good deal of +an undertaking for a poor family, but you'd find it wouldn't +prove so at all. The car I have in mind for you is a little +simple one, that you could easily run and manage yourself. A +man from the nearest garage will teach you how to drive it in +an hour. There'd be no upkeep at all, with the easy city use +you'd give it—practically no expense of any kind but gasoline. +The little car is old, of course, but still sound as a trivet, +and it'll run till you wouldn't believe it on a gallon or so of +juice....</p></blockquote> + +<p>For a space the letter faded from the young girl's vision. Before her +mind's eye flashed a series of entrancing pictures: pictures of herself, +no longer the lone, slow pedestrian in a too large city....</p> + +<blockquote><p>And don't think you would be depriving us [Tommy went on]. Nina +<i>will</i> have a new car every year, and we've really had no use +for this one for some time. By the by, didn't you tell me there +was an old barn in your back-yard, or an alley? Why wouldn't +that do for your garage? Then you would have your car ready at +hand, without storage cost, and could take it out at a moment's +notice and go for a spin with your friends.</p> + +<p>Now think it over, Sis, and let me know if you want it. I can +ship it at once, by prepaid express. Nina has a frank....</p></blockquote> + +<p>"Oh, <i>mother</i>!" cried Angela excitedly. "Tommy wants to give me an +automobile!"</p> + +<p>The heads of the Flowers lifted from their breakfasts as if jerked by a +common string.</p> + +<p>When the breath-taking letter had been read again, aloud this time, +there followed a family symposium, the question being whether or not +Angela could have the automobile. To her surprise and delight, it +appeared that there was really no question; all the family wanted her to +take the automobile; all agreed with Tommy that it would not be a +prohibitive undertaking. Mrs. Flower, an habitual conservative, pointed +out that there would be nothing to lose in any case: if having the +automobile proved impracticable, Angela could simply sell it. Wallie +said that, if the automobile came before he left for college, he would +teach Angela how to run it himself, thus eliminating the expense of a +man from the garage. And, finally, her father astonished her by saying +that he would find the necessary funds—estimated at ten dollars—for +repairing the abandoned shed, which now leaked dangerously, into a +serviceable little garage.</p> + +<p>At nine-thirty o'clock that morning Angela rushed out of the house to +the nearest telegraph office, to dispatch her happy reply. Excited +though she was, however, she did not forget to count the words:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>Crazy about it Tommy. Arrangements made. What kind is car?</p> + +<p>A. F.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Tommy's response came at bedtime:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>Car started to you this afternoon. It is a Fordette. Happy New +Year.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Tommy</span>.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The night before Wallie started North for college Angela went to him in +his little bed-and-workroom and asked the temporary loan of seventy-five +dollars. In the interval, she had learned that her father had a patient; +it seemed, indeed, that he had had her for some time, only she was not +an office patient, so nobody had known about her. Also, Angela +anticipated that the housekeeping allowance would prove rather more +squeezable now, with Wallie gone. Still, one cannot pass into the +motor-car classes on a shoestring, of course; and Wallie, with his +prodigal allowance and his handsome store in the bank, now literally +rolled in wealth.</p> + +<p>Brilliant prosperity, however, did not seem to have improved her little +brother's character; he proved to be as reluctant as ever to "part." +After a good deal of unworthy haggling, he agreed to lend Angela but +fifty dollars, and actually entered the amount in a ridiculous little +black book he kept for such things.</p> + +<p>The joke of it was that fifty dollars was really more than Angela had +expected. She went out from the interview well pleased. Her resolve was +to spend thirty dollars of Wallie's loan on a new suit, and keep all the +rest for gasoline.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>XIII</h2> + + + +<p>They had all cautioned her, her father, her brother, the nice man who +sold the gasoline, to pick the quietest streets, and to go very slowly. +So, from the alley-mouth, her safe progress had been by Gresham Street +straight to peaceful Mason, where the traffic was so reassuringly light; +and now, as she rolled securely out Mason Street, there began to dawn +within her a first shy confidence. She went as slowly as her +well-wishers had meant, at least; prudently close to the known haven of +the sidewalk she kept at all times; now and then she stopped short, just +to see if she could, and always she could. Through all, was the +indescribable thrill of really doing it for herself now; lingering +incredulity but gave a sharper savor to delight. And she was continually +excited with the consciousness of large new possibilities here, of +personal power in quite a new dimension.</p> + +<p>It was possible to go on indefinitely out Mason Street, but at Olive +(always a quiet thoroughfare) she was seized with a sudden +adventurousness. She decided to turn up Olive, in short; not meaning to +stop at the Wings', of course, but just thinking that if the Wings were +looking out the window as she went by, it would be quite a pleasant +thing. The enterprise, once conceived, was carried out with perfect +technical success; but at the moment of passing the Wings', unluckily, +an enormous ice-wagon came lumbering close by, riveting her attention, +leaving her not so much as an eyelid to wink toward people's windows. +Hence, she never knew whether the Wings were looking out or not. But her +confidence waxed. At Center Street the rumble of a street-car warned her +to stop a moment—just in time, too, for the car was hardly two blocks +away—and when the car had passed, what must she do but roll boldly +across the tracks and into the altogether unexplored regions beyond!</p> + +<p>What prompted her to do this? Of course, the natural thing was to turn +down Center Street a block and get straight back to quiet Mason, which +had been duly tried and not found wanting. Afterward, she remembered +distinctly that she had been on the point of doing just that. Was it the +new adventurousness that beckoned her on, instead? Was it something yet +subtler and more mysterious? At any rate, here she was pushing into a +quarter of the city where she had never set foot in her life, where, in +all human probability, her foot alone would never have brought her. And +lo, she had not gone a block into the undiscovered country when a wonder +befell, and with a little jump, all but a little cry, she saw the lost +member of her coterie rise suddenly before her.</p> + +<p>He had come round the unknown corner just ahead, and was walking +straight toward her. She became aware of the beating of her heart. All +this, it must be understood, was the very first time that Angela had +taken out her Fordette alone.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Mr. Garrott was just off the train. Two hours in a day coach might have +cramped his long legs; there might have been cinders down the back of +his neck. Nevertheless, he advanced with an unmistakably lively tread, +continually slapping his leg with a folded periodical of a size and +shape like "Willcox's Weekly."</p> + +<p>Nor was the coterie member's presence on the Wings' street mere blind +chance, either. Those remarkable articles in the magazines about Cousin +Mary, which had but popped as a rumor into one of Angela's ears and out +the other, had naturally occupied a somewhat more prominent place in the +thought of their creator. He remained, indeed, dazzled by the +completeness of the write-ups' triumph.</p> + +<p>Charles had stayed in the country four days longer than he had intended. +And in his extended absence his whole mine of publicity had gone off +with a brilliant suddenness that had startled him. The successful sale +of the third write-up before he left town had assured a decisive <i>coup</i>, +but the quick action the weeklies had given him went beyond all reason. +He had not hoped that even the first of the write-ups could see print +before the middle of the month, say; on the contrary, he had discovered +the last and best of them—the one signed Charles King Garrott—on the +train just now, in "Willcox's," for January 10th. In short, in the space +of a Christmas holiday he, Charles, had spread the vindicating feats and +features of his "demoted" friend to the four corners of the globe. +Literally that, for did not the combined circulation of "Willcox's," the +"Saturday Review," and "Hervey's National" exceed two million copies +weekly (this on the word of the circulation managers themselves, a class +of men whose consecration to the austerest veracity has passed into +proverb)? Surely there remained few literate persons in the world to-day +who could plausibly pretend that they had never heard of Mary Wing.</p> + +<p>And Mary (as Angela had noted) had appreciated these extraordinary +services to the full. The letter she had written him in the country, +after the appearance of the "Saturday Review" article, was uniquely +grateful. A beautiful letter Charles had thought it; he had it in his +inside pocket now. And the interesting thought it had raised was this: +If his usually independent friend could be as grateful as that for the +write-ups, what would she say when his whole plan worked out, and his +Public Opinion had overwhelmed the School Board for her? Thus, on the +train, after reading "Willcox's" piece three times, and now as he strode +up the quiet back-street from the station, the author was intently +plotting out the next, or practical, stage of his campaign, still +unsuspected by her: the stage of the reprinting of the write-ups in the +local papers, in fine, of repeated editorial endorsement of the same, of +the outburst of letters from "Indignant Taxpayers," "High School +Graduates," and "Old Subscribers"—practically all, of course, written +by Uncle George Blenso and himself.</p> + +<p>His thoughts proved increasingly stimulating to the home-come Charles. +And when he came to Olive Street, he suddenly bethought him to turn up +that way; not expecting to stop at the Wings', of course (for he had an +engagement to call there this evening, much as if he hadn't been a +modern at all), but merely thinking that if he should happen to meet +Mary it would be quite a pleasant thing....</p> + +<p>Having turned, the buoyant young man presently sent, as it were, a +scouting eye on ahead. And it fell, not upon the friend he had made +famous in a night, but upon an Object approaching.</p> + +<p>The object was a conveyance, a little vehicle of the self-propelling +type. It was an automobile, clearly; a runabout, you would have to term +it, though certainly of a pattern adopted in no recent year. So steep +and bobbed was this runabout's little body, so quaintly archaic its +contour, that it stirred in the beholder dim recollections of the early +days of the horseless age, of strange pictures seen in scientific +magazines back in the nineties. Very slowly the little vehicle +approached, but very loudly, too, with an increasing bias toward the +sidewalk, with queer rumblings and groanings, with the oddest snorts.</p> + +<p>Charles's puzzled eye lifted. And so it was that it encountered again +the soft gaze that he had last seen misted in tears, upon a sofa. And so +he heard the pretty voice, that had once referred to him as a brute, +saying:—</p> + +<p>"How do you do, Mr. Garrott!... I—I'm very glad to see you back!"</p> + +<p>"Why—Miss <i>Flower</i>!"</p> + +<p>Sheer surprise had halted him in his tracks, and the self-propelling +runabout, which had been almost stationary all along, became entirely +so, right at the curb.</p> + +<p>"When did you get home?" Miss Flower was finishing, laughing, a becoming +color in her cheeks.</p> + +<p>"I'm just in—this minute! How are you? I—ah—didn't realize at all +that it was you." He had taken the small hand she offered, momentarily +flustered, despite all effort, by the utterly sudden re-meeting. He was +aware that the girl looked a little conscious, too. But something in her +gaze seemed to be trying to tell him that bygones were bygones now; and +she went on with reassuring naturalness:—</p> + +<p>"I hope you had a nice holiday? I've wanted very much to see you, and +thank you myself. About Wallie, I mean—your offering to teach him—"</p> + +<p>"Oh!—Why, <i>that</i>!"</p> + +<p>"It was really the nicest thing. I—haven't seen you since, but you +don't know how much I—we all appreciated—"</p> + +<p>With recovered poise the young man easily brushed aside these thanks. +"But I'm awfully glad," he added, "that he didn't wait for me, after +all."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" she exclaimed. "You <i>heard</i>, then?"</p> + +<p>He mentioned his letter from Mary Wing, causing her to say, "Oh," +again.—"Wasn't it <i>wonderful</i>! I knew you'd be interested...."</p> + +<p>She was prettier than he remembered—or was it merely that the new hat +(trimmed but yesterday) was more becoming than the old?—and her gaze, +though not reproachful a bit, had for him a quality subtly appealing. Of +the lives and loneliness of young womanly women—of that forced +<i>waiting</i> which dams up all energies unused, and hangs the spirit to +thrash about in a void, working over each small event to a towering +importance—of such matters, a man, even Charles, the authority, knew +only through the powers of his imagination. Charles did observe, +however, that this girl seemed very glad to see him. And he felt that he +now reciprocated these feelings.</p> + +<p>"But," said he, with a hypocritically pleasant look at the vehicle, +"Santa Claus seems to have remembered you, too! This is something new, +isn't it?" said Charles, though feeling that new was hardly the word.</p> + +<p>"Yes,—aren't you surprised? My brother in Pittsburg gave it to me. I've +just learned to run it! It was so exciting!"</p> + +<p>And then, in a pretty, hesitating way, she said: "Won't you let me drive +you—home, or wherever you're going? I'd like to, so much. I—want so to +tell you all the news."</p> + +<p>He protested that he could not think of using Miss Flower as a taxicab. +But when she urged it, in pleasing, ingenuous sentences, and explained +that she was out only to drive about anywhere, for practice, it did not +occur to him to maintain the churlish negative. And, indeed, this was +exactly what he had desired from the moment of reading her perfect note +last month—sweet reconciliation in just such a casual way, admitting or +entailing next to nothing.</p> + +<p>So the returning author of the write-ups was to be seen carefully +squeezing himself, and "Willcox's," into the seat of Tommy's delightful +gift.</p> + +<p>"Let's see—the engine's still going—isn't it?" said she, rather +superfluously, it seemed, in view of the uproar. "Then I have to kick +that and push this over...."</p> + +<p>As the girl said, so she did, her look a little anxious, her young face +flushed with excitement. And, sure enough, the vehicle, of a +self-propelling type, suddenly shook itself with a few loud snorts, and +jumped forward with a jar.</p> + +<p>"And what sort of car is this?" resumed Charles, dissembling intense +curiosity as mere sympathetic interest.</p> + +<p>"It is a Fordette," replied Angela, not without pride.</p> + +<p>As they wobbled round the corner, narrowly missing the sidewalk, she +added in the same proud manner: "And this is my very first drive by +myself."</p> + +<p>The taking of the corner (she explained that she could not turn round +alone yet) meant that he was not going to pass the Wings', after all; +but Charles hardly noticed that. He had himself to look to, in his +somewhat unusual position. However, the drive to the Studio, though +noisy, was very short; her completely feminine inefficience as a driver, +their snail's progress, could not extend it over many minutes; and the +whole thing proved as easy and reproachless as could possibly have been +wished. Light friendly talk was the note, flowing without embarrassment +now. Angela told of the two great happenings in her family, seeming to +count upon his interest, and getting it genuinely enough, too. He was +glad, sincerely, that Luck had smiled on this girl, who had seemed to +him not to be having much of a chance. But she was not one, even so, to +take all the conversation to herself; it was a trait that he had noted, +and liked, in her from the beginning.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Garrott," she said, at the first little pause, "aren't you going to +have some stories out pretty soon now? You know you told me you were +writing some—before you began your book?"</p> + +<p>How gladly Mr. Garrott would have reported a little luck, too! But no, +he was still known to Tables of Contents only as the author of +write-ups. Somewhat ruefully, he explained to Angela his position about +the editors; namely, that the sooner the lot of them came under the eye +of a lunacy commission, the better for all concerned.</p> + +<p>She became the comforter: "But perhaps they've accepted some of your +stories while you were away so long!" He, however, knew that there was +nothing in that.</p> + +<p>"Well, no—no. You see, my—my relative who lives with me, Judge Blenso, +looks after my mail when I'm away. And he's been sending me the casualty +lists from time to time."</p> + +<p>"But that story I liked so much—you told me a little about it one +day—about Helena and her husband, don't you remember, who went off to +the desert island—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, that? That's been declined—yes, declined three times, if I +remember rightly—"</p> + +<p>"<i>Really!</i> But how <i>could</i> they! I should think they would have <i>jumped</i> +at it! Why, I thought it was just wonderful...."</p> + +<p>Her instinct for supplying charm was not amiss, it seemed.</p> + +<p>"By the way," said the young author carelessly, as they curved into his +own street, "have you happened to see this?"</p> + +<p>And he not only showed Angela his "Willcox's," with the write-up in it, +but bestowed it upon her, for her own. It developed that he had extra +copies in his pocket.</p> + +<p>Angela was very grateful for the magazine. Everything was as pleasant +and friendly as possible. And at parting, she said, with only the +slightest return of self-consciousness:—</p> + +<p>"This has been a very short drive, Mr. Garrott! I hope we can have a +real one some day soon."</p> + +<p>To that the young man, standing on the sidewalk before his own door, +replied with a courteous generalization. Wariness was reflexive with +him, so to say. But then, as he looked at the soft young face, he seemed +to become suddenly conscious of the essential caddishness of his past +behavior, and of yet another feeling, too, less coolly judicial. Had not +the Kiss, in fact, set this girl somehow apart from others, remaining as +a subtle bond after all?</p> + +<p>Pressing her slender hand, he added: "Meanwhile, I've enjoyed this one +very much! You've been—extremely good to me."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Willcox's" had given Mary the Freewoman a fine spread. The write-up +occupied all of one of its large pages, with three paragraphs "Continued +on Page 49," among the Men's Ready to Wear Clothing. Out of the middle +of the text, the best of the portraits supplied by Fanny Warder gazed +back steadily at the two relatives in the Studio. The famous Mary was +seated in a flowered armchair, and seemed just to have looked round over +her shoulder. Her delicate, quite girlish, face wore her characteristic +look of faint, grave interrogation; her eyes were intent and fine.</p> + +<p>"Gad, you know!" said Judge Blenso, who had seen Charles's name in print +for the first time with an exclamation of pride and pleasure. "Why, it's +stunnin', my dear fellow! Simply stunnin'!"</p> + +<p>But the mind's eye of Charles, looking down at the life-like +presentment, was seeing that confident gaze averted; the ear of his +fancy was hearing the low sounds of womanly emotion in this quarter at +last. That, of course, was just after he had gently said to her—why, it +might be next week!—"Do you remember telling me one day that I couldn't +help you at all? Why, Miss Mary, did you really suppose I'd let you go +on as a Grammar School teacher till <i>May</i>!...."</p> + +<p>"Bring 'em out as a holiday book—that's what I say! Why, good gad, +Charles!—we only got twenty dollars for that piece there!"</p> + +<p>The young man laughed absently, and removed his overcoat. A glance at +Big Bill showed that it was just four o'clock. He had examined the mail, +heard the secretary's unfavorable reports. The Studio, after nearly +three weeks' holiday, suggested the necessity of work undoubtedly; he +was as far from settling upon his Line as ever. But it seemed that he +didn't feel like plotting scenarios to-day.</p> + +<p>The "Post," the "State," the "Chronicle"—why shouldn't he go down there +now, get the thing started at once?...</p> + +<p>"Oh, Judge, by the way! Do you know whether Miss McGee ever brought back +that book I lent her?—fat red book, called 'Marna'?"</p> + +<p>"'Marna,' 'Marna'? Never heard of it. Yes, that's so, she did! Here it +is!" said the Judge, and forthwith plucked Miss Angela's long-kept loan +from the bookcase close by.</p> + +<p>"That's it! Let's lay it here on the mantel. Then maybe I'll remember—"</p> + +<p>"And borrowed a lot more, too!" exclaimed the Judge, suddenly laughing +loud and long. "Gad, I lent her an armful, fact!—night we had the +sleet-storm!"</p> + +<p>"You did?—good! We'll convince her we're her true friends yet."</p> + +<p>His secretary, having gazed at him a moment with brilliant blankness, +suddenly exclaimed: "Why, Charles, my dear fellow, you're looking like a +fighting-cock! You must have put on a stone—fine! Here, let me feel +your muscle!"</p> + +<p>Charles tried to evade that ceremony, but it was, of course, no use. +Having caught him going through certain setting-up exercises one night, +and being misled by the light remark he let fall, Judge Blenso was +irrevocably convinced that the sedentary Charles had an affair of honor +on his hands. The night he made this discovery—the very night Charles +secretly began the exercises, of course, the night of the day he had +seen Mysinger on the street—the Judge had become almost dangerously +excited, springing from bed and walking about a long time in his +pajamas, saying over and over: "The old blood'll tell! Gad, you know! +It's the old blood!" All attempts to explain, then and since, had been +utterly without effect.</p> + +<p>However, a knock on the door interrupted the proceedings, and Mrs. +Herman came walking into the Studio—a dark, round, rosy little body, +beetle-browed but beaming.</p> + +<p>"Such a popular man I never saw!" said she, roguishly. "One lady meeting +him and driving him up from the station, another calling him up before +he's hardly arrived, and goodness knows who'll be next!"</p> + +<p>"Why, who's calling me, Mrs. Herman?"</p> + +<p>"It's Miss Wing!—waiting at the phone! And no wonder, with all you and +the Judge have done for her, I'm sure! Judge, I hope you find your new +chair comfortable?"</p> + +<p>Having received the unexpected summons with a peculiar start of +gladness, the young man descended the stairs with the most agreeable +anticipations. To do a valuable service for a friend is, with some +natures, to become fonder than ever of that friend; and Charles, from +the moment of reading her unprecedented letter, was aware that his +original services to Mary had distinctly had these sentimental +reactions. (For of course such natures <i>are</i> sentimental, disgustingly +so, and real Men—not to say realistic men—invariably hate and despise +their friends, and speak to said friends at all only with a view to +taking away their money or their wives.)</p> + +<p>So, sitting down at the little telephone-table in the dark rear-hall, +Charles smiled to himself and said, in a false voice:—</p> + +<p>"Pardon me, but is this the famous Miss Wing, who—"</p> + +<p>And Mary's voice seemed to spring toward him through the receiver, like +an embrace: "Oh, <i>King Charles</i>!"</p> + +<p>It was a little name she had made long ago by turning his first two +names about, but reserved for rare occasions only. Rare also was it to +hear this commonly contained voice so deeply stirred.</p> + +<p>"Welcome home! I hope I didn't interrupt your work, but it seemed I +couldn't <i>wait</i>! And, of course, I haven't <i>half</i> thanked you yet, +haven't begun to tell you how much—how much—I appreciate all you've +done for me...."</p> + +<p>Once more, the fortunate Charles was brushing aside a lady's +gratitude—rather generously, considering the infrequency of grounds of +gratitude here. He laughed gaily into the receiver.</p> + +<p>"The real point is, why under the sun did you connect me right away with +the remarkable outburst of popular admiration? Hartwell went gossiping +about, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't need Mr. Hartwell to tell me anything about that! But—"</p> + +<p>"Aha! So Fanny told you about the photographs—"</p> + +<p>"She never breathed a word—"</p> + +<p>"Good-evening, Miss Holmes!—old Watson speaking! Will you kindly +explain your—!"</p> + +<p>"Why, of course there wasn't but one person on earth who could have done +such a beautiful thing for me!"</p> + +<p>All alone in the hall, Charles felt himself coloring with pleasure. +However, the unwonted flush was not for long.</p> + +<p>"I have to pinch myself," the girl's eager voice rushed on (did it sound +just a thought more triumphant than even the author of the write-ups +could have expected?),—"for every magazine I pick up is full of nothing +but Me! I've just seen 'Willcox's'—oh, you don't know how much I liked +that! You've simply taken my breath away! And then to come in and find +<i>this</i>!—everything beautiful happening to me at once! I—"</p> + +<p>"What? <i>More</i> honors, celebrity?"</p> + +<p>"The greatest!—the most wonderful! Mr. Garrott, what DO you suppose?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Garrott hardly liked the slant the conversation was taking. The +understanding was that whatever beautiful things happened to the Career +were to happen exclusively through him now.</p> + +<p>"Why!—I can't guess! Not—Has the School Board—"</p> + +<p>"Pish for the School Board," cried the voice that was wont to be so +calm. "You're talking to <i>the new Secretary of the League</i>!"</p> + +<p>"I'm.... <i>What?</i>"</p> + +<p>"The person you're conversing with, if you please, is the General +Secretary of the National League for Education Reform!" Her happy laugh +rang on the wire: "Are you <i>staggered</i>? Well, I am, too! I simply can't +begin to take it in...."</p> + +<p>Had Mrs. Herman's house fallen about his ears, the young man at the +telephone-table could, indeed, scarcely have been staggered more. His +sense was of one falling headlong through space. He gripped the edge of +the table with a large left hand, and for the instant there was no +speech in him.</p> + +<p>"I found the letter from Dr. Ames when I got in just now—oh, the nicest +letter, explaining everything! And of course I wanted to tell you right +away—you've been so good about wanting to help! Don't you remember, it +was you who spoke of this as my brilliant revenge? We little thought +then ..."</p> + +<p><i>Wanting to help!</i> Doubt not, that was the body blow. "No—no! And I—I +really don't take it in—even now," he was saying, struggling +desperately for his mask. "I—ah—I'd given up all—idea, you see! Why, +I understood that was <i>all off</i>! I—"</p> + +<p>"Of <i>course</i>—so had I! That's what makes it such a wonderful bolt from +the blue! There was another candidate, you see—a college president, +imagine!—and Dr. Ames says he felt he ought to be very discreet and +reticent till it was all settled. But I was elected unanimously, and +must be in New York to take charge of the office on March 1st...."</p> + +<p>It was the complete collapse of his triumph and his hope: he would not +be going to the newspaper-offices now. But that sentence, that concrete +date, took the whole matter deeper still. Charles Garrott took a firmer +grip on Mrs. Herman's little table. Now his voice came firmer, too:—</p> + +<p>"The first woman secretary they ever had!... Why—it's <i>immense</i>!"</p> + +<p>In the ensuing dialogue, in which, for pride's sake, he sought to strike +just the right felicitatory note, there was an instant when the +possibility flashed upon him that the stunning event was itself but the +unimagined by-product of the write-ups. The directors had decided not to +give the distinguished post to an obscure provincial teacher, when all +of a sudden his great broadside of fame for Mary had come roaring in +among them. The thought, in this moment of utter frustration, seemed +actually welcome to him. But it had hardly fluttered before Mary struck +it dead, in the most incidental manner: incidental—since, to be just, +she, having no knowledge whatever of his secret plans, could hardly +guess what annihilation she was dealing out to them. It developed, in +short, that her election, though held back a few days to be ratified by +the trustees of the League's endowment fund, had actually taken place on +December 27th. And it was too readily recalled that the first of the +write-ups had not appeared till the following day.</p> + +<p>"Yes—yes!... Fine holiday, thank you!—fine! But of course—no triumphs +like this to report!..."</p> + +<p>"Well!—I mustn't keep you now, of course!" said the victorious voice. +"I'm looking forward to seeing you ..."</p> + +<p>No, it was sufficiently clear that he had but labored to heap coals in +Newcastle. It was just the case of the old write-up, last year; only now +a thousand times worse. Often before, this desire in him to help, this +spontaneous protecting instinct which seemed to be always flowing out +here, had been rebuffed and defeated. But this time, his defeat seemed +to be final. And, hanging up the receiver at last, the young man sat +silent with the feeling that something valuable and important had +suddenly departed from his life.</p> + +<p>He felt that he had been rather imposed upon, but that didn't matter +particularly. He felt beaten, as he had never been beaten before, and +that seemed to matter a good deal. With an odd and profound sense of +blank chagrin, he recognized, at last, that when Mary Wing had said that +she didn't need his help, she had been merely stating a literal and +obvious truth. How he had been such a fool as ever to think otherwise?</p> + +<p>But deeper than all this, it seemed clear from the beginning that he was +disappointed in his friend, personally. Had he not read into her all +along, and put into the write-ups, a rather finer quality than she, in +fact, possessed? Spinsters were entitled to a man's freedom to follow +away their work—of course. But it seemed that he had never been able to +imagine Mary as actually seizing this Right. And now, here she was doing +it, with joy—the end of next month. Now behold her, whose praises he +had so superfluously sung round the world—just an ordinary Redmantler +after all, it seemed, exultantly striking off mother, home, friends; a +female Egoist, no more, visibly engaged in "fiercely hacking away"....</p> + +<p>He could, indeed, scarcely take it in. And stoutly he assured himself +that his whole feeling about the matter would have been different—if +only she had showed, at once, that this would be a wrench for her, that +her thought was colored by a sense of values not connected with her +Self. But no; it seemed that the new General Secretary had no thought to +spare for the immaterial business of being a sister and being a +daughter.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>So Charles's call at the Wings' on the evening of his homecoming wore a +complexion not contemplated by him when he had arranged the matter.</p> + +<p>He had made this engagement, under the general misapprehension, in his +reply to Mary's grateful letter last week. And now he had to keep it, +however malapropos, resolved as he was that she should never sense any +criticism or disapprobation in him. To seek to "influence" her, +naturally never entered his mind. No, he was her casual spectator now +and henceforward; he had dipped his oar in her affairs for the last +time.</p> + +<p>But the call was hardly much of a success, despite all efforts. Mary, +having now had time to recapture her usual poise, no longer impressed +one as being so unreservedly overjoyed with herself. It was noted that +she kept referring to the write-ups, kept assuring him how delightful +she found it to be a celebrity as well as a Secretary, etc., etc. The +caller's intellect coldly gave her credit for "being very nice." +However, no niceness could help much to drape the stark obtruding facts; +no civilities seemed fitted to cope with the intangible wall suddenly +sprung up in the old friendship. And if there had lingered in Charles's +mind some revolting incredulity, some reactionary insistence that Mary +could never really carry out the typical exploit of the Egoette, the +talk this evening finally killed it. The famous educator's sentences +made it clear, once and for all, that she was Leaving Home for good—for +her own good, of course—on the 1st day of March succeeding.</p> + +<p>Charles was determinedly "sincere" throughout the brief call, +continuously and spuriously hearty. Inwardly, his resolve grew more and +more fixed that this young woman, who was so rarely competent to Lead +Her Own Life, should be permitted to lead it quite unassisted +henceforth. For himself, he decided that his life should go to the +unremitting service of pure Letters. But of such matters, of course, he +permitted his agreeable chatter to yield no hint. Taking his departure +upon a new wave of felicitations, he could but congratulate himself upon +the trained adeptness of his mask.</p> + +<p>And Mary, having shut the door upon her caller, stood leaning against +it, her arched brows drawn together in a faint frown, her fine eyes +faintly bewildered.</p> + +<p>"Now what," she said, half aloud, "have I said or done, or left unsaid +or undone, this time?"</p> + +<p>And then she went slowly back to her mother's bedroom, where she found +her mother with stockings to darn, and (taken unawares) her eyes a +little red.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a>XIV</h2> + + +<p>In the Home on Center Street, the shrunken curtain was rarely hooked +back on the nail now. And on the ledge of the little window that gazed +toward the Blest, the shabby opera-glasses gathered dust.</p> + +<p>As is perfectly understood, Careers in the making are the stuff to make +conservatives of others. Observing Egoettes, an authority, if male, +inevitably reacts, thinking better and better of the gentle business of +supplying beauty and supplying charm. Charles Garrott, in short, having +repudiated all connection with the life of Mary Wing, was in just the +proper frame of mind to applaud the life of Mary's so different cousin. +And Charles did applaud it—certainly. But, of course, such purely +scientific endorsement did not controvert another established known +truth, namely, that, under certain circumstances and as applied to +certain individuals, the supply of the soft commodities referred to may +very well prove a little in excess of the demand.</p> + +<p>The well-known thought first flickered back into Charles's mind on the +third day of his homecoming. At the moment, he stood on the corner +nearest Berringer's, having just dismounted there from Miss Angela's +conveyance. On the fifth day of his homecoming, at the same corner, his +reflections on supply and demand were assuming an increasing +definiteness.</p> + +<p>"Well, then—good-bye!" he was saying, with his fatal pleasantness. "And +thank you very much for the lift."</p> + +<p>From the seat of Tommy's valuable donation, Angela was gazing up at him. +And he saw that her face, which had been smiling, was touched with a +brief seriousness.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you know I've enjoyed it—so much! But—we never seem to have +anything but these little bits of talks. I'm sorry.... Perhaps I'll see +you to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>"Ha!—quite likely!—yes! Thank you! Well!—<i>good-bye!</i>"</p> + +<p>And he turned away toward luncheon and the good man-talk with a crescent +uneasiness, having failed to point out—possibly failing to +remember—that to-morrow was Saturday, and he would be off to the +country again.</p> + +<p>Day before yesterday, he had encountered the conveyance as he left the +Demings' at one o'clock. To-day, he had overtaken it on his walk +downtown—literally that, for he was a fast walker and a little +absent-minded besides. Thus he had now enjoyed three peace-making drives +with the girl he had once parted from forever, all in the course of his +first five days at home. And now at the end of their third pleasant +talk, particularly after these last prospective remarks of hers, Charles +could not but feel that the true object of these re-meetings had been +satisfactorily accomplished. Now the reconciliation was complete; now he +felt no lingering shadow of doubt of his forgiveness for having once +been a brute.</p> + +<p>He did not regret the drives; he was very glad, indeed, to be good +friends again; but his subtle instinct seemed to warn him that he and +Angela would do best, would get along with the fewest misunderstandings, +without a rapidly developing intimacy. And, taking the higher view, it +clearly was not right, it was not moral, that a confirmed bachelor like +himself should go on indefinitely monopolizing a nice young Spinster +Home-Maker's time.</p> + +<p>Returning to town on Monday, Charles, though in the kindest way, went to +Berringer's by the Center Street car-line. He felt, indeed, that he was +really looking out for the girl's higher good more than for his own: she +lacked that competence to manage her own life, so harshly flaunted by +others. All passed off well. On Tuesday he utilized the traction system +again, with equally satisfying results. And then, on Tuesday afternoon, +as he trod professionally from the old lady's who was studying French to +Miss Grace Chorister's, he suddenly ran upon the Fordette again.</p> + +<p>By an odd chance, the quaint little vehicle was standing still, directly +in front of the Choristers'. His reconciled friend was out of it, +standing by, bending well over the car, peering into it. Nevertheless, +by some sixth sense, she saw him at once and, straightening up with a +pleased smile, she waved and called:—</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Garrott!—how glad I am to see you! Do you know how to crank?"</p> + +<p>He approached with the gallantest air, the most civil speeches. All the +same, as he bent to his hard labor—for the Fordette proved dangerously +stiff in the crank—and politely sought to explain how to avoid killing +the engine for the future, he was conscious of a certain sense of +rebellion.... Excellent, laudable, justifying things, beauty and charm; +but the plain fact was that he, Charles, was simply not in the market +for them at present, that was all.</p> + +<p>The friendship, indeed, was well cemented now; the talk characterized +with a growing confidence.</p> + +<p>"Oh, how strong you are!" said Angela admiringly, as he finally got the +old engine to spinning. "I do wish I could do it like that! Now you must +let me pay you for your trouble!—won't you? I'm just driving around, +really, so don't think—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, thank you, but I go in here. Business hours, you know! Well! Now +you're—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, is this where you teach every afternoon?" asked Angela, with +interest, gazing past him at the handsome stone "front" of the +Choristers'. "Oh, yes, Miss Chorister.... How long does the lesson +last?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, an hour—usually. But, of course," added the young man, his eye +wavering slightly, "that depends somewhat—on circumstances—"</p> + +<p>"You don't get out till about half-past four, then? I do <i>wish</i> you +weren't so awfully busy! Mr. Garrott, have you been away again? I don't +seem to have seen you at all for a good many days now."</p> + +<p>"Yes! That's it!—been away again! I go away all the time—practically. +And when I'm here, why, it's nothing but work, work, work, from morning +to night, for me! It's a wonder to me I have a friend left, I have to be +so horribly unsociable—<i>always</i>. But," continued Charles, "I'm glad I +happened by in time to be of some help. By the by, hadn't you better get +in and try her out? I don't like to rush on to my lesson till I know +you're all right."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I suppose I had. I oughtn't to stop you now."</p> + +<p>His suggestion, indeed, had a striking reasonableness. Fortunately, the +try-out proved quite successful, after only a little pushing and +kicking. But the Fordette snorted from before the Choristers' very +slowly, Angela looking back over her shoulder, smiling at him, a pretty +and appealing look on her entirely feminine face.</p> + +<p>Charles went up to his daily hour with Miss Grace, in a brown study.</p> + +<p>Miss Grace, it must be known, was a Temporary Spinster, verging toward +Permanence; she was round, gentle, blonde, by no means displeasing or +ill-looking. Had the world been the normal place Old Tories took it to +be, Miss Grace would undoubtedly have been one of those happy women who +find themselves, at twenty-five, with a home, a husband, and three +darling little curly-headed children; and there were a hundred signs +that so she would have found full happiness indeed. But the world being +not normal now, but, on the contrary, in Unrest, something remote had +gone wrong with Miss Grace, parting her from her manifest destiny. +Perhaps the panic of 1907 was to blame, or a decrease in the visible +gold supply; perhaps the trouble was in that hard saying of the +Redmantlers, that Love was going out. At any rate, here hung Miss Grace +on the parent stem in Washington Street, a Waiting Woman: the +non-understanding and unaccounted-for Anomaly in a disordered social +system; an adult human being thirty-two years old, with nothing upon +earth to do.</p> + +<p>Miss Grace's subjects were Sociology and the History of the World. An +agreeable soul herself, she noted that her tutor's manner this afternoon +was taciturn and distrait. As he was concluding his remarks upon the +thirty pages of Lester Ward that made her lesson, she noted that he lost +his thread suddenly, and left a sentence permanently hanging in mid-air. +Back into the tutor's head, in fact, the artless questionings of another +had popped with arresting force: "<i>Is this where you teach every +afternoon? You get out about half-past four?</i>" From taciturn, Mr. +Garrott's manner became restless and rather irritable. And when the hour +of four-thirty arrived, he did not snap his watch at Miss Grace and +depart at once, according to his almost invariable habit. No, he moved +in a novel manner, to the drawing-room window. And he stood there, oddly +and irresolutely, gazing out, first up the street and then down.</p> + +<p>Why had he mentioned that the lesson lasted an hour usually? Why hadn't +he said, frankly, that it lasted till five or six o'clock, and often +later?</p> + +<p>Slowly but surely the idea was being established that it was the natural +and usual thing for him and Angela to drive in the old Fordette every +day. It was time for him definitely to break up this idea. Otherwise, +what was to be the end of it all?—that was what he wanted to know. More +and more he seemed to become aware of a gentle claim, an indescribable +pressure, very soft, yet rather alarmingly sure. Why on earth couldn't +she be satisfied just to be pleasant friends once more? Why all this +talk of future meetings, of seeing you again all the time?</p> + +<p>Miss Grace stood some distance behind her tutor, observing his strange +behavior. Somehow her attitude wore the air of a typical expression of +character. Miss Grace had flutterings, as witness her growing knowledge +of the Merovingians; she even pretended to nibble fearfully at her +tutor's occasional exhortations, that she cease her parasiting and go to +work. But beneath such vague symptoms of Unrest, it was clear that she +remained as her tradition and environment had fixed her, a Woman of +Romance: that is to say, a being gladly content to serve as the +spectator and audience of Man.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Garrott," she said suddenly, in her rather childlike voice, "I +don't believe you are a bit busy this afternoon. You really must stay +for tea. Nobody's coming in, sister's out, and you know you haven't +stayed for perfect ages."</p> + +<p>To her surprise, the unsocial tutor accepted at once. He remained with +his pupil till quarter past five. Thereupon, he reached his Studio +without interruption, entirely on foot.</p> + +<p>Charles (thinking for the young girl's highest good) was rather pleased +with this development. By accident, he seemed to have hit upon quite a +satisfactory sort of <i>modus vivendi</i>: street-cars to Berringer's, and +tea at Miss Grace's till dark. Next day he tried the programme again.</p> + +<p>This time, it did not work out quite so well: the secret truth of the +matter being that, at bottom, all Spinsters have certain well-defined +points in common. That, in fact, is what makes them a class. And, +speaking in the large, you may say that there is no such thing as a +Permanent Spinster.</p> + +<p>Lessons at the Choristers' took place in the library, a stately room, +yet charming, too. Into it, a dusky maid wheeled a double-tiered +tea-table, all mahogany and glass, silver and china atop, little cakes +and small enticements on the deck below. Talk of historical matters +ceased. There sprang up light prattle of the little things Miss Grace +knew and liked best.</p> + +<p>The tutor, basking by the fireside and waiting for night, was not +unhappy. Though he frequently lectured Miss Grace, through long use he +really liked her. Now, he was also consciously grateful for her haven +from the too social life of Washington Street. That he could not go on +taking tea with Miss Grace every day for the rest of his life he, of +course, knew well; but he would just take each day's problems as he came +to them. Meanwhile, this Spinster supplied a quiet charm. Her hands +hovered ministeringly over the tea-table. For a plumpish woman, she had +noticeably small hands, graceful and white. When the tutor made her a +civil compliment, she colored like a school-girl.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus7" id="illus7"></a> +<img src="images/illus7.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>THIS SPINSTER SUPPLIED A QUIET CHARM</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Following the compliment there was a moment of fire-lit silence. And +then Miss Grace's voice said softly and sweetly:</p> + +<p>"You are looking at my ring. I'm wearing it—"</p> + +<p>So that ended <i>that</i>.</p> + +<p>The tutor was on his feet so abruptly as to set the tea-things shaking.</p> + +<p>"No! No, I wasn't—I swear! I must go at once," said Charles.</p> + +<p>Unaware of the painful memories her womanly words evoked, Miss Grace +naturally looked very much surprised.</p> + +<p>"But—<i>what's</i> the matter? Why, you act as if it were something improper +for you to look at my ring!"</p> + +<p>"Absurd," said the tutor, with a gesture.</p> + +<p>He had merely remembered, all of a sudden, something very important he +had to do, that was all. Pardon his haste, but he had already stayed too +long, he feared.</p> + +<p>Indifferent to Miss Grace's bewilderment, he left at once, wondering if +voluntary celibacy could not exist, and be respected, upon this earth. +And next day, as he stood on the corner of Center Street awaiting his +good, safe street-car—indeed, as he was in the very act of boarding the +said safe car—the little Fordette chugged up behind and nipped him.</p> + +<p>It was a pure accident, and he knew it. But he saw at once that no +accident could well have been less opportune. It involved a discovery +highly prejudicial to his future.</p> + +<p>Angela, indeed, had not even seen Mr. Garrott. She had merely perceived, +rounding the corner into her own street, that she was about to run over +somebody, and had awkwardly clapped on her brake, just in time. +Recognizing her friend in the person she had so nearly bumped, she gave +a little feminine cry of mirth and excitement; and, while she apologized +and laughed over the strange coincidence, Charles's car, of course, +suddenly clanged away and left him. The rest followed, as the night the +day.</p> + +<p>Almost the first thing she said was: "Oh, is <i>this</i> where you take the +street-cars, when you haven't time to walk?"</p> + +<p>Charles's reply indicated that he was very erratic and uncertain in +these matters, taking the cars now at one point, now again in a totally +different quarter of the city.</p> + +<p>So the two friends, no longer constrained by misunderstanding, started +off on the slow mile drive to Berringer's. In the course of this drive, +Charles had his first justifying thought of Mary Wing in ten days.</p> + +<p>He recognized, with deep misgivings, that this girl's attitude toward +him was wholly ingenuous and natural, the "claim" he complained of but +the spontaneous expression of her girlish conception of their relations. +That, of course, was just the worst of it; in that naïveté (oh, surely +this was the Naïve Sex!) was her soft strength. He, with his cursed weak +politeness, knew not how to withstand her maidenly theory; she, on the +other hand, had new means of putting it forward constantly. All was +changed, he saw now clearly, from the instant when she came riding back +into his life at the wheel of the ancient Fordette.</p> + +<p>How was he to have any privacy of movement henceforward; how get from +place to place?</p> + +<p>Beside him, the girl was talking, with simple pleasure, of bridge. It +appeared that she was thinking of having another party next week, in +honor of Cousin Mary. Mr. Tilletts was very anxious to improve his game, +she mentioned.</p> + +<p>"And I think I'll invite you too," she said, with becoming +coquetry—"even though you've never paid your party-call—for the other +one!"</p> + +<p>But why wasn't she sometimes at home, home-making? That was what he +should like to know.</p> + +<p>And aloud, he spoke with hard brightness of the weather.</p> + +<p>Through her seemingly incessant practice, Angela drove better now; not +efficiently or rapidly, but no longer with her first anxious air, +stopping short when she saw a wagon a block away. This left her more +freedom and enterprise for conversation. Mr. Garrott's meteorological +comments soon petered out. Subtly, gently, her manner seemed to reprove +him for wasting their time, as it were, on trivialities.</p> + +<p>She said presently: "Did you ever read that book I lent you, Mr. +Garrott—'Marna'?"</p> + +<p>The young man groaned inwardly. He could not understand why he had not +returned the book last week as he had intended—with or without the +blossoms—instead of dilly-dallying along this way, till some point was +made of it. True enough, Angela interrupted his loquacious apologies:—</p> + +<p>"Oh, it isn't that! I really don't want the book at all. But—"</p> + +<p>She drove a few feet farther—an appreciable interval at four miles an +hour—and ended, rather wistfully:—</p> + +<p>"I wondered if you weren't keeping it—for another reason. I mean—just +because you didn't want to come to return it."</p> + +<p>"Why, what an idea! Ridiculous!—"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Garrott, you know you <i>have</i> seemed to—since—"</p> + +<p>"You've no idea how overworked I am these days—never a minute to call +my own! Why, there's your cousin, Mary Wing,—one of my best +friends,—and I haven't so much as laid eyes on her—but once—since +'way before Christmas! Think of it! And that's—"</p> + +<p>"You used to be willing to take a <i>little</i> time for pleasure," said +Angela, looking away from him, "before—we had that awful +misunderstanding."</p> + +<p>"It gets worse and worse all the time!" said Charles, hastily. "That's +what I say! That's writing!—yes, indeed!—inexorable—once let it into +your life, and it eats it all up—forcing a man to be a—a hermit for +life, you might say. But there was something I was very anxious to tell +you, Miss Flower. Let me see ... slipped me for the moment. Ah—oh, +yes!—did you know Donald Manford's back again?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! No, is he? I hadn't heard."</p> + +<p>"Yes, old Donald got back Sunday, full of pride and honors...."</p> + +<p>And then into the eyes of the worried young man there shot a faint +gleam.</p> + +<p>He had mentioned Donald absolutely at random, but the moment he heard +the youth's name on the air, an idea exploded in his brain, leaving +behind a dull hope. Unlike himself, Donald was a marrying man. Why, when +you stopped to think of it, wasn't Angela the very girl for him? And +why, then, shouldn't he, Charles, frankly reversing his purposes at the +Helen Carson luncheon last month, bring together once more these two +nice, simple cousins of the too-modern Mary, just as he had done that +night at the Redmantle Club, when all the trouble had begun?</p> + +<p>Of course, at the moment, Charles's "psychology" was not quite so +elaborate as this. The thought, indeed, flashed through his brain in +purely concrete form, thus: "<i>That's it! I'll put her on to Donald.</i>"</p> + +<p>Forthwith, he launched upon a voluble talk, an address, at once +extolling Donald's character and throwing out suggestive commentaries +upon it: how Donald had come home in the vein of a boy let out of +school, seeming to feel that at last his playtime had come; how he (so +different from himself, Charles) openly sought and hungered for pleasure +now, was mad for some good times. And, observing closely, he thought +that Miss Angela looked interested in his exposition, too, though hardly +so interested as one might have liked, perhaps.</p> + +<p>"Why, I didn't think he was that sort of person at all," said she.</p> + +<p>"I've never seen a man change so—come out so—in my life! Landing this +great job, you know!—it's taken a great weight off him. And then the +thought that he has only a few weeks more at home, too—it's really +revolutionized his character! Why, Miss Flower, the man's all but quit +work! Really! He ..."</p> + +<p>A knocking sense of disloyalty—to Mary's known plans—checked him, but +briefly. What was that to him now? Had not Mary convinced him, once and +for all, that she was more than competent to manage her own affairs? +Deliberately, the young man released his valuable information:—</p> + +<p>"Why, he leaves his office every afternoon at four o'clock—rain or +shine—and walks up Washington Street, absolutely hunting for somebody +to come and give him a little fun! But who is there to do it? He's been +out of things so long, he hardly knows anybody! And then, too, Donald, +beneath that—ah—standoffish manner of his, is really a shy man. What +he needs most, really, is encouragement...."</p> + +<p>To all of which Angela's final reply—delivered after a slight +silence—was: "You seem to love to talk about Mr. Manford to-day, Mr. +Garrott." And then she took the wind out of his sails completely by +saying:—</p> + +<p>"I don't think of Mr. Manford really as a friend of mine. You know—I +often think you're the only real friend I've made, since we left +Mitchellton."</p> + +<p>During the remainder of the drive, Charles thought it best to affect an +amiable absent silence. But that gained him nothing, any more than his +treachery to Donald and Miss Carson. Before she released him at the now +too familiar corner near Berringer's, the girl said, simply and +seriously:—</p> + +<p>"Mr. Garrott—aren't you really <i>ever</i> coming to see me again?"</p> + +<p>Why again? When had he ever been to see her? And why all this talk of a +misunderstanding? <i>He</i> had never misunderstood anything.</p> + +<p>"Why, yes!—yes, certainly!—when I ever find a minute to see anybody! +Ha, ha! But—when that'll be—"</p> + +<p>It was her great merit in his eyes that she had never really reproached +him. It seemed to cost her an effort to go on:—</p> + +<p>"You've never forgiven me for—for saying what I did that night. You +know you haven't! But if you'd ever come to see me—so that we could +really have a talk—I feel I could make you understand that I—never +really meant it!"</p> + +<p>The maiden's gaze at once embarrassed and vastly depressed him. In it he +read, as if spread upon a bill-board, her soft certainty that, though he +himself might not realize it yet, he was her man....</p> + +<p>In the restaurant, the four or five entirely masculine persons with whom +Charles commonly lunched took note of his peculiar gloom. It was their +whim to assume that a valued pupil had just discharged Charles without a +character. Theirs was a crude and noisy wit. But the tutor ignored, +hardly heard, their gibes. He sat withdrawn and silent over his chicken +hash (for which Berringer had no less than fourteen different names). +And before his fascinated mind's eye there unrolled an endless vista of +driving duets, with the gentle feminine pressure closing down ever more +and more irresistibly upon him.</p> + +<p>What to do, what to do? That was the question. There did not seem to be +a corner of the city now where the Fordette did not go poking its ugly +mug.</p> + +<p>All very well to say: Be bold, be cold. Refuse under any conditions to +get into the Fordette. That, to him, was simply not a possible line of +conduct. Inability to be successfully rude to people, even under the +most favorable circumstances, had long been recognized as the damnable +flaw in his character. And as to this very peculiar case—how could the +roughest boor, the most thoroughgoing cad, repel and affront a nice +young girl whom he voluntarily kissed but last month—one whose only +fault, after all, was a fatal constancy?</p> + +<p>Now he fairly confronted the two distinct and fundamental weaknesses in +his position: the moral and the mechanical, the Kiss and the Fordette. A +just thinker always, he would not deny, even now, that it was his own +free-will act that had first altered everything. If he took the ground +that he had kissed, with warmth, a girl he cared nothing on earth about, +what sort of person did that make him? No better than a Frenchman, daft +about La Femme. She, it could not be gainsaid, really paid him a finer +compliment, took the nobler view of him, when she assumed that those +salutes had signified something. She was not without right to her naïve +confidence. And now that she had this maidenly expectancy firmly mounted +upon a gasoline engine—do what he would, he could not escape a ripening +affection. She would get a call out of him yet. There would be another +bridge-party, and he would be at it. And after the bridge-party....</p> + +<p>Alone with his thoughts among his noisy companions, Charles drew a +handkerchief across his brow. A Home was, indeed, a sweet and beautiful +thing. But the positive fact was that he, Charles, did <span class="smcap">NOT</span> want one made +for him at present. And still, the soft advance that leads straight to +Homes pressed resistlessly on.</p> + +<p>Great Heavens, what a price to pay for one little kiss on a sofa!... +Well, two or three little bits of kisses, then. What a price! What was +the reason of it, where the justice?</p> + +<p>He spoke aloud, for almost the first time at his lunch, with sudden +heat: "I believe I'll move away from this town!"</p> + +<p>The remark elicited a shout of laughter. In the midst of it, the tutor +rose and stalked intently away. It had just occurred to him that he +might force a quarrel on Angela, on some trivial pretext: pretend that +she had hurt his feelings in some way—about not returning that book of +hers, perhaps—something like that. The old dodge: a million men must +have worked it. But even as he dallied with the notion, Charles knew +very well that the ruthless strength was not in him. Besides, his +thought now had taken a cold retrospective turn, interesting in its way: +the sight of Talbott Maxon, grinning there, had roused old associations +in him. Talbott was a good one to laugh! But the Oldmixon girls had had +him laughing out of the other corner of his mouth.</p> + +<p>How had he ever lost sight of <i>that</i> little affair?</p> + +<p>People like G. B. Shaw might go about pretending that they had invented +the idea of Woman the Pursuer. But the fact was that he, Charles, had +personally discovered the elementary truth before he was out of his +teens. Experience, you would have said, had driven it home +unforgettably. All the way up to the old lady's who was studying French, +tucked away in an obscure corner of the street-car, Charles was soberly +going back over the instructive time he and Talbott had had with a group +of Temporary Spinsters—all of five years ago—and wondering how under +the sun he had ever allowed its lessons to grow dim.</p> + +<p>That old trouble had started casually, too—how sharply it all came back +now! At a dance it was, when Talbott, who was also fatally kind-hearted +(and was pushed by a chaperon from behind, besides), had invited Susie +Oldmixon to abandon the wall for the waltz. Of course, he had been stuck +for four dances for his pains: of course Miss Oldmixon—a womanly +girl—had misconceived the character of that long set-to; of course she +invited him to a party in a day or two. Then it was that Talbott, +sensing how things were going, had introduced him, Charles, much as a +cowardly conscript offers a substitute. But the base act had gained him +nothing; the Oldmixons produced a friend of theirs, Sarah Freed,—how he +came to loathe the sight of Sarah!—and upon the instant, he and Talbott +found themselves caught up together in a literally endless chain of +little engagements, usually thus: a party, a party-call, another party, +etc. Naturally, they had early had the bright thought of breaking the +chain by not paying any party-call; and at once, this very same kind of +soft pressure was put upon their weak chivalrousness: "Ethel thinks you +must be mad with her," one or the other of the loyal sisters would say. +"You know you've never paid your party-call." If they yielded, and went +and paid their party-call, it was not considered that they had then +discharged their duty like soldiers; no, by an inexplicable shift in the +point of view, the call was straightway viewed as a personal +"attention," and they were at once invited to another party. So it went: +these girls had reduced to an intuitive science the feminine instinct +for making one thing lead to another. Of course they were always +offering to teach him and Talbott something, as auction or the Boston; +always trying to lend them something—like "Marna"—which would have to +be returned. And even if all the regulation pitfalls were fairly +side-stepped, it really accomplished nothing, for in that case Sarah or +the Oldmixons were sure to have a Visitor. Even Sarah Freed, of course, +rather hesitated to ring you up on the telephone and say: "Please, +please, come to see me! You know I haven't a thing in the world to do +but sit and think about men, and you're the only man who has spoken +politely to me since 1908." But none of the virgins minded at all +ringing you up and saying, "Do come to see my Visitor."</p> + +<p>The worst thing in it all (reflected Charles, with worriment, in the +street-car) was that Sarah and the Oldmixons were far from being brazen +hussies; they were really nice girls, only sharpened a little by tedium +and the creeping fear of "failure." Odd though it seemed, they actually +remained almost completely unconscious of their own processes. And still +it had taken him and Talbott nearly a year to get out of the soft +vicious circle; and still he remembered distinctly that they had then +agreed upon the following as their invariable rule of conduct, +thenceforward: Never be polite to a womanly girl, unless positive you +want to marry her.</p> + +<p>A <i>year</i>! And of course he had never kissed Sarah and the Oldmixons, +either....</p> + +<p>Charles went on his rounds in a humor of fatalistic despondence. The +mood proved premature, decidedly: while there is life, there is hope. +And it seemed that he, by too much thinking, had wrongly discounted the +promising aspects of his case. He had builded rather better than he +knew.</p> + +<p>When his lesson with Miss Grace was over, at four-thirty that afternoon, +the tutor said gloomily:—</p> + +<p>"I can't stay for tea to-day. But I think I'll just stand here, and look +out of the window a little while."</p> + +<p>Of course, after yesterday, there could be no more tea-taking. Equally +of course, caution was more needed than ever. "Don't wait for me," +muttered Charles, reconnoitering, to Miss Grace. And then he forgot her +entirely as his eye, shooting out the window, fell upon Donald Manford +sauntering carelessly along, over the sunny street.</p> + +<p>From the Choristers' window, Charles gazed out at his young friend with +moroseness and moody envy. What he had told Angela about this youth was +(by chance) almost literally true. Donald—hitherto a hard worker, +through Mary Wing's unceasing influence—<i>was</i> visibly relaxing the ties +he was so soon to sever; he <i>had</i> come home in distinctly a holiday +humor. And a lot of good that did him, Charles! Donald walked Washington +Street there with utter free-and-easiness, with almost insolent +impunity. Dull, lucky Donald! He, of course, did not have the devilish +gift; Donald kissed no one. No one viewed Donald as her own true man; no +home-maker chased him all over the city in a Fordette.</p> + +<p>Behind him, Miss Grace pushed a flat button on the wall and said: +"Tea'll be ready in a minute, Mr. Garrott. You really might as well +stay, you know, as stand there looking out of the window."</p> + +<p>The tutor made no reply. In fact, he did not hear Miss Grace. By strange +luck, he was in the grip of an extraordinary, a truly fascinating +experience. Quite suddenly, his ears had been captured by a sound from +the street, a sound that had an arresting familiarity among all other +sounds, a peculiar whirring, a rumbling, and a snorting, insistent, +growing louder. Upon earth, was there but one noise like that?</p> + +<p>Swifter than a bullet, Charles's eyes had gone speeding down the +spacious street. And his heart leapt up within him as they lighted upon +the self-propelling conveyance approaching—but half a block away, +chugging steadily nearer....</p> + +<p>Yes, his word to the wise had not been wholly wasted, it seemed. There +rumbled the good little Fordette after unconscious Donald, gaining on +him, gaining almost rapidly....</p> + +<p>"Mr. Garrott, what <i>are</i> you looking at?"</p> + +<p>"Oh!... Nothing," said the tutor in a muffled voice.</p> + +<p>But in truth, he was looking, with breathless interest, at the fairest +sight seen by him in many a long day. Safe behind the Choristers' +curtains, with general joy, with the acute delights of a born +strategist, Charles saw what had so often happened to him, happen now to +poor old Donald.</p> + +<p>By odd coincidence, it fell out that the re-meeting of Mary Wing's two +cousins took place within fifty feet of the Choristers' window. What +more natural than that Angela, in the moment of passing her home-come +friend, should look over her shoulder and speak a pleasant greeting? Or +that Donald, surprised and civil, should unconsciously take a responsive +step or two toward the sudden speaker of the greeting? What more +certain than death or taxes but that the Fordette should thereupon come +to a halt—which it did so easily and naturally? (Oh, how perfectly +simple it all was, as you stood off and watched, how gentle and friendly +and inexorable!) Casual talk seemed to spring up: how easily Charles, +peeping with starting eyes between the parted curtains, could imagine it +all!—"I'm so glad to see you back! I've wanted so to congratulate you +on your great success! I'm crazy to hear about Wyoming!" And presently +those crucial words, so innocent-looking, so sweet: "Mr. Manford, won't +you let me," etc. "Truly I'm just out for a drive." And—sure +enough—oh, by George! <i>Hooray!</i> There was the poor fool grinning; there +he was compressing himself, clambering right into the jaws. <i>Ah, there, +Miss Mary!...</i> And there the two young people went snorting away up the +street: perfectly normally, though something in Donald's cramped +position, his long legs hunched up to his chin, did oddly suggest a +captive, seized and bound.</p> + +<p>The tutor astonished Miss Grace by bursting into a wild roar of +laughter.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>But of course, he understood, on cool analysis, that this really settled +nothing. That exciting spectacle, which seemed to make the whole process +so extremely concrete, represented a hope, nothing more. And the more +this hope was scrutinized, the less substantial it seemed to become. +Walking safely home in the golden afternoon, Charles suddenly recalled, +with cold annoyance, a remark Donald had made, after his second walk +with Angela in November: "Charlie, she worries me." And Angela, for her +part,—though of course womanly, and hence agreeably plastic in her +affections,—really seemed hardly more attracted to Donald, as yet. +Charles thought he knew the reason, too. With a fresh chill, he recalled +the look the girl had given him, on the corner near Berringer's, +to-day.</p> + +<p>Had he really "put her on" to Donald even in the remotest degree? Was it +not highly probable that she, patrolling Washington Street at +four-thirty, had been looking, not for Donald, but for another?</p> + +<p>Of course, there could not be the slightest doubt that—for the present, +at least—Angela preferred him to Donald, infinitely, unreasonably. And +Angela usually got what she wanted, too, it seemed. For example, she had +wanted to move her family from Mitchellton to this city, where he, +Charles, lived. And she had moved.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XV" id="XV"></a>XV</h2> + + +<p>He fell instinctively into a small manœuvre, which was merely this: +that he quietly shifted forward his public itinerary by quarter of an +hour. Next day, he started rapidly toward the street-cars at quarter +before one, and shot out of Miss Grace's at quarter past four, sharp. +Ultimate detection was certain, of course; but for the moment the +trifling ruse did seem to win a hardly hoped-for respite in the headlong +courtship. Neither on Friday, nor again on Monday, was the Home-Making +Fordette so much as seen. And the next disturbance of the authority's +delicate social scales, and of the author's Line, came, as might be +said, from precisely the opposite direction.</p> + +<p>In the Studio, matters had continued to progress backward. Once here, +and the door safely shut, Charles had been steadily at work, the +hymeneal shadow put resolutely from his mind. No writer's time, he had +pledged himself, should go to somber meditations on the cosmic +consequences of a kiss, still less to fruitless bitterness concerning +wasted write-ups, the hardness of Egoettes, etc. Day by day, he had +wooed that subtle calm of the spirit which is the bread and meat of +authors; night by night, expended himself in the service of pure +Letters. And it had all been for nothing.</p> + +<p>Contrary to explicit resolve, in short, he had been making a fresh +attempt at his new novel, hoping—rather weakly—that his mind wasn't +quite so unsettled as he secretly knew it was. And, once more, he had +been well punished for his rashness. Symptoms of weakness having +developed increasingly through the week just past, on Monday evening +Charles took his medicine, just before supper. Ten thousand words of +brand-new manuscript lay in his drawer there; and he would be lucky if +he could save a thousand of them for the novel that should be.</p> + +<p>Of the "line" taken by this second abortive effort, the less said the +better. It suffices to suggest that if Mary Wing had been a totally +different sort of person, it might never have been undertaken at all.</p> + +<p>Of all ways of spending the time known among men, unquestionably the +most abominable, the most nerve-wrecking and devilish, is Thinking up a +Book. Charles smoked box after box of cigarettes, couldn't sleep at +night, talked in his sleep when he did, and was growing a scowl between +his brows almost as dark as poor Two-Book McGee's—the interesting Type +that was leading its own life and wished it weren't. The final +conviction of the worthlessness of his work was hardly calculated to +improve the young man's state of mind. He was, indeed, profoundly +discouraged and concerned. For ten weeks now he had been struggling to +isolate a point of view which would at once "carry" all his newer +observations on his Subject, and command the support of his unqualified +conviction. And to-night he seemed further away from his goal than he +had been the day he finished "Bondwomen."</p> + +<p>However, what brought Charles's humor to a sudden head this evening, +what precipitated the fury in which Donald Manford found him—Donald, +entering so happy and fine in the evening regalia which the match-making +Mary seemed to clap on him every night nowadays—by chance had not to do +with his own book at all, but with another's.</p> + +<p>In short, the young author, very injudiciously in view of his resolve to +think of Egoettes no more, had been dipping into "Marna."</p> + +<p>This book of Angela's had long lain as a plague on the mind of Charles. +For a space, he had not returned the book because of the estrangement, +or misunderstanding; for another space, because of the swiftly ripening +intimacy, compelling the general policy of lying low; and now a large +fresh obstacle had risen, in the girl's unfortunate remarks directly +connecting the return of her book with a call. Whether, after that, he +could harden his heart to slip "Marna" back to her by the hand of the +Judge—without any appreciative blossoms, needless to say—remained to +be seen. So long as the situation remained as it was, Charles had +decided simply not to take up the worry at all.</p> + +<p>Hence Angela's book rested, gathering dust on the Studio mantel. And, +chancing to come on it in his moody pacings after supper, the author had +picked it up, in mere resentment at its being there. Standing hostilely, +he permitted himself to skim a few pages of the stuff, toward the end. +Next, with growing intention, he looked into the middle. And finally, +he sat frankly down with "Marna" in the Judge's new easy-chair.</p> + +<p>It had occurred to him that it was probably his professional duty to see +what sort of line on the Unrest the other fellows were taking these +days. This book here was enjoying an immense vogue; every newspaper +reminded you that it was the Best Selling Book in America. What truth, +then, did it have to tell? Or—put more simply—it may be that Charles +had merely fallen a weak victim to the true writer's continual +temptation and longing, viz.: to clutch at anything, anything, that will +keep him from having to write, or think up.</p> + +<p>Angela's book (which was so strangely unlike Angela) had come from the +typewriter of a brilliant and industrious British Thinker. From the +"literary criticism" and publisher's advertising that he read—and he +seemed to read little else in these days—Charles had already gathered +that "Marna" followed that simple "ultra-modern" line which to him, with +his expanding knowledge, now seemed so oddly old-fashioned. In his +standing skim just now, he had noted, with quickening distaste, how +easily <i>Marna</i> accomplished a glorious Career: as, indeed, a girl has +small excuse for not doing, when she has an able author working for her +night and day. In particular, he observed that her "demonstrating +experiment in freer forms of union" turned out far more happily than +poor unauthored Flora Trevenna's. As well as Charles could make out, +<i>Marna's</i> swain not only had a wife living when she met him, but was +engaged to another woman besides. But when the splendid girl said to +him, on page 478: "What a joy, beloved, to strike back at the grubby +little people who're trying to fetter the love-spirit! Ah, but I'm glad +you're married!"—after this, every one knew that it was all up with <i>De +Bevoies</i>, who, being a poet, could hardly be expected to argue back at +agreeable talk of this sort. (<i>Marna</i> had met him at an anarchist +"social"; he was stunningly modern, and borrowed two pounds from her the +first thing next morning.) Not long after the talkative but Higher +Honeymoon on the Breton Coast, <i>Mrs. De Bevoies</i> died, with thoughtful +promptness, and it was noted that the New couple at once adopted the +old-established form of union, after all, and (of course) quickly became +the toasts of London.</p> + +<p>"<i>George!...</i> How easy writing would be," thought Charles, with great +indignation—"if only the truth were as simple as that!"</p> + +<p>And then, seated under the lamp Wallie Flower had so skillfully +repaired, he turned to page 1, intent upon getting this other fellow's +heroine, and her Career, at the point of origin. The <i>Twexhams</i>, he +learned, lived quietly, thirty miles from London. (Their address, if it +is of the smallest interest, was Fernleigh Cottage, the Priory, Dean's +Highgate, Lower-Minter-on-the-Mavern, Essex.) <i>Marna Twexham</i> had the +striking beauty conventional among the Freewomen of fiction. Having had +a year at college, attended several gatherings in the Redmantle Club +vein, and read three or more books in which unmarried women told the +truth about Life, she inevitably reached the conclusion that it was her +duty to make herself free. Put in another way, she saw that it was her +duty to go to London. For, of course, "young women of genius" understand +perfectly that freedom is a matter of geography, a metropolitan +consummation, as we might term it, and would properly smile at the +antediluvian who maintained that people can be free in the suburbs, if +they can be anywhere. Thus <i>Marna</i> smiled at the old fogey, her father, +who opposed her going to London to be free. It seemed that the old chap, +for reasons Charles could not fathom, actually wanted to keep the girl +with him. "There are dangers in London that a good woman knows nothing +of," he said, warningly; but <i>Marna</i> eyed him so knowingly that he +changed his tune at once. "You are all we have left, Marny dear," he +wheedled. "Don't go away from us—yet, at any rate." "Why is it assumed +that a woman who does not choose to marry is <i>left</i>?" asked the wise +strong girl; and while her father scratched his head over this poser, +she continued, firm but kind: "Really, you know, Dad, the idea that +people have got to spend their lives together merely because of an +accidental birth relation—really, you know, all that's jolly well +played out. We've proved quite too awfully much about the beastly +repressive influence of the family-tie." "But your sister!—poor invalid +Muriel!" pleaded old <i>Twexham</i>. "She loves you so much, she so dependent +on you! It will kill her to—" <i>Marna's</i> smile, checking his maundering, +was a great credit to her self-control (the author said). To set up +playing checkers with a neurasthenic spinster, against a soul's sacred +duty to itself and mankind! "Can't you really see, Dad," she said, quite +patiently, "that a trained nurse can look after my sister much more +efficiently than I can?" "It isn't that—exactly," faltered the +moss-back parent. "It's your love she needs. And—I feel that you <i>do</i> +belong to us, Marny dear! I feel that—" "No, father," replied the +glorious creature, gazing out the oriel window, over the terrace, +rose-garden, etc., and into the morning sun. "I belong—out there! Such +small abilities as I may possess," said <i>Marna</i> with exquisite modesty, +"belong to the Race. Such small contributions as I may be able to make +to the thought of my time, I dare not withhold. I cannot be weakly +sentimental—and stay," she concluded, with some feeling. (And indeed +Dean's Highgate <i>was</i> a quiet, dull place; Lower-Minter-on-the-Mavern, +also.) Presently, the old fellow broke down and wept, and then <i>Marna</i>, +repelled, eyeing him as if he were something odd and decidedly +contemptible, said firmly ...</p> + +<p>"Nasty little beast!" cried Charles Garrott, aloud.</p> + +<p>He leapt from Judge Blenso's easy-chair, and glared about like one +desirous of something to kick, and that right quickly. Then, with a +flashing understanding of his need, he went springing toward the Studio +window. And passionately he flung the window wide, and passionately he +hurled the best-selling book in America forth into the winter night.</p> + +<p>"Faugh!" shouted Charles.</p> + +<p>Down in dark Mason Street, the shooting "Marna" struck the limb of a +large tree, and caroming violently, bounded back against a passing old +gentleman in a black felt hat, who looked like a Confederate veteran. +The old 'un, starting with annoyance, clapped a hand to his shoulder, +and gazed round and up; then, suddenly catching sight of the young man +standing at the third-story window, he shouted something in a high angry +voice, and brandished an aged arm with menace. But the young man merely +continued to stand there, silently scowling down at him. So then the old +gentleman, composing himself but resolved that he should not be smitten +for nothing, picked up Miss Angela Flower's new book from the sidewalk +before him, dusted it carefully with an experienced handkerchief, and +hobbled away with it into the darkness.</p> + +<p>"Disgusting little Egoette!" said Charles, scowling after him.... "And +that's the sort of stuff that passes for <i>thinking</i> nowadays! That's the +stuff our women are reading, forming their—"</p> + +<p>"Who're you cussing out the window, Charlie?" said Donald Manford's +hearty voice behind him.</p> + +<p>Charles wheeled sharply.</p> + +<p>He resented being walked in on this way; resented all companionship from +his kind just now; in especial, he resented Donald Manford's contented, +care-free face. At the same time, this face of Donald's awakened other +and different emotions, relative to the slim hope it embodied, and +enjoining tact, some cunning.</p> + +<p>So, controlling himself, Charles merely said: "Well? What're you horning +in here for?"</p> + +<p>"Dying for one glimpse of your sweet phiz. Nice welcome!" laughed the +young engineer, exuberantly. "But how'd you ever get into a street-row, +Charlie, out of your third-story window?"</p> + +<p>"Oh!... Just talking to myself. Bad habit of mine," he said, with an +effort. "You're rather flossy to-night!—out to give the girls a treat, +I gather. Let's see. German, I suppose?" Laying his tall hat tenderly on +the Judge's little typewriter-table, Donald acknowledged the soft +impeachment.</p> + +<p>"Well, who's the lucky lady, this time?—Or maybe you're stagging?"</p> + +<p>"Who, me? Not on your life! I've got Miss Carson again—lucky thing!"</p> + +<p>"Indeed," said the author, coldly.</p> + +<p>"And a pippin she is too! Talk about clever, Charlie! By Jove, there's a +girl that makes a fellow use his cocoa all the time, let me tell you!"</p> + +<p>Charles sat down heavily at his writing-table, and lit a cigarette. Mary +Wing managed her affairs well, indeed. He spoke with mysterious +bitterness:—</p> + +<p>"You <i>are</i> blossoming out! If anybody'd told me last year that you'd be +praising one of the new highbrow sisters, I'd have kicked him downstairs +for a liar."</p> + +<p>"When a girl can look like that, my boy—"</p> + +<p>"Developing into a regular man-flirt too, aren't you? Last I heard of +you, you were driving up Washington Street with Miss Flower."</p> + +<p>Instead of resenting the odious epithet, Donald's face was seen to +assume a pleased smirk.</p> + +<p>"Ho!—had your spies on me, have you? Why, did we pass you to-day?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus8" id="illus8"></a> +<img src="images/illus8.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>"HO!—HAD YOUR SPIES ON ME, HAVE YOU?"</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Charles's heart seemed to leap a little. "Why, no," he said, sweetly. "I +was speaking of one day last week. So you stole another drive +to-day—you sly rascal!"</p> + +<p>"Don't know that you'd call it driving, exactly. Where'd that brother of +hers dig the little four-wheeler, d'you s'pose? I thought that kind were +extinct, same as the Dodo—"</p> + +<p>"Why, I think it's a very nice little car, Donald! Small, old-fashioned, +yes—but very comfortable and—easy-going. I've—ah—had a—a number of +pleasant drives in it. The real trouble is," said Charles, with immense +carelessness, "she honestly doesn't know how to manage it very well as +yet. And I, of course, don't know how to teach her—unfortunately."</p> + +<p>Having seated himself in Judge Blenso's chair, Donald was lighting, with +a lordly air, one of Judge Blenso's cigars; the Judge himself being at +his club, through lack of interest in the Studio. Extinguishing his +match by waving it languidly back and forth, the youth said, with a +faint reminiscent smile:—</p> + +<p>"Well, I gave her a pretty good lesson this afternoon, far as that goes. +Had a very fairish time, too. Nice little girl, she is."</p> + +<p>The author gazed, with a sort of nervous incredulity. He laughed +hurriedly.</p> + +<p>"Nice!—well, I should say so! She's—she's charming! You'll have to +look pretty sharp if you want any more drives there—too much +competition! But, of course, she may not be <i>bookish</i> enough, to suit +your new taste—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, bookish, no. She's not that sort. I'll tell you what your little +friend is, Charlie," said the young engineer, with an air of +insufferable conceit. "She's what <i>I</i> call a womanly woman."</p> + +<p>Charles averted his eyes. This simple fool's quick response to the +"putting on" treatment almost passed belief. Unquestionably, Donald was +far more receptive to feminine influences now, than he had been in his +industrious pre-Wyoming days; again, mere use, mere custom and +propinquity, were famous for accomplishing just these wonders. Still, +Charles's philosophic overmind, contrasting this grin on Donald's face +with that unflattering remark of his last November, threw out a +different concept, viz.: that perseverance in a woman is a marvelous +thing.</p> + +<p>But the hope, though it shot up delightfully, was a thin one yet. Dull +Donald went on knowingly:—</p> + +<p>"But speaking of the competition, what's happened to you, old horse?"</p> + +<p>"How do you mean, happened to me?"</p> + +<p>"Your little friend says you used to meet her nearly every day for a +drive, but now you haven't been seen for days. I told her you'd probably +changed your hours a little, as I'd seen you at lunch earlier than—"</p> + +<p>"You did?" said the author, looking at the engineer with unconcealed +annoyance. "Well, you were mistaken, that's all! You had no business to +say anything of the sort. Of course, my hours may vary a little—in +fact, they vary a good deal. Great heavens, I—"</p> + +<p>"Well, don't get peevish about it!—friendly tip I'm giving you, that's +all. She thinks you're mad with her—do you get me? Says you've never +forgiven her for something she said to you once—some misunderstanding +you had—you know, I guess—"</p> + +<p>"Why, damnation, we never <i>had</i> any misunderstanding! I'm <i>busy</i>! I +don't undertake to start to lunch at a certain particular second—"</p> + +<p>"Well, don't tell it to me!" said Donald, cheerfully. "Trot along and +explain it to her, that's the way.—I say, Charlie—change the +subject—did I tell you what old Gebhardt said to me the first day we +looked over the plans? About my concrete bridge over Sankey River?"</p> + +<p>And then the childish egotistical youth was off. It seemed, indeed, that +the monologue ensuing was what he had come for; it seemed that he had +dressed himself one hour too early for the German with just this most +agreeable of all purposes in his mind: to sit and have a good long talk +about himself. Charles received his boastings with restless boredom, +marking meaninglessly on the pad before him, moodily biding his time. He +could have kicked Donald for his stupidity in mentioning his trifling +change of hours; but of course his need was to get the conversation back +to Angela quietly, without arousing the slightest suspicion. His need +was that Donald should agree to give Angela regular lessons in driving +the Fordette, every day through the lunch-hour.</p> + +<p>But Donald, happening to note the face of Big Bill, came suddenly to his +feet: and then, as suddenly, gave the talk an unlooked-for turn.</p> + +<p>"I say, Charlie! How about you and old Blenso for the Wings' apartment?"</p> + +<p>Charles's head came slowly round. "How about what?"</p> + +<p>"Dashed sight more comfortable than up your two flights here!"</p> + +<p>"The Wings' apartment is for rent?"</p> + +<p>"Didn't you know that, old stick-in-the-mud? What's the matter with you? +Mary's been hunting a tenant for two weeks."</p> + +<p>Charles, finding it unnecessary to state that he had not seen Mary for +exactly that length of time,—barring one very transient meeting on the +street,—merely indicated, without any polish, that, not being a +gadabout ass like some, he made no pretense of keeping up with all the +latest tittle-tattle.</p> + +<p>He then asked, in a voice indicating no interest in the subject: "What's +Mrs. Wing going to do?"</p> + +<p>"Going to North Carolina to live with Fanny."</p> + +<p>"With Fanny!... I suppose she didn't consider going with Miss Mary?"</p> + +<p>"Couldn't stand the pressure. Why, New York would kill her off like a +fly! And besides, she doesn't want to get too far away from the Warders, +you know. Of course, Fanny can't make her very comfortable just now—but +we talked it all over and that seemed the best arrangement, all round."</p> + +<p>"I see."</p> + +<p>"Mary can't turn back now, of course. Well, Charlie," said Donald, +earnestly, "I don't hold with her fool notions, and all that but hang it +all!—she's no ordinary woman, and this is no ordinary job. Those people +are giving her two assistants and $5000 a year. What d'you know about +that for a poor little girl?"</p> + +<p>He was struggling to get into his overcoat without "breaking" his +shirt-front—going at once, evidently. But Charles had lost sight of his +strategic intentions.</p> + +<p>"Well, how about you two old chaps for the furnished apartment—February +fifteenth, if you want it?"</p> + +<p>Charles observed that he couldn't look at it. Donald, as if only +stimulated by his host's taciturnity, became sentimental.</p> + +<p>"First Mary, then Mrs. Wing, then me—this is going to be a break-up, +Charlie, do you realize it? I'm beginning to feel it, too, let me tell +you! Jove," said Donald, putting on his shining head-piece and bringing +the conversation back to himself simultaneously—"now that I come right +down to it, <i>I</i> don't want to leave this good old town!"</p> + +<p>He departed, to his unconscious match-making. Charles, left alone, +merely sat on at his table. And all that he thought of Angela Flower now +was of an insignificant remark she had let fall, the first time they had +walked together: "Mr. Garrott do you know who <i>Marna</i> reminded me of? +Somebody you admire a great deal...."</p> + +<p>And then for half an hour, his writer's mind insisted on working over +and over that detestable conversation between <i>Marna</i> and her father, +and changing it a little, just a little touch here and there, to make it +fit smoothly upon Mrs. Wing and Mary....</p> + +<p>"I tell you," said the lonely authority, suddenly, bringing his fist +down on the table with a thump,—"this whole Movement's a failure if it +lessens <i>woman's lovableness</i>! I tell you the whole object of this +Movement is to make women <i>more lovable</i>!"</p> + +<p>For he, of course, had never thought—like the author of "Marna" for +example—that passionate love was the only sort of love worth +mentioning. In that narrow sense, in her sufficiently cheap faculty for +stirring the senses of men, it was clear that woman, whatever she did or +left undone, would always remain "lovable." But as to love in broad and +human terms—well (to keep the subject wholly impersonal); could any one +in his senses call <i>Marna</i> a lovable being? No, her creator, in his +determination to show how strong and "free" she was, had quite +unconsciously made her a harsh and vain self-worshiper, revolting to +decent persons. Had he, as we might say, thus inadvertently given the +whole thing away? Was it finally true that a woman could not claim and +lead her Own Life, except at a heavy price—paid down in her best +treasure? Was the ruthless Career-Maker but the logical other-form of +the waiting, the too pursuing, Maker of Homes?</p> + +<p>From his drawer, Charles presently pulled out the former exercise-book +which had enjoyed the great rise in the world. In this book, he had +written no sentence since his remembered Notes on Flora Trevenna. Now he +set down with a firm hand:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>What is called the Woman's Movement is seen, in the last +analysis, to be only every woman's struggle between two +irreconcilable impulses in her own nature.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Having written that sentence, the young man stared at it long. To him it +was like a bright beam of light, turned upon the roots of his peculiar +problem. For if these two impulses were in truth irreconcilable, why +need he go on struggling to reconcile them in a heroine he could +unreservedly admire?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a>XVI</h2> + + +<p>With the sun of a new noon, with the recurring need of obtaining +sustenance from one's environment, there came again the more practical +problems of this weary world.</p> + +<p>At ten minutes past one on this day, Tuesday, Charles went slipping from +the house of the little Deming boys to that of the old lady who was +studying French. She lived, luckily, but three doors away. She was a +very lively old lady, and possessed her tutor's high regard. But that +she might represent help to him, that she could personify the tutelary +god of Bachelors rushing at last to his aid, had simply never crossed +his mind.</p> + +<p>The old lady's regular lesson-hour was, of course, two-thirty o'clock. +But, as it happened, she had had her last instruction in the French +language for some time to come, it having popped into her head, and that +of the old gentleman her husband, to go to Palm Beach for a three weeks' +vacation. Hence her tutor's presence in her drawing-room at this +unwonted hour seemed to be due to mere chance (though who knows?). In +short, as he saw it, he had merely "stopped by" to deliver a list of +irregular verbs, which the old lady was to master completely while at +the Beach.</p> + +<p>Having stopped, Charles did not start again upon the instant: far from +it. Friday's and Monday's run of luck had not been expected to keep up +indefinitely, at the best. And Donald's blundering remark betraying his +ruse had inevitably suggested the idea of experimenting a bit with +opposite tactics, to wit: quietly turning his schedule backward, for +variety's sake, and starting to lunch very late. Thus it was that +Charles, having said all he had to say to the old lady, lingered to say +it all again, and again, clinging verbosely to his oldest living pupil +as it were, while one eye shot perpetually out the front window, close +beside which he had taken up his position.</p> + +<p>For the third time, the old lady promised to be studious on her holiday.</p> + +<p>"Don't you remember how well I knew the plurals of the <i>-ou</i> nouns +yesterday?" said she, chipper as a boy. "Well, my husband had heard them +every one to me the night before!—that was how I did it! Well, don't +you see, I'll make him hear me the verbs every afternoon while he's +taking his nap—over and over!"</p> + +<p>"Exactly, ma'am. Do just that. Have him hear them over and over—every +afternoon. That's the only way really to master them—the only possible +way. And as I say—be sure to take along your dictionary and your +Fontaine's 'Fables,' and read three or four pages every day—except +Sunday. I said that just now, I know. But, ma'am, it's one of those +things that—ah—can't be said too often—"</p> + +<p>Here the tutor's eye, reconnoitering out the window again, fell upon a +motor-car just coming to a standstill before the old lady's door. He +started, nervously. But, of course, this was not the Fordette: it was +five times too big, at least.</p> + +<p>And he said, in a quickened voice: "Whose car is that standing out +there?"</p> + +<p>"Why, mine, of course! Eustace stops for orders before going down to +bring my husband up and I just sign to him out of the window if there's +nothing. Indeed I hoped you wouldn't make me read my 'Fables' while I +was away, but I will if you say so, for of course I'm going to learn +French. And you take care of yourself, young man. You haven't looked +well to me for several days."</p> + +<p>"I'm not quite well, ma'am, I fear," said Charles. "I was just thinking +I'd better let Eustace drive me down with him, if you don't mind. +I—ah—scarcely feel like walking to-day."</p> + +<p>"Of course. And have him bring you up again when he takes my husband +back, why don't you? My dear young man, I reproach myself. I'd have had +him call for you at the Demings' and take you down every day, but you +know you always said you loved to walk."</p> + +<p>"I did—I used to—but—ah—I rather think I've been overdoing it, of +late. I've been walking more than is good for me. Well!—thank you very +much. I'll go and get right in, shall I?"</p> + +<p>Having wished his aged pupil a happy journey once more, Charles started +toward the door, much pleased with his lucky stroke. And then, all at +once, a splendid idea burst upon him, a vast and brilliant possibility. +And in exactly the same instant, he heard the chipper voice of the old +lady speaking again behind him, rather thoughtfully:—</p> + +<p>"I wish I could persuade you to use my car altogether while we're +away.... But I suppose you'd think that fearfully—fearfully <i>effete</i>!"</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">What?</span>"</p> + +<p>It must have seemed odd to her, the instantaneousness with which her +tutor sprang round. And then he began to move back toward her, very +slowly, round unwinking eyes glued upon her.</p> + +<p>"Ah—<i>what did you say</i>?"</p> + +<p>"You look astounded. I suppose you're offended at the suggestion. Now, +really—why not take my car while I'm away?" said the old lady. (What a +dear, what a darling old lady she was, to be sure!) "Why are you young +men so reckless with your health, breaking it down with all this foolish +walking, up and down—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, ma'am!" stammered Charles. "I—I hardly know what to say. I'm not +offended in the <i>least</i>—feeling as I do at present. But I—I really—"</p> + +<p>"Then I'll make you do it!" she said, with the greatest energy. "I'm +going to exert all my will-power—I'm chock full of it, I warn you!—and +make you use the car regularly from now on, and stop this walking. +Promise me! I'll have Eustace report to you every morning for his +orders, and you are to use him as your own ..."</p> + +<p>The tutor stood like a man entranced. Before his mind's eye there were +unrolling the most enchanting pictures: pictures of the same series that +had fascinated Angela's mind's eye when her brother had offered her the +Fordette, but of precisely the opposite intention; pictures of himself +whizzing securely from point to point, here or there at his careless +ease, all walking henceforth reduced to the mere hurried crossing of +sidewalks....</p> + +<p>"But I—I'm afraid it would be an imposition! I don't deny it would be +a—a pleasure—a benefit—feeling as I—"</p> + +<p>"Then that's settled! Imposition, nonsense! As it happens, you will be +doing us a favor. Why, wasn't my husband saying only last night that +Eustace, having nobody at all to look after him, was certain to spend +these three weeks in one long spree, and be worn to a shadow when we get +back? His habits are so unfortunate, I warn you about that—"</p> + +<p>"It's so—<i>awfully</i>—kind of you, ma'am! I hardly know how to—"</p> + +<p>"Not another word!—leave all the rest to me. And you really don't look +well, young man. Now, shall I have Bruce make you something,—oh, very +nice,—before you start down? Oh, why, bless you, I take a julep myself +whenever I feel the least bit like it!"</p> + +<p>Then the ardor of his gratitude really touched the old lady, even though +it seemed excessive for her small courtesy. Later, looking out the +window, to sign to Eustace, she saw that the young man was actually +laughing to himself with pleasure, as he went down the front steps. She +thought him a very strange young man.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He gave his machine-god standing orders, which, after all, proved simple +enough. Eustace and the Big Six were to pick him up at the little Deming +boys' every day at one o'clock, and drive him to lunch; Eustace and the +Big Six were to call for him at Mrs. Herman's every afternoon at +half-past three, and take him to and from the Choristers'. Those, +positively, were the only danger-points, these the small arrangements by +which peril was to be circumvented. And he had not overrated the value +of his brilliant gift from fortune; the arrangements, being made, were +executed with the happiest success. In the fine big limousine of the old +lady (<i>la grande jolie limousine de la vieille</i>) Charles pursued his +daily rounds in complete security, and he hardly saw the shadow of +another meeting now.</p> + +<p>Or rather, there was the possibility of but one more meeting; and, that +scarcely seemed to matter, now that he had so clearly won back his +voluntary celibacy.</p> + +<p>At Saltman's bookstore, he had purchased a fresh copy of the odious +"Marna," and in his new kindness and good-will toward all, he finally +resolved to return the book in person, and to ask for Angela at the +door, to boot. Utter freedom of the city upheld his native dislike for +being a mere rude boor. And by one simple venture, he could honorably +liquidate all claims, pay at one stroke all the various calls demanded +of him: the book-call, the party-call, and the call in acknowledgment of +the Kiss.</p> + +<p>Even if Angela should happen to be at home when he called, the isolated +meeting could hardly lead to trouble. But, after all, of course, the +point was to fulfill rather the letter of a call than its essential +spirit. Charles thought it decidedly for the best that Angela should not +be at home at the time. Thus he further procrastinated, awaiting an +afternoon so sweet and balmy that every owner of a self-propelling +vehicle would be morally certain to be out in it.</p> + +<p>And then, while he so dallied about the Call, while his own days +continued to reel off smooth as clockwork, a faint new cloud began to +steal over his first careless happiness. Having finally saved himself, +the unheroic bachelor felt his deadened consideration for others slowly +and reluctantly stirring into life.</p> + +<p>The first time he in his speedy limousine passed captive Donald in the +Fordette, Charles was even more pleased than he had been that other +day, at Miss Grace's window. By chance, he overhauled the little +conveyance on the second day of the new era, as he shot away from the +Choristers' at half-past four o'clock; and, captivated by the sight of +the simpleton engineer in his own old place, he could not resist leaning +forward as he drew abreast, knocking on the window and waving gayly to +the two nice normal cousins of Mary. He saw that Angela, recognizing +him, gave him one swift surprised stare. And then the old lady's Big Six +leapt by her, as the limited leaps by a tank in the night, and he sat +back convulsed with a brilliant diplomat's delights.</p> + +<p>He, indeed, had put her on. Clearer and clearer it grew that he could +beat Mary Wing at match-making, if at nothing else under the sun.... Let +her look to herself!</p> + +<p>But the second time Charles had this interesting experience—just two +days later, on his drive to Berringer's—he did not knock on the window, +or laugh, or even smile. No, this time he sat still on his luxurious +seat, looking straight ahead. And presently he found himself arguing, +very earnestly and conscientiously, and somewhat as follows:—</p> + +<p>While it might be true that for the moment Angela liked him best +(entirely owing to the tender feelings aroused by the Kiss) no one could +deny that a match between her and Donald would be a far more suitable +thing. In fact, such a match would really be very suitable, indeed, +whatever cold-blooded eugenists like Mary Wing might think. Talk as you +liked, Donald was not at all the man to be happy with a girl who firmly +and continually "made a fellow use his cocoa." On the contrary, Donald +was the mere simple, primitive male who wanted a woman that he could +"protect," feel superior to and be coddled and attended by. And any +fair-minded person must admit that Angela, whatever little faults or +foibles she might seem to have, was precisely this sort of girl. Harsh +nonsense about her Sacred Duty to the Race was not in her.</p> + +<p>Did she, indeed, have any faults—real faults of character, that is? +Womanly though she was, she was no idler, no parasite like Miss Grace, +for instance, but a genuine worker, accustomed to pay her own way by the +practice of a highly specialized and difficult business. This business, +at best, was a monotonous and grinding one; she herself was a stranger, +poor and lonely. Was it so wicked, then, that in her leisure-hour she +should wish to drive out occasionally, and meet her young friends?</p> + +<p>The Big Six, "Marna," the matter of the Wings' flat, doubtless each had +contributed in its way to put Angela back in her true light: the light +she had shone in before the days of the wooing. Admit, if you liked, +that for the moment her purely feminine, or pursuing, side might seem to +be just a little over-developed: that, argued Charles, was but a +temporary, and really a proper and necessary manifestation. The Home +that Angela was at present engaged in making was Dr. and Mrs. Flower's +Home. The Will in things had it that every girl should have a Home of +her own to make. There lay the momentary source of Unrest: considered +rightly, the Fordette was merely the ingenious instrument employed by +the Will for working out its high designs. Once that was accomplished, +once Angela was established in her own little nest as Donald's sweet +true wife, then, beyond doubt, her essentially womanly side would at +once spring into full possession of her. Then she would fairly settle to +her life-work of making her own Home, while supplying large quantities +of just the sort of beauty and charm that engineers appreciate most.</p> + +<p>Moreover (concluded Charles's argument of the case) marriage was clearly +a matter where quixotism was misplaced, and a man's first duty was to +himself. And, finally, of course he would never have put her on to +Donald, if he had known that the old lady was going to lend him her +limousine. But he had not known: and that was the old lady's fault if +anybody's.</p> + +<p>On the night of this day, by chance,—the day of Donald's known fourth +drive in the instrument of the Will,—as Charles lay prone upon the +Studio lounge, feebly thinking up, Judge Blenso suddenly opened the +Studio door and said: "Charles! A lady at the 'phone!" Instantly coming +to an elbow, Charles inquired who this lady might be; and the Judge +(whose manner toward his relative had markedly changed, since Charles +was known to have abandoned his exercises and foregone his affair of +honor) replied with great coldness: "It's Miss Rose. Come along!" "Miss +Rose?" repeated Charles, slowly beginning to rise. "Why, I don't—" +"Yes, yes, I said! Miss Rose! No!—let me see! Miss Flower—something of +the sort! Good gad, how long're you going to keep her waiting?" But +Charles, remembering the promised bridge-party in a flash, said: "I'm +sick, Judge," and lay back on the lounge forthwith. "Ah—just say, +please, that you found me lying down—not well at all. She might leave a +message, if necessary." To which the Judge replied, disgusted: "I don't +wonder you're sick, the sickenin' life you lead! By gad, sir!—can't +even <i>walk</i>!..."</p> + +<p>No message came back other than that Miss Flower was sorry to hear he +wasn't well. But the little incident, though nothing came of it, showed +clearly that she wasn't going to give him up without a struggle, Donald +or no. He could never feel completely safe until she was married, and +that was the truth. And he still had that cursed book to return, too.</p> + +<p>But it seemed that his higher nature, once aroused, would not go quietly +back to sleep again. The first glad selfish days were over. When, on the +Tuesday following, he again saw Donald as Angela's willing captive, +when, shooting by, he observed the fatuous youth ogling and smirking +over his predicament, as much as to say that there was no such person as +Helen Carson, then Charles's face became very grave, his look intensely +thoughtful. And when he reached Berringer's that day, he ordered—sure +enough—"Wait for me, Eustace." And when he emerged from Berringer's, at +a little before two, he said, in the face of all resolves:—</p> + +<p>"To Olive and Washington Streets, Eustace. And then turn and go slowly +out Dean Street, toward Lee Grammar School."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a>XVII</h2> + + +<p>Partly because she was not ready to resign her place in the schools, +partly, perhaps, to heighten the dramatic stinging quality of what she +called her "brilliant revenge," Mary Wing had kept her great <i>coup</i> a +secret for the present. So she, famous wherever weekly periodicals were +read round the world, honored officer-elect of a powerful national +organization, walked daily, in sun and rain, to a grammar school as +before.</p> + +<p>As to looks and appearance, Charles had always recognized Mary as one of +the variable women. She was not indifferent on those subjects, he +judged, but the utilitarian supremacy of work in her life commonly +produced that effect. Mary rarely went to parties any more; but at her +flat in Olive Street she often enough entertained at dinner, +strategically, a person or two of consequence in the educational or +political world. Charles (being, of course, of not the slightest help to +anybody) had never been invited to but one of these little dinners. On +that solitary occasion, the look and air of his friend in evening dress +had considerably surprised him, and in several other ways, including the +dinner, he had absorbed agreeable impressions of Mary not tallying with +other impressions. However, pretty clothes and pretty manner were deemed +too good for every day, it seemed; for the realities, Mary dressed as +plainly as she acted. And now, trudging homeward along this slightly +squalid street, she looked, it must be admitted, not like a shining +celebrity at all, but just like an ordinary person, a school-teacher, +and rather a fatigued one at that.</p> + +<p>So, at least, thought the author of the write-ups, catching sight of her +through the glass over Eustace's shoulder, noting the somewhat droopy +manner of her walk. But he reflected, there was no satisfying some +people. And hastily clutching up the speaking-tube of the old lady, he +gave the order which brought his great car to a standstill; and so +stepped forth upon the sunny sidewalk, just in front of her.</p> + +<p>The General Secretary looked up, with a small start at finding herself +intercepted. She saw Charles Garrott, and her face changed perceptibly, +though under what impulse he could scarcely have said. That his recent +demeanor must have seemed slightly puzzling to her, the young man was, +however, sufficiently aware: and now he was all at once conscious of a +want of ease within himself, a rare and odd constraint.</p> + +<p>Hence he fell instinctively into his lightest and most mask-like tone: +"Well met! I was hoping I might run on you somewhere out this way. Do +get in and let me take you home."</p> + +<p>Mary accepted at once, with pleasure.</p> + +<p>"But whose beautiful car is this you're using now?" she went on easily. +"I was sure I saw you whiz by in it the other day."</p> + +<p>"Oh, this!—yes!—I must tell you about it."</p> + +<p>So due explanations covered the start of the drive. Establishing his +famous friend in the old lady's limousine, Charles told, in modified, +expurgated form, how he had got possession of it. For Angela's benefit, +he had lately informed Donald that he was unwell from overwork: that was +why he had to ride in a closed car wherever he went. Report of this had +unluckily reached Mary, it seemed, necessitating more explanation: that +he was not sick at all, unless you would count writer's sickness, etc., +etc.</p> + +<p>"And this saves such a lot of time, getting around, too—which is no +small thing."</p> + +<p>The conclusion of the explanation was followed by a small silence: +scarcely one of the golden sort, but rather a dearth of conversation +such as had once been rare between these two. But Mary, whose manner +seemed as usual, or perhaps only the least bit more polite, broke it at +once, saying cordially:—</p> + +<p>"So you have an extra hour for your own work now? That's splendid! And +how's your new novel getting on?"</p> + +<p>"Oh!—not at all, thank you! I've made two starts, but both of them +proved false, I regret to state. So now I'm back at zero again. It's a +hard business, writing a book.... And as far as I can make out, I'm +specially handicapped by having all sorts of foolish theories as to what +a novel ought to be. If I were only a good plain realist now, how simple +life would be!"</p> + +<p>His tongue loosened; he found himself embracing the chance topic, so +hard and impersonal, so beautifully remote from everything that fretted +his mind. He had come, magnanimously, to give one fair warning about +Donald; but no doubt he planned it that his warning should fall +casually, half-buried in other talk. There was such a thing as being too +generous for self-interest, of course. Or possibly Charles perceived +that the sound of his own voice, running surely along on a subject of +which he knew everything, and she knew nothing, gave him just that sense +of easy command of the situation which his manly need demanded.</p> + +<p>Mary had said courteously: "You think realism is so much easier to +write?"</p> + +<p>"I've never tried, of course—but doesn't it impress you so? You +remember old Meredith said distinctly, that was the cue for little +writers. And I must say I think he had an idea what he was talking +about. In fact," continued Charles, with unwonted loquacity, while his +limousine rolled rapidly, "if I were old and generally recognized as the +dean of American novelists—kindly do not laugh—and was visited for +counsel by a young writing fellow who had no literary abilities except +industry—why, I should say to him at once, 'My dear young man, become a +realist, of course. That is really the only line where you will find +your want of abilities a positive advantage. If you possess any shred of +humor, charm, insight, sympathy, idealism, so-called,—above all, +idealism,—and if you are cursed with any sense of form and unity, and +feel that a story ought to have a beginning and an end, and be <i>about</i> +something in the mean time,—why, trample on all this as you would on so +many snakes,' I should say to him. 'Get it fixed firmly in your dull +mind that life is dreary and meaningless, or has but a material meaning, +if you like, and that sound fiction must behave accordingly. Then,' I +should say to my young friend, 'if you will but choose as your heroine a +young girl with more looks than character—and not necessarily such a +lot of looks either—who comes up to the city to get on, it is +inconceivable to me that even you could fail to score a great realistic +success.'—'But,' we can imagine this fellow, this nonexistent admirer +of mine, saying, 'I don't understand you. What am I, as a creative +author, to put in to take the place of the insight, humor, unity, and +all the rest that I've eliminated?' 'My poor boy, I've just told you,' I +should reply. 'Industry and pessimism. That is all a realist knows and +all he needs to know. You tell me you have the industry. I tell you that +the pessimism is the easiest little trick to pick up in the world.' +But," said Charles, in his own voice, "I fear, Miss Mary, I 'm putting +you to sleep with all this musty shop-talk—"</p> + +<p>"Indeed, no!—it's extremely interesting," said the heroine of the +write-ups, very civilly, but looking straight ahead. "You don't often +talk about your work."</p> + +<p>"Haven't often had the chance," thought Charles. And if that was +considerably unjust, he did not seem to mind at all, but rather was +pleased by the knowledge that Mary observed his copious ironic manner, +and found it baffling and queer.</p> + +<p>"Well,—in conclusion, as you public speakers say,—I was only going to +add that I didn't know enough to swallow my own medicine. The trouble +seems to be—Well, take the horrible thing called sentiment now, that +makes a sophisticated realist so sick. I look about me and, try as I +will, I seem to see the disgusting thing very much alive and +kicking—not something made up by a fourth-class writer to tickle +shopgirls, but actually playing a prominent part in the hard world round +me, all the time, everywhere. I seem—"</p> + +<p>"I don't see how any one could deny that!"</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't seem so, would it?" said Charles respectfully, and a sudden +faint gleam came into his eye. "But really isn't that what they do, in +effect? Here am I, as an observer, seeing men and women all round me +doing things they don't want to do, giving up things they do want to +do"—did his voice, too, acquire a thin edge?—"for immaterial reasons +that can only be traced to some inner ideal—hated word! And then here +am I, as a writer, required to deny all these observations of mine—and +for what reason? Merely, as far as I can make out, to keep some sour +chap with a defective liver, probably a German to boot—why are Germans +so pessimistic, do you know?—from calling me a sentimental ass. Of +course we admit," he prattled on, taking note of the passing streets, +"that sentiment is weak and childish and Victorian, and 'idealism' is +the screaming joke on Western civilization. Still, isn't it my only +business as a writer to find out whether or not these contemptible +things do act and react in the life I see? And if they do—must I +represent the contrary, merely to please the peculiar taste of a small +sad school that has no God but a second-hand mannerism bagged from dear +old Europe?—By the way, are you in a special hurry now?"</p> + +<p>"Why, no. Not at all."</p> + +<p>"Good!—Eustace," called Charles through the tube, "drive more slowly."</p> + +<p>And then, feeling himself completely master of the situation now, the +young man said with quite a gay laugh:—</p> + +<p>"And to add to all my other troubles, I've deliberately gone and taken +Woman for my subject! That will make you smile! You remember you warned +me in advance it was a theme I didn't know the first thing about."</p> + +<p>But Mary was not observed to smile.</p> + +<p>"I did say that, in fun once," she said, punctiliously, after a +perceptible pause—"but, of course, I didn't mean it—in any literal +sense. Indeed, I think—"</p> + +<p>"But you were right—absolutely!—that's just what I want to say! I 'm +finding out more and more every day how true that word was. This whole +Movement now—what is it? What's it for? Blest if I know! The last time +we talked about it, you may remember, I took the ground that the +Movement—or what I supposed was the Movement, that week—suffered by +confusing itself with another propaganda it hadn't a thing under the sun +to do with. But—"</p> + +<p>"No—what propaganda? I don't remember."</p> + +<p>"Oh!—Personal Liberty!... The Cult of the Ego, perhaps you might call +it. But, of course, for all I know," said the light masterful Charles, +"that is the Movement, and always has been. Only last week I lighted on +a new formula—sort of a definition—to-morrow I'll probably discard it +for another. It's very unsettling—for my writing, you know. By the +way—can't you help me out a little? What would be your best definition +of the Unrest—for literary purposes?"</p> + +<p>But Mary, with a carefulness not usual to her, eluded controversy, +merely saying it all depended on how you looked at it, or words to that +effect. And then she gave him a small thrill by neatly taking his bait.</p> + +<p>"But what is your new definition?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, that! Definition's too grand a word, of course. I merely wondered +if what is called the Woman's Movement was anything more than a +projection—don't you know?—of an everlasting struggle going on between +two irreconcilable elements in every woman's nature."</p> + +<p>The car rolled in silence.</p> + +<p>"There's a pessimistic definition for you! For I suppose," said the +friend of women, and could no longer keep the seriousness out of his +voice, "it must be true that every struggle implies the defeat—of +something.... Doesn't it? I suppose we can really never get away from +the sad discovery of childhood, that we can't eat our cake and have it +too."</p> + +<p>"That's interesting! But I don't believe I understand you altogether. +What do you symbolize as the cake?"</p> + +<p>She, the strong and successful, had turned on him her level arched gaze, +intent with its habitual interrogativeness. It was instantly clear that, +though she might be struck with his few remarks, she was far indeed from +being struck personally. And her sudden characteristic look was to him +like a hand held up, the banner of her independence flung out—and just +in time, too.</p> + +<p>Charles laughed mirthlessly. He was aware of the lameness of his reply.</p> + +<p>"Exactly!—what? It all depends on how you look at it, as you just said. +And I seem unable to look at it the same way two days running.... Number +6 Olive Street, Eustace."</p> + +<p>Mary's response escaped him.</p> + +<p>He sat staring through the glass, at the passing sights, a curious sense +of anti-climax within, a strange flat feeling of failure. He was like a +boy who, having run valiantly at a jump, tamely subsides and ducks under +the string. What then? Had he really been about to court a new +humiliation by <i>lecturing</i> Mary Wing? Telling himself that he came +generously to warn her about Donald, had he actually been thinking that +he would discuss the personal losses involved in Leaving Home?—perhaps +by some frankness even bridge the gap in the old friendship? It really +did seem that some such thoughts must have lurked in his mind, judging +by this sense within him now.</p> + +<p>Then, out of blankness and frustration, the young man felt slowly rising +a deep exasperation, a mighty grievance. So he shook himself at once, +donned his mask quickly while yet he could, and said in quite a +natural-seeming voice:—</p> + +<p>"But I'm afraid I've bored you horribly with these purely literary +troubles. And, by the way,—speaking of realism versus romance just +now,—how are Donald and Miss Carson getting on these days?"</p> + +<p>She appeared a little surprised at the change of topic, but replied +easily: "Oh!—very well, indeed, I believe. They're together somewhere +nearly every evening.—But why—"</p> + +<p>"Really! That relieves me—knowing your serious interest in that affair. +I was beginning to fear Donald might be wandering a little in his +affections."</p> + +<p>"Wandering? No—how do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Well, he has seemed quite attentive to your pretty cousin of late, +don't you think?"</p> + +<p>Then the Secretary turned her head again, sharply. And it hardly +improved Charles Garrott's frame of mind to perceive that, of all he had +said in the strangely talkative drive, this alone had really touched +her: this, which affected her personal purposes, her Own ambitions.</p> + +<p>"Angela? Why, not that I know of! I didn't know he'd seen her at +all—except one casual meeting, perhaps!"</p> + +<p>"I've happened to see them driving together from tune to time, as I plod +about on my rounds. But no doubt it's all quite casual, as you say, +since you've heard nothing about it."</p> + +<p>"You have? But please tell me!—where have you seen them together—and +when?"</p> + +<p>He cited particulars from his collection, damaging ones, though perhaps +not so damaging as he could have made them had not self-interest +restrained. Still, something in him was not displeased as he saw his +old friend's concern steadily deepening.</p> + +<p>"I'm surprised, and—frankly, I 'm sorry," she said slowly, at the end. +"Of course Angela's a dear girl, very sweet and attractive, but—I +shouldn't like Donald to see too much of her—in view of my other hopes! +I've had good reason to think that he's really interested in Helen, and +she in him.—Well!" she went on, after a small pause, "this seems to +require some diplomatic management. Donald has engagements for every +evening this week—but—"</p> + +<p>"It's in the daytime that he meets Miss Flower. At least, I don't think +she takes the Fordette out at night."</p> + +<p>Beside him on the padded seat, Mary sat silent, a little pucker between +the dark brows which set such a question-mark in her colorless face. +Considering her formidable strength, it was odd how all but ethereal, +how sincerely girlish, she could look at times.</p> + +<p>"Well, Donald's going to New York on Friday," she said, thoughtfully. +"He's had a fine offer from Blake & Steinert—to go into the firm, had +you heard?—so fine that I think he'd have taken it, and thrown over +Wyoming, if I had let him! He'll be gone nearly a week. Then, about the +time he comes back, I've arranged to have him invited to Creekside, the +Kingsleys' place at Hatton, for a week-end party. Helen's to be +there—I've really been hoping great things of that. Meantime," she +rounded up efficiently, "there are the afternoons. Perhaps I could start +him to playing golf, or something of that sort.... I suppose, of course, +you're too busy to—"</p> + +<p>"I?" said the young man, hastily. "Oh, I fear I can offer nothing to +rival Miss Angela's attractions just now."</p> + +<p>"Does it look as serious as that? Well," she said, with a sort of +determined friendliness, "all the more reason that I should like to have +your help."</p> + +<p>He hardly repressed a sardonic laugh. "Are you asking me to help <i>you</i>?"</p> + +<p>"What's so extraordinary about that?"</p> + +<p>"Not a thing, of course. I wasn't certain I'd understood you, that was +all."</p> + +<p>But it appeared that the idea of helping this young woman had ceased to +have the smallest pulling power now. Rather, there was bitterness in the +thought that she still seemed ready to use him when she could.</p> + +<p>He said, with savage urbanity: "Perhaps you might get Donald a +motor-cycle, and encourage him to practice up as a Speed Demon."</p> + +<p>The remark was received in entire silence. It was probably true that she +literally did not understand him. All the same, his displeasure grew.</p> + +<p>"But really," he continued sweetly, "if these two young people are so +strongly attracted to each other—love at first sight, who +knows?—really, is it judicious to interfere? Don't you believe in +elective affinities at all?"</p> + +<p>"As a matter of fact, you know, Donald was greatly attracted to Helen, +at first sight. And as for Angela, I'm certain—"</p> + +<p>"You see," he interrupted, stung beyond all calculations, "my personal +idea is that Miss Angela would probably make him a more suitable wife."</p> + +<p>That unwisdom made everything worse at once; for Mary, after one glance +at him and a stare out the window, said in a changed, "diplomatic" tone: +"Well, I mustn't let you misunderstand me, at any rate. You know, I've +agreed with you perfectly, all along, that she's thoroughly charming.... +And, by the way, she likes <i>you</i> so much, too!"</p> + +<p>Charles froze instantly.</p> + +<p>"In fact, she thinks you're much more attractive than Donald—or did, +just a little while ago. I have her word for it. So if she's seeing a +good deal of Donald just now, I don't believe it's from affinity, +necessarily!"</p> + +<p>"Indeed?"</p> + +<p>"She was inquiring about you the last time I saw her—saying that she +never saw you now, asking if you ever spoke of her to me, and so on. I +told her, of course, you did, and repeated some of the compliments you +paid her—"</p> + +<p>Again he interrupted her, now with some slipping of his mask. It was +true, to be just, that Mary Wing knew nothing of his long struggles to +elude the Fordette. Nevertheless, her patent desire to hand him back to +it, merely by way of furthering a little her plans for Donald, seemed +somehow the last straw. A friendly reward for magnanimity this! And it +may be some touch of purely male chagrin enhanced the philosophic anger, +that any woman should be thus eager to pass on him, Charles, to another.</p> + +<p>"I believe my remark was that I considered Miss Angela a suitable wife +for Donald. So far as I am aware, I do not come into the conversation at +all. If your suggestion is that I should step in and take her off his +hands—in order to help you—may I beg you to put such an idea from your +head, once and for all?"</p> + +<p>It was clear that he astonished her: made her indignant as well. Her +scrutiny of him was direct and sharp: but she did not speak at once, as +if weighing her words or firmly counting ten, and when she did speak, +her manner bore evidences of strong control.</p> + +<p>"You are rather puzzling to-day. I should like to know what you have on +your mind. 'Take her off his hands!' Do you really think that's quite +the way to speak of a girl who—"</p> + +<p>"I don't, indeed. But the idea was your own, was it not?"</p> + +<p>"Mine!—why, how can you! I only—"</p> + +<p>"Then why not let things take their natural course, as I suggested?"</p> + +<p>On that, turning her head away from him, she said quietly, too quietly +in fact: "I'm afraid you wouldn't understand now, if I were to tell +you."</p> + +<p>That seemed to bring the conversation to a natural <i>impasse</i>. And +then—as if no touch were to be wanting from this embittering hour—at +just this instant, as Eustace slowed down to make his curve into Olive +Street, the two estranged friends in the old lady's limousine found +themselves looking together into the eyes of their common and particular +enemy, Mary's former principal at the High School.</p> + +<p>Mr. Mysinger, her conqueror and his own, no less, was approaching down +the sunny promenade. He gave the two in the car just one full surveying +stare; then casually moved his gaze a degree or two away. But, as he +dropped back out of the range of vision, Charles could have sworn he saw +a smile springing under the glossy mustache he had once pledged himself +to pull off.</p> + +<p>But this time, he felt no such bitter hostility toward the victorious +foe as had shaken him on that other remembered occasion. There was a +transient flicker of the Old Blood toward his temples, a brief iciness +within, and that was all. Recalling the childish folly of the setting-up +exercises, he experienced a cold mirth: "Why, of course, she'd say she'd +have licked Mysinger herself, if she'd considered it worth the trouble!" +And, at his old friend's side, Charles had the most disloyal thought of +her that had ever knocked at his mind. Was Mysinger, perhaps, so +entirely to blame for the ancient friction? Had he, Charles, been +principal of the High School, did he think he would have found Mary so +acceptable, so perfect, a subordinate?...</p> + +<p>Assisting her to alight at her door, the young man inquired politely if +she had yet found a tenant for her flat. Mary replied, quite distantly, +he thought, that the John Wensons were going to take it. His comment was +that old Jack should make her a fine tenant. He courteously sent his +regards to her mother; he amiably wished her a good-afternoon.</p> + +<p>And then he shut the limousine door on himself so hard that the glass +shook.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a>XVIII</h2> + + +<p>Finding himself unable to reflect with pleasure or pride upon this +interview, Charles resolved, within the hour, not to reflect upon it at +all. For the fourth time—or was it the fourteenth?—he determined to +think of Egoettes no more. At least, he had given his warning, +unthanked, and that ended it. He might rest upon the ground that the +match would really be a very suitable thing; or, conversely, he might +argue that Donald was just amusing himself a little with Angela, at odd +times, while at heart perfectly true to Helen, etc. But chiefly he stood +upon the warning which made all this Mary Wing's concern henceforward, +and no longer his. And, bent upon bringing his last relation and duty in +the case to a clear, honorable conclusion, Charles sallied from the +Studio next morning with the new "Marna" tucked under his arm.</p> + +<p>But there seemed to hang a curse over everything connected with this +unhappy book. Because he had brought it with him to-day, the azure +heavens became overcast at noon; at two o'clock, it was drizzling +dismally; and all that afternoon, and all the next day, the cold rain +poured in torrents. To call in such home-keeping weather would be a +wanton provocation: Charles hung off, yet again. The third day proved +well worth waiting for, a brilliant, blue, and tingling day, gloriously +inviting to all owners of vehicles. And now a new plague befell. When +Charles emerged from Miss Grace's on this day, his face firmly set for +his duty, the Big Six wasn't there.</p> + +<p>The discovery was most disconcerting. The young man stood irresolute on +the Choristers' steps, "Marna" clutched in his hands, gazing up and down +the street.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately, Eustace's habits had not been kept completely virtuous by +his light duties with his mistress's tutor. The grinning black rascal +had got himself pleasantly illuminated the first day, and had remained +in that state with considerable consistency ever since. However, being +kept excellently tipped, he had never failed to meet an appointment +before; and Charles, eyeing the spot where Jehu should have been, but +wasn't, was most unpleasantly struck with his own sense of helplessness +ensuing. It really appeared that soft custom had made him as dependent +on the limousine as if he lacked the means of locomoting for himself.</p> + +<p>He scanned the horizon. Many vehicles rolled up and down Washington +Street, but his own swift chariot was nowhere among them.</p> + +<p>Then, while he irritably hesitated between telephoning to the garage, on +the off chance that Eustace might be there, and tamely abandoning the +enterprise once more, a third alternative, ingenious in its way, quite +unexpectedly offered itself. Down the street came jogging a carriage for +hire—empty. Providence seemed to be directing straight at him, Charles. +And, by chance, he knew this old carriage well; Walter Taylor's +carriage, it was; many and many a time had it driven him forth to +parties when he was young and gay.</p> + +<p>On the first quick impulse, Charles went springing down the Choristers' +steps.</p> + +<p>"Walter!... Here, you old rascal! Where're you going?"</p> + +<p>"At libbuty, suh!" cried Walter Taylor, drawing rein with alacrity. +"Whar mout you wish to be druv, Mist' Garrott?"</p> + +<p>"Well!—Perhaps I'll let you—"</p> + +<p>The young man hesitated, fractionally, struck with the rattletrap's +supreme lack of dignity. Then, with decision, he plucked open the +weather-beaten door.</p> + +<p>"One seven East Center. And look sharp now!" he ordered, stepping +in—"I'm in a hurry. Mind you don't stop for anything!"</p> + +<p>"Yassuh! Sutney, suh!" said Walter Taylor, with great enthusiasm, and +gave his old nag a prodigious wallop.</p> + +<p>So it fell out that, for his first call at the Flowers' since the +bridge-party—his party-call, his book-call, and his call about the +Kiss—Charles Garrott fared forth in a closed livery hack.</p> + +<p>Inside the hack, Charles laughed briefly; and then at once began to +react. In the fine afternoon, numbers of people were abroad. Strangers +seemed to look with surprise at the apparently able-bodied young man who +liked thus to trot around in a hack; chance acquaintances were seen to +smile in passing; more than one called out derisive remarks. Charles +himself questioned whether his employment of the hack was quite +reasonable.... Seemed inconsistent till you stopped to think. Inasmuch +as he was going straight to see Angela, why, it might be asked, all this +elaborate precaution in advance? Well—there was really no inconsistency +there; no, none at all. He was <i>not</i> going to see Angela; he was only +going to pay The Call, while she was out in her Fordette—a totally +different matter. But this raised fresh questions of consistency: how +was he going to hold his position that Angela was just the wife for +Donald, if he himself would only go to see her in a hack?... Well, the +answer to that was simple enough, too. Donald was a marrying man, while +he, Charles (though probably still liked best) emphatically was not. +Moreover, Donald was a primitive male, while he, Charles, was a +modern.... Or, no, perhaps he wasn't a modern, exactly—but—yes, he +<i>was</i> a modern, a true one, while others he could name were only +self-centered extremists....</p> + +<p>At Gresham Street, the hack turned south, at Center it turned back west. +Walter Taylor, up aloft, began to look for his street-number. And then, +while Charles still argued uneasily about the spiritual differences +between Donald and himself, his eye all at once fell on Donald in the +flesh, close by—striding up Center Street homeward on his way from the +office he left so early now.</p> + +<p>The sight of the youth at this moment was unwelcome to Charles. +Instinctively, he sat far back in the hack. But Donald, unluckily +turning at the sound of wheels, had caught sight of him; and he stopped +stock-still on the sidewalk at once, staring with unaffected interest.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll be darned!" he said, as the carriage came up with him. +"Whither away in the sea-going, old top?"</p> + +<p>Unwillingly appearing at the window, Charles said: "Well, Donald.... +Just driving around."</p> + +<p>"Driving!—Thought you must be going to a funeral, at least," said +Donald, stepping along to keep up. "Here! Stop the blamed thing! I want +to look you over."</p> + +<p>"You don' want me to stop, does you, Mist' Garrott?" bawled down Walter +Taylor from the box.</p> + +<p>"No, I told you! Go on!"</p> + +<p>Walter cut his nag a mighty crack, and with the same movement drew rein +sharply.</p> + +<p>"Here's yo' number, suh!" he cackled, with great merriment. "One seven, +like you said! Yassuh!"</p> + +<p>So the hack halted, and the fare reluctantly discharged himself. His +friend, having come up, halted, too, a few feet away; it was noted that +his gibing expression had suddenly altered. And then Charles understood +instantly that this fool's destination was no other than his own.</p> + +<p>"Oho!" said Donald, slowly and suspiciously. "So this is where you were +driving around to?"</p> + +<p>Controlling an immense complication of sensations, Charles said coldly: +"You mean you're going to—the Flowers', too?"</p> + +<p>"You've guessed it!" retorted the engineer, with a slight touch of +consciousness. And he added, assuming an indifferent air: "Just got to +stop by and leave a book Miss Flower lent me."</p> + +<p>And then, for the first time, Charles noticed the volume in a gaudy +wrapper protruding beneath Donald's sturdy arm. The coincidence was +remarkable, to say the least of it. It was also exceedingly annoying.</p> + +<p>"Time, too," quoth the primitive male. "I've had it since before I went +to Wyoming."</p> + +<p>On Angela's sidewalk, the two young men stood gazing hard at each other. +Whatever the argument in the case, it was surely Charles's higher nature +that spoke at last, icily but firmly:—</p> + +<p>"I am going here to return a book, and also to pay a call—on the +family. If you wish, I will return your book for you."</p> + +<p>"Couldn't think of troubling you, Charlie, old top."</p> + +<p>"As you like, of course—"</p> + +<p>"But as I'm going in, anyway, why need you stop at all? Glad to take +charge of your book for you. Save you a little hack-fare."</p> + +<p>To this, Charles disdained reply. So the two members of the coterie, +with their books to return under their arms, stepped up the bricked +walkway side by side.</p> + +<p>Charles rang the Flowers' loud little bell. Having done so, he turned on +the shabby verandah, with the intention of looking Donald hostilely up +and down. But he found that Donald was already looking him up and down, +in the most hostile manner conceivable. Then the youth's dullness, his +grotesque conception of a male rivalry here, his impervious blind +asininity,—all this acting upon the original concern about the Call, +produced a sudden infuriation. Speech flowed from Charles:—</p> + +<p>"Of all the laughing jackasses that ever broke loose from a zoo, I do +think you take the cake, Manford. How you keep from falling off bridges, +or butting out the pan where your brain ought to be on stone-copings, +passes all understanding. If I didn't have you to look at, I wouldn't +believe it possible that an ordinary well-meaning chucklehead could +deteriorate so horribly, just in a week or two."</p> + +<p>Donald seemed slightly nonplussed by this attack. All that he could +muster in reply was some very poor childish stuff, introduced by +shakings of his head and "significant" tappings of his forehead.</p> + +<p>"So that's why they sent him around here in a closed carriage—oho! Old +Doc Flower's an alienist—forgot that! H'm! Funny how it runs in the +family. First old Blenso, now poor Charlie-boy ..."</p> + +<p>Then a servant opened the door, and relieved the high tension instantly +by saying, in reply to two simultaneous questions, that Miss Flower was +out.</p> + +<p>Donald looked slightly crestfallen. Charles's look was the opposite. The +youth's presence here had strongly suggested that Angela was known to be +in, despite the fine weather. When the Flowers' servant—answering +Donald's "Oh, she's out, is she?"—said further that Miss Angela had +gone driving with a genaman, his relief rose to genuine thanksgiving. +And then Donald cleared the air completely by cavalierly handing in his +book, with only his card for acknowledgment, and clattering away down +the steps. Evidently, he sought a little amusement here, and nothing +more.</p> + +<p>Charles himself hesitated on the veranda. The thing was over and done +with. The Call was formally and honorably paid. Perhaps he only wanted +to do something different from Donald; perhaps he thought to mark +signally his revised good opinion of Angela; or perhaps mere revulsion +of feeling swung him into exuberant excesses. At any rate, in the very +act of extending his book, he recalled a long-forgotten promise, and +said suddenly, but tentatively:—</p> + +<p>"And Dr. Flower? I suppose he's out, too?"</p> + +<p>"Him? Naws', he's in," said the slatternly and ill-favored woman.</p> + +<p>"What!—he is? Are you sure?"</p> + +<p>"Ef yo' want to see him, walk in."</p> + +<p>"Ah—well, I'll just stop and see him for a few moments. That is, <i>if</i> +he happens to be at leisure."</p> + +<p>So the hack waited in front of the Flowers', and Charles stepped (for +the first time on his own motion) over the threshold of Angela's Home.</p> + +<p>He felt that this was a superfluous proceeding; it turned out +considerably worse. Having entered the Home, he found himself abruptly +plunged into the middle of it, as it were. In fact, the impromptu +extension of the Call to Dr. Flower, besides everything else that could +be said against it, proved as inopportune as could well have been +imagined.</p> + +<p>The <i>contretemps</i> indicated was due to the servant (Luemma, in short), +who apparently did not believe in announcing visitors, or perhaps had +never heard of the civil custom. She merely stood by, in a disapproving, +suspicious sort of way, while the caller deposited his book on the +hatstand beside Donald's, and removed his overcoat and gloves. And then +she said, with a manner no whit better than her appearance:—</p> + +<p>"Walk this way."</p> + +<p>Charles, necessarily assuming that this was the rule of the house, +walked that way.</p> + +<p>The hall of the Home was narrow and dark, the pervading atmosphere noted +as somewhat cheerless. It was not lighted and decked for festivity now, +as on the famous night of the bridge-party: parlor and dingy little +dining-room, glimpsed in passing, wore (to the author's sensitive eye) a +depressing air, vaguely suggestive of failure, incompetence and the +like. But that, of course, is the front that poverty so commonly wears: +all the more reason that a hard-worked Temporary Spinster, or vicarious +Home-Maker, should wish to get out sometimes, and go and meet her +friends....</p> + +<p>However, Charles also was conscious of a wish to get out. Why was he +doing this, exactly? Really, now, what was the sense of it?</p> + +<p>The black worthy was leading him toward a shut door in the dusk beyond +the dining-room: the office, clearly, of that patientless provider, +Angela's father. Now the young man was aware of voices behind that door, +or rather of a voice. It was a woman's voice, pitched in rather a +complaining key, and for the first second Charles thought, with a start, +that it was Angela's. It wasn't, of course; but his steps instinctively +slackened.</p> + +<p>"Ah—the Doctor seems to be engaged—after all," he threw out, in +lowered tones. "Perhaps I'd better come another day."</p> + +<p>"Naws', he ain't engaged. Just him and Miz' Flower talkin'."</p> + +<p>Charles, truth to tell, was scarcely reassured by that assurance: he did +not like to run in on a strange couple this way, in particular when the +lady was speaking in that tone. But his sour guide had not paused. And +now there came a different voice through the thin door: a man's voice, +faintly humorous, faintly sarcastic, and considerably weary. It was +recognizably the voice of the esteemed Doctor, and it said, with fatal +distinctness:—</p> + +<p>"Is it possible you forget, madam, that you're speaking to your husband +and the father of your children?"</p> + +<p>If the feet of the reluctant caller had lagged before, they now stopped +short. One of his overminds perceived instantly that the strange words +he had had no business to hear possessed a sort of distorted +familiarity, like a horrid parody of a sentiment known and established; +but as to that, there was not time to speculate now. What was only too +plain was that something like a domestic scene was afoot in the office +of the home, making the intrusion of a stranger peculiarly inapropos.</p> + +<p>"Don't!—I'll not stop now!" he murmured hastily and sharply. "Just take +these cards here, and—"</p> + +<p>But the maladroit blackamoor was already opening the door; and the young +man's last stand against the Call was put down with a brief and surly:—</p> + +<p>"Genaman to see Doctor. Walk in."</p> + +<p>That settled the matter, beyond any undoing. Charles Garrott was a +caller now, whether or no. With an embarrassment such as none of his +many calculations about this hour had anticipated, he stepped blundering +in upon Angela's unwitting parents.</p> + +<p>Dr. Flower's small office was dark; its light came only through a single +window from a narrow air-well. Hence, the forms of the lady and +gentleman in it were at first but dimly apprehended. Having turned in +their seats at the sound which disturbed their privacy, they seemed to +be peering together, in silent inquiry, at the intruder. It was the +intruder's move, obviously; and, being in for it, he did his hasty best +to pluck a hearty calling manner over his decided malease.</p> + +<p>"Oh!—good-afternoon, Dr. Flower! It's Garrott, Charles Garrott—perhaps +you may remember—"</p> + +<p>Now the dim forms were rising together, the tall Doctor's with a jerk:—</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes! Howdo, Mr. Garrott! Quite—"</p> + +<p>"I hope I'm not interrupting! I stopped to return some books, +and—ah—finding that Miss Angela was out, I thought I'd take the +opportunity—"</p> + +<p>"Quite so—very kind! Come in! But I'd better make a light? Take seat, +sir. Mrs. Flower?"</p> + +<p>The Doctor's manner, of course, was natively too queer to betray +anything, even astonishment at the Call. But it was not observed that +Angela's mother bore any of the marks of a lady surprised in the middle +of a "scene," and this was a relief, unquestionably; the parents didn't +know him for an eavesdropper, at any rate. Agreeably accepting his +introduction of himself, Mrs. Flower was bestowing upon him a dim but +comforting smile, and a limp hand to shake.</p> + +<p>"I feel that I already know you, Mr. Garrott. I've so often heard my +daughter speak of you," she said, in the slightly plaintive voice he had +heard through the door. "She'll be so sorry to miss you...."</p> + +<p>The hearty Charles spoke his little mendacity.</p> + +<p>"But a friend of hers from Mitchellton is here to-day to see her—Daniel +Jenney—and Angela has just taken him out for a little drive in her car, +to see the town. I feel sure she'll be in soon, though."</p> + +<p>Mr. Jenney's presence in the city was the best news heard by Charles in +many a day. All in all, things weren't going off so badly. And, if he +knew Angela in the least, she would not be in soon, either; he had +thought of all that on the verandah.</p> + +<p>Then the Doctor's match caught the gas with a faint <i>pop</i>, and the +little room filled with a high white light. In the sudden brightness, +the caller's eye noted two unrelated matters almost together. One was +merely an ash-tray upon the mantel. The other was Mrs. Flower herself, +and her unexpected resemblance to her pretty young daughter. Line for +line, the two faces were different enough, no doubt, and this one was no +longer young. But to a stranger's eye, the general likeness was rather +remarkable; Charles was much struck with it.</p> + +<p>"Sit down, sir," said the Doctor, and contributed his match to the +ash-tray.</p> + +<p>"Ah, thank you."</p> + +<p>But of course he could not sit down while Angela's mother remained +standing and conversing with him; and she did so stand and converse a +moment or so, rather idly, seemingly uncertain whether she intended to +stay or go, and trying to make up her mind. Once or twice she glanced at +her husband undecidedly, as if he might have something to do with the +matter; and no wonder. But her final verdict was that she was to go; and +Charles was rather glad that it worked out this way, though why he +hardly knew.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Flower's decisive remark was that she must get on with her +household duties. She gave Charles her limp hand again, again mentioned +her daughter's distress, if she missed him; she bestowed upon him +another pretty and somewhat significant smile; and then faded out of the +Call, leaving behind a vague impression of feminine inadequacy and a +button missing from her black waist.</p> + +<p>So the young man was left with the worthy Doctor, who could speak so +sarcastically to a defenseless woman, his wife. And for a space he found +the tête-à-tête heavy going, indeed, and was more oppressed than ever +with the essential meaninglessness of it all.</p> + +<p>Angela's father did not look like a brute, but only dryer, queerer, +shabbier, than before. He jerked his neck more, looked more unrelated to +his environment. He was very civil, but he cocked his eye too much +toward the ceiling, felt too little responsibility as to keeping a +conversation going. Charles's efforts (hearty enough, despite the +counter-feelings going on within him) seemed to bound off dead from that +juiceless, withdrawn manner. Having refused a cigar (there was a little +talk about smoking, but he couldn't keep it going), he proposed for +discussion the Doctor's son Wallie, his education, abilities as a +chemist, skill as a lamp-repairer, etc. The topic promised well, and did +well for a couple of minutes, but petered out mysteriously and beyond +resurrection. The Doctor's work out at the Medical School yielded almost +nothing; the weather enjoyed but a brief and fitful run. Presently, +Charles found himself fairly driven to Mary Wing, and her imminent +departure to lead her own life; and this subject won a real success, +though not of a sort he could take much satisfaction in. It quickly +developed that Angela's parent held ante-bellum views on Woman, which he +put forward with some dry zest, in the strange backhanded fashion noted +by Charles in their previous meeting. After a very few exchanges, the +old eccentric was delivering himself of paragraphs like this:—</p> + +<p>"Ah, you throw out that suggestion? An interesting idea!—quite so!" +(Charles had thrown out no suggestion of any sort.) "Your observation is +that the Lord has formed woman specifically for the needs of family and +the home—quite so!—and that efforts to change her destiny seem to +result in constitutional perversion? Well, sir, I dare say the +physicians would support your contention there, too. Who knows?"</p> + +<p>Even "Marna," even Mary Wing, had never made Charles so conservative as +this. Oddly enough, he found the Doctor's criticisms unwelcome; it was +his turn to let a subject die from malnutrition. In the pause, he +considered whether he had not called long enough now. About to rise, he +chanced to note a worn volume of Henderson's "Stonewall Jackson" lying +open on the table, and asked, with little hope, if the Doctor had read +it. The old codger replied: "I am reading it now for the seventh time, +sir." And to the young man's agreeable surprise, he at once uncocked his +eye from the ceiling (where he seemed to have meant to leave it +permanently), and began to talk along almost like a regular person.</p> + +<p>During the remainder of the Call, conversation flowed very +satisfactorily. It appeared that the War was one of this old codger's +subjects, even as Woman was Charles's; and he talked well, too, now that +he cared to, criticizing strategy as one having authority, revealing, +behind that spare, intensely conservative manner, flashes of broad +outlook and incisive speech which might have helped to explain why the +Medical School had been glad to draw this man from Mitchellton to its +staff. But the truth was that Charles Garrott heard scarcely a word of +this excellent discourse. Once he had got Angela's father fairly going, +he became captured and fascinated by a totally independent line of +thought.</p> + +<p>In short, the young man's gaze had returned to almost the first thing he +had definitely noticed in the Home, to wit, the ash-tray on the Doctor's +mantel.</p> + +<p>The ash-tray was really a large saucer, or small plate, and the +intriguing and really exciting thing about it was that it contained the +remains of scarcely less than a dozen cigars. Just before he made the +lucky remark about Henderson's "Life," the caller had inadvertently +discovered two more cigar-ends, poised perilously on the mantel's edge; +this it was that had started him reacting yet again. For, considering +that the Doctor was out a large part of the day, lecturing, it appeared +incredible that he could have achieved such astonishing results since +morning. Rather, the mantel had the air of having stood undisturbed for +some little time....</p> + +<p>"If those men," he was saying, "had but shot another way, that night at +Chancellorsville—"</p> + +<p>"Ah, sir! the vast 'ifs' of history. And none bigger than that, it may +be. Yet, as I say ..."</p> + +<p>From the large heaped saucer, with its ring of spilled ashes, the +detective eye flitted over the room, briefly, somewhat guiltily, yet +uncontrollably. It received an impression of dust on the table, dust on +the bookshelves, disorder pervasively, and a waste-basket brimful of +trash. Finally, the eye rested anew on the Doctor himself, with his +frayed collar and joyless mien. And all the time, under the mask of the +caller, a question was irresistibly rising and thrusting itself upon the +attention of the authority: What housekeeper had charge of this untidy +little room, what home-maker was in the business of supplying beauty and +charm to this jaded gentleman?</p> + +<p>Unaware that he was being thought of in these terms, Angela's father +reverted austerely to the Seven Days' fighting around Richmond....</p> + +<p>The scientific inquiry had a perfectly proper answer, of course. In the +truest sense, Mrs. Flower was the housekeeper in question; that faded +belle, with the button off her waist, owed the beauty and charm due in +this quarter. Not for nothing did she have that distinctly inefficient +voice. And the moment Charles thought of that voice, his mind, with a +sort of jump, made a link, and he understood at once why the Doctor's +strange speech, eavesdropped by him outside the door, had seemed to have +the quality of a parody. Of course! This dry husband, with the +sick-man's face, had merely been giving back, in a masculinized version, +a reminder not infrequently heard on the lips of womanly women, when +married. Before he had invented that ironic retort, how often had +Angela's father heard it said: <i>I'm your wife, and the mother of your +children....</i></p> + +<p>"And what," the civil caller said, "do you think of Mary Johnston's +picture of Jackson? I assume, of course, you're familiar with—"</p> + +<p>"A brilliant achievement, sir. Indeed, astonishing—for a woman," said +the conservative Doctor, jerking his neck; and resumed.</p> + +<p>But the young authority found his reactions oddly and increasingly +disturbing, and shortly rose to go. He had become certain, abruptly, +that he had party-called long enough.</p> + +<p>His eccentric host, who had appeared so dryly indifferent to his coming, +seemed, on the whole, to regret his departure. And Charles, perceiving +this, found himself feeling rather sorry for him. But he showed his +sympathies, not by offering to stay longer or to come again, but by +inviting Angela's father to lunch with him at Berringer's, one day very +soon at his convenience.</p> + +<p>"I feel that we should further the acquaintance," he said, as they shook +hands, "because of—ah—my long friendship for your—that is, for your +wife's cousin."</p> + +<p>And then he had a new surprise; for, though the Doctor's lips twitched a +little at his correction, showing that he was not altogether devoid of +humor, it was with instant seriousness that he said:—</p> + +<p>"I do insist upon the distinction, you allege? Well, I'm free to say to +you, sir, that I have but scant sympathy with these fantastic modern +notions. If all women did as my wife's young cousin does, what, pray, +would become of the Home?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, what?" said Charles.</p> + +<p>And as he thought of Mary Wing's charming and beautifully kept +sitting-room, he seemed to feel his head going round. Surely, he had +never before seen conservatism so magnificent as this.</p> + +<p>"Meanwhile, come in again, sir, when you find time. I have few callers, +and have appreciated your visit—"</p> + +<p>"Yes!—thank you!"</p> + +<p>"My daughter will be sorry—"</p> + +<p>And then, as the Doctor opened the door, and his lusterless eye looked +out, he added with an approach to grave pleasure in his voice:—</p> + +<p>"Ah, here is Angela now—just in time."</p> + +<p>The caller's eye went slipping down the hall; and so it was. In the +light of the open front door, her rural swain behind her, the young +home-maker stood by the hatstand, examining the two returned books she +had just found there. What chance had brought her back thus early, +cutting off his retreat? Had she passed and seen his hack standing +there, and wondered?</p> + +<p>But, curiously, Charles's bachelor shrinking from this re-meeting seemed +suddenly to have vanished. All his determined championship of the Type, +dating back to the Redmantle Club, all his personal sense of honorable +obligation, had mysteriously thinned to nothing in half an hour in Dr. +Flower's office. In some way that defied analysis, the interior of the +Home seemed to have wiped out Angela's girlish claim, the ash-tray had +overcome the Kiss. And Charles, bidding her father farewell, went +walking down the narrow hall with a tread firm as a soldier's.</p> + +<p>Angela had turned at the sound of voices; she stood gazing somewhat +uncertainly into the dimness (for she was a little short-sighted without +the opera-glasses, and perhaps this was only a patient). The instant of +recognition of her friend was marked with an exclamation, almost a cry, +of pleasure; and she started toward him with the happiest surprised +welcome.</p> + +<p>The re-meeting was effected by the hatstand, where Charles had stood on +the day he had borrowed the book he now came to return. Water had flowed +under London Bridge since then. Mr. Jenney, owner of the celebrated +ring, was presented. He was a long-legged, gangling, curly-headed youth, +with a face that was beautiful in its way, no less; and it must have +been a frank face, too, since Charles, the observer, immediately had the +fellow's whole secret. Here was Mr. Jenney's fair ideal, his high star +and lady of dreams; and his full reward for his pure devotion was to be +kept hanging on, a masculine anchor to windward—just in case, as they +say. Still, he might prove the <i>deus ex machina</i> of the issue yet.</p> + +<p>At the moment, however, little was seen of Mr. Jenney, since, almost in +the first breath, his star said: "Oh, Dan, father's in now, and he'll +want <i>so</i> to see you!"—and Mr. Jenney straightway withdrew obediently. +One gathered that obedience was his fatal quality.</p> + +<p>Thus the unheroic Charles confronted his Temporary Spinster at last, in +her dark home-hall. And she, not guessing the new philosophic resistance +within him, said, with the gayest confident air, and no little archness, +too:—</p> + +<p>"Well, Mr. Garrott!... Did you decide to pay your party-call?"</p> + +<p>Charles smiled.</p> + +<p>"I've been promising myself to come in for some time," he said +pleasantly. "I had several excellent excuses, you see. For one thing, +there was your book, which I've appropriated all this time—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, that! I just saw it there—and thought I must have missed you! That +would have been too mean, after all this time!" She glanced toward the +hatstand, adding: "And—Mr. Manford gave you that other one to bring +back, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"No—ah—we came together, but, of course, he left when he found that +you were out. I wanted especially to pay my respects to your father, +so—"</p> + +<p>"I'm awfully glad he kept you for me.... How are you now? You don't know +how I've missed you, since you had to stop walking entirely!"</p> + +<p>"I've been extremely well, thank you. Or—at least—I've been pretty +well—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know you haven't been well!—you just try to make light of it! +Mr. Manford told me you were breaking yourself down from overwork—you +oughtn't to do it! And then that night when I phoned, and your Secretary +said you were sick from not taking any exercise, I was worried, truly I +was! I wanted to write you a little note—but—"</p> + +<p>"A mere temporary indisposition, not worth a moment of your thought," +said Mr. Garrott. He was wholly recovered now.</p> + +<p>"I'm so glad. You really do look well! It's been ages since I've seen +you! But why," she said, laughing up at him prettily, "am I keeping you +standing at the door like this! Come in the parlor."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, but I really can't, thank you. I must be going."</p> + +<p>She stopped in complete surprise. "Going! Oh, you mustn't go +<i>now</i>!—when I've just come in! Why, you <i>couldn't</i>!—"</p> + +<p>"My time's up, you see, and more. Writing," said Charles sententiously, +"is a dreadful taskmaster. But I've explained all that—"</p> + +<p>"I know!—but you're here now! You can surely take a <i>little</i> time, Mr. +Garrott—when I haven't seen you for days and days—"</p> + +<p>"I've already overstayed my scant allowance, you see, with your father. +But I'm glad to have had a little glimpse of you, at any rate."</p> + +<p>On the whole, he had sought to speak in his usual voice and air; but now +he saw that his new power of firmness had disclosed itself to her not +too sensitive ear. The liquid eyes under the becoming new hat regarded +him with sudden inquiry, puzzled and speculative....</p> + +<p>To think seriously ill of this girl, because, perhaps, she was not an +enthusiastic cleaner of the parental home, was not in Charles, the man, +whatever the authority might have to say. Her soft and unlessoned +youthfulness, confronting him, disarmed all criticism. But the chance +resemblance to her plaintive mother had seemed, oddly, to strike him +much deeper. Looking down at this virginal sweet freshness, by the +hatstand and the books, the young man had been full of the elusive sense +that as the daughter looked and charmed now, so the mother had looked +once; and beyond her present air of alluring femininity, he seemed +persistently to be seeing Angela at fifty, sitting idle in an unswept +room and continually reminding a worn-out husband of her sacrifices and +her service.... Pure fantasy, was it, a fiction-writer's imagining born +of a superficial likeness? Or was there a deeper, a more romantic, +kinship between the girl who set so naïve an estimate on the value of +her kiss, and the woman who would plume herself through an indolent +lifetime on the ancient history of her maternity?...</p> + +<p>The girl opened her mouth to speak: but there came a welcome diversion. +A step was heard on the wooden verandah, and the two young people, +turning their heads together, saw a liveried servant at the still open +door, bowing, speaking:—</p> + +<p>"Miss Flower, marm?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—I am Miss Flower."</p> + +<p>"Fum Mr. Tilletts, marm," said the servant, extending a note. "And he +say please don't you trouble to write, if you'd kindly send an answer by +me, marm."</p> + +<p>"Oh! All right."</p> + +<p>Having said, "Excuse me, Mr. Garrott," Angela opened and glanced +through her note, and then remarked: "Mr. Tilletts wants me to go to the +theater with him to-night. How nice!"</p> + +<p>Her back to the servant, she made a little deprecating face at Mr. +Garrott; but her voice seemed pleasurably stirred all the same, and her +answer to the chauffeur was:—</p> + +<p>"Thank Mr. Tilletts, and say Miss Flower'll be very glad, indeed, to go, +and will be ready at quarter past eight."</p> + +<p>Charles wondered afterward if the opportune Tilletts had not subtly +assisted his own withdrawal; but for the moment it rather seemed +otherwise. While Angela spoke to the servant, he had turned hastily +toward his overcoat; and now her hand fell upon his arm, with just a +touch of the spoiled darling air, or at least with that added confidence +which comes to a girl with these concrete evidences of her success.</p> + +<p>"No, you mustn't! Don't go yet. <i>Please!</i>"</p> + +<p>"I'm compelled to, unluckily. I very rarely allow myself the pleasure of +calling at all, you know, and—"</p> + +<p>"But you <i>have</i> allowed yourself the pleasure, now, Mr. Garrott! +Oh!—don't be so <i>firm</i>! Come in—for only a minute! You can surely +spare me a minute—when I ask you to specially—"</p> + +<p>"It is literally impossible."</p> + +<p>Angela had extended her small hand to lead him into the parlor. Now she +let it fall at her side, and stood looking at him with a conscious +expression on her face, a pretty expression, but one that he scarcely +liked. Of course both of them knew that it was by no means literally +impossible for Mr. Garrott to come in, for only a minute. But doubtless +a womanly girl could be trusted to find an explanation for his peculiar +speeches that plucked their stingers from them, as it were.</p> + +<p>"You're so strange. You're displeased with me, I can see that. +Why?—because I wasn't in when you called? Why, I'm nearly always out on +fine afternoons!"</p> + +<p>"I know that," ventured the young man.</p> + +<p>"If you'd just told me in advance.... Don't you know I'd never have +gone out with Dan Jenney, if I'd dreamed you were going to call?"</p> + +<p>He knew this also, only too well; but this time he only said: "A caller +must take his chances, of course. By the way, let me thank you very +much, again, for lending me that book. I found it immensely +interesting."</p> + +<p>"Oh!—'Marna'? I didn't want you to come just for that.... Did she make +you think of Cousin Mary at all?"</p> + +<p>He smiled distantly, turned away, and put on his overcoat.</p> + +<p>This was done in entire silence; Angela urged him to stay no longer. But +when he turned, hat in hand, to say good-bye, she stood confronting him +again, very near. There was a faint flush on her smooth cheek; her +woman's eyes were very bright; her look upon him was sweet, +self-conscious, and wistful, oddly appealing. Rarely had he seen her +look more girlishly desirable.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Garrott, why have you always been different to me since that +night—of my bridge-party?"</p> + +<p>"Different?" queried Mr. Garrott.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you know you have! You know you've never really got over what I +said to you—and all that dreadful misunderstanding!"</p> + +<p>And he knew then that this nice girl would go to her grave thinking of +him as a lover whose confidence in his suit had been reft from him by a +too sharp rebuke. Well, so be it. He was content that she should have +that satisfaction: let that stand as a further liquidation of the old +obligation, a bonus payment on the esteemed Kiss.</p> + +<p>"You know you've never forgiven me!"</p> + +<p>"I've never had anything to forgive you, Miss Flower."</p> + +<p>"Then you've never believed I've forgiven you! I've tried to show you +that I have, that I've truly appreciated all the nice things you've done +for me—but you've still been different."</p> + +<p>It was doubtless his imagination, but she seemed to be a little nearer +as she said, with a pink and winsome hesitancy:—</p> + +<p>"Can't I make you believe that I—I've really always been the same?"</p> + +<p>Extending his hand, the voluntary celibate replied, with cheerful +reassurance: "I believe it now, Miss Flower. Absolutely. Positively. And +now I must run."</p> + +<p>Angela did not seem to see the hand he offered. She continued to look at +him, and something seemed to die out of her face,—a momentary +expectancy, was it, or the mere native optimism of youth? Her gaze +turned away from his face, turned back again; and then she suddenly gave +a little laugh, an odd laugh, half angry, half sad:—</p> + +<p>"Oh, I do think you're absolutely—<i>obtuse</i>!"</p> + +<p>And Charles then knew that, whether she realized it or not, Angela was +giving him up.</p> + +<p>But still she did not see his farewell hand. Her eyes, going past him +again, had become fixed with a new expression, arresting him, and now +she said, in another tone, what he found perhaps the most interesting +remark in the duologue:—</p> + +<p>"Here's Mr. Manford back!"</p> + +<p>Charles wheeled, with a little jump.</p> + +<p>And sure enough, there, beyond the glass of the door, was the form of +the young engineer, incredibly returning. Yes, there he came back again, +poor, vain, grinning, flattered fool, who only the other day had said: +"Charlie, she worries me."</p> + +<p>With one last look at Mr. Garrott, Angela turned to open the door for +Mr. Manford. The greeting smile succeeded the good-bye reproach. And +even in this disturbed moment, the writer's mind was subtly struck with +the symbolism of that gesture: and once again this girl was a type to +him, sister of a million sisters. Even so, must the womanly Spinster, +through all her seeking days, turn from the man who does not desire her +little offerings of beauty and charm, to the man who—well, possibly +may. And it really wasn't right, wasn't fair....</p> + +<p>"Old Sherlock!—sees the Fordette outside—guesses who's at home now!" +the man who possibly might was saying, with a tone of buoyant intimacy +and a repellent smirk. "I thought you weren't going to forget me +altogether!... Oh! And there's Charlie-boy, too! Feeling better, old +top?"</p> + +<p>Charles looked through him in silence.</p> + +<p>But when Angela drifted by them into the parlor—for she avoided any +formal farewell with her former principal friend—and he was passing +Donald to the door, he bent and flung into the youth's long ear one +futile taunt:—</p> + +<p>"Fool, I suppose she lent you the sequel!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Before the dingy little house of the Flowers', there stood a line of +waiting vehicles. The passer would have said that a reception, or +perhaps a wedding, was going on within.</p> + +<p>To the left, Mr. Tilletts's shining sedan still stood at the broken +curb. The driver, having paused to exchange badinage with Walter Taylor, +was just mounting to his seat. Full in front of the house stood a +conveyance more in character with the unpretentious street: Charles +Garrott's aged hackney-coach, in short. On the other side, at the nose +of the hack-horse and properly leading the procession, stood the stout +little Fordette, resting now from its labors. There only lacked a +bicycle for Mr. Jenney, and something—a donkey, let us say—to stand +for Donald Manford.</p> + +<p>And Angela, indeed, had accomplished this; here was her true creative +work, here her self-expression made visible. She it was who, poor and +obscure, with nobody to help her, had drawn these vehicles and these +gentlemen thronging about her door.</p> + +<p>"Where toe, suh?" cried Walter Taylor, flourishing his whip.</p> + +<p>"Number 6 Olive Street."</p> + +<p>The fare spoke all but automatically, out of his new genuine disquiet. +However, he corrected himself at once: "No—wait a minute."</p> + +<p>If his position that she was just the wife for Donald lay silently +abandoned somewhere behind him: if the business could no longer be +viewed as Donald's idle-hour amusement, but all at once had come to look +decidedly serious: still, what under heaven was the use of giving Mary +another and more rousing warning? He had warned Mary once, and what was +the result? Two calls from Donald to Angela in the course of a single +afternoon. No; if the labor of taking off was now to follow "putting +on," it was clear that some hand far subtler than the too manly Mary's +would have to do the job. And he knew whose hand was plainly indicated, +too....</p> + +<p>And then the young man remembered, with a surprising uprush of relief +and freedom, that this day was Friday, and Donald was off to New York +to-night, within an hour or two. And the foolish youth would be gone a +solid week, too, with Mr. Jenney and Mr. Tilletts left in possession of +the field.</p> + +<p>Thus, Walter Taylor, on his box, received a small surprise. Instead of +giving him a new number, Mr. Garrott unexpectedly produced a dollar-bill +from his pocketbook, and tossed it up to him with a sudden laugh.</p> + +<p>"That's all, Walter. <i>I'll walk!</i>"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XIX" id="XIX"></a>XIX</h2> + + +<p>Donald Manford's absence in far-away New York saw the calendar into +February. It was a month which for some time had held a fixed place in +Charles's thought, as Mary Wing's last month at home. Now the days had +brought him this new concern, by no means unrelated to Mary's impending +departure. That Donald was his concern now, as well as hers, he had +acknowledged, once and for all, in that moment of pause by the hack: and +none saw more clearly than he that the acknowledgment was a damaging +one, opening long vistas of annoying possibilities. Well it might be +that all he had once planned and worried for himself, and much more, he +would now have to plan and worry for his weak and amorous friend. And +suppose Mary Wing went off, leaving the whole business still unsettled?</p> + +<p>However, there was no use in borrowing trouble. For the present, +Donald's well-wishers enjoyed an interlude of complete repose. And on or +about the day of the simpleton's return to the danger-zone, it was +recalled, he was to be whisked off again to the Helen Carson +house-party, where all might end happily yet. Mary deserved her tittle +of credit for that arrangement, at any rate. Charles, making the most of +these peaceful days, reconsecrated himself to Letters and the finding of +his Line.</p> + +<p>Donald himself remained pleasantly unaware of the difficulties created +by his unreliable antics. The youth was known to possess a common +combination of characteristics: he had a novel-hero's chin and an +underlying soft streak. Donald was a little ease-loving; he +unconsciously slanted to the line of least resistance. As to work, Mary +Wing, who had caught him young, had pretty well ironed out his softness; +yet it seemed to persist even there. Witness his dallying for a moment +with an "office proposition" in New York, at whatever emolument, when +far larger professional opportunities awaited him in a Wyoming camp. As +to getting himself married off, Donald's traits were obviously at once +an advantage to his friends and an added risk: they seemed to indicate +clearly that he or she who had his ear last, and took the strongest hand +with him, would win the day. Doubtless his truest friends were most +resolved that such hand should be theirs.</p> + +<p>At any rate, the young squire's presentation of himself at the Wings', +on the afternoon of the day he got back from New York, was by +appointment strictly. It was Friday again, a week to a day from his two +calls upon Angela. Donald "stopped by" Olive Street on his hurried way +uptown. Having had a very strenuous part of a day in his office at Hoag, +Hackett & Manford's, and having a number of things still to do before +five o'clock, he designed to give, say, ten minutes to his call upon his +more than sister. He gave thirty minutes, and emerged into the sunshine +with a sobered face. And, on leaving Mary thus, almost the first person +he saw next was Mary's special friend, Charles Garrott, bowling by.</p> + +<p>The eyes of the young men met and Donald nodded gloomily. Charles, as it +happened, was but taking a last use of his car, prior to the old lady's +return on Monday. But Donald did not know that, and he thought, +absently, what a fool old Charlie was to ride around this way all the +time, when he had legs and could walk like a man. At the same moment, +Charles, inevitably, was thinking what a fool Donald was, for exactly +the opposite reason. Never again, it might be, would Charles Garrott see +a bachelor walking Washington Street alone, without some vague sense of +circumambient peril.</p> + +<p>Charles had not expected to take up the new worries until after the +match-making house-party; but the sight of Donald unprotected out there +made an irresistible appeal to his higher nature, especially as no +trouble to himself would be involved. Accordingly, he answered Donald's +distrait salute with demonstrative smiles and signalings, and +immediately fired an order through the speaking-tube. And the engineer, +surprised, saw the splendid car of the old lady stop with a jerk, back, +wheel, and come sliding up to his side at the curb.</p> + +<p>"Well, old fellow! Glad to see you back!" said Charles, hospitably +swinging open the door. "Hop in and let me drive you up! I want to hear +about your trip."</p> + +<p>Donald was faintly pleased by this unusual attentiveness. He was one of +those extraordinary persons who never ride when it is possible to walk; +on the other hand, he seldom turned away from the chance of a good talk +about himself. And he was very short of time now, too, owing to his +detention at the Wings'.</p> + +<p>So he stepped into the limousine, his manner abstracted and distinctly +consequential.</p> + +<p>Charles, smiling slightly to himself, gave the address, and prompted:—</p> + +<p>"You're just back, aren't you?"</p> + +<p>"And off again at five twenty-two. And I've got two hours' unpacking and +repacking to do before then."</p> + +<p>"You <i>are</i> a traveler these days! What's this," inquired Charles, +innocently—"another business trip?"</p> + +<p>"House-party at the Kingsleys', down at Hatton. Tell your boy to skip +along there, Charlie. I'm in a rush."</p> + +<p>Amiably, Charles spoke into the mouthpiece: "Skip along there, Eustace. +Mr. Manford's in a rush." And resuming he said, with an air of honest +envy: "At the Kingsleys'! By George, that sounds pretty good! Congenial +crowd, winter sports, dancing every night—you're in luck! Who's going +along?"</p> + +<p>Donald named the guests. It did not escape the observant Charles that he +named Miss Carson last, after a perceptible pause and in a manner +clumsily careless. Nothing escaped Charles, not Donald's sober face, +certainly not the fact that he had just come from the Wings'. Now, with +a thrill of satisfaction, he understood that Mary had been talking to +the young light-o'-love at last, giving him to understand plainly where +his duty lay. And this look of Donald's was precisely the right look, +too: just the intensely self-important, nervous, faintly complacent, +highly worried look of a man who has suddenly learned that he is going +to be married directly.</p> + +<p>He gave the strong Mary another large credit-mark, and continued: "Three +days with that crowd!—how I'd like to get in! As for poor old +Talbott—ha, ha!—he'll foam at the mouth when I tell him about this."</p> + +<p>"What's he got to do with it?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I thought you'd heard! Miss Carson knocked him flat with one +look—that lunch of mine! He can't see anybody else since, poor chap. +But he admits he doesn't make any time at all."</p> + +<p>"She's not the kind that takes to any whippersnapper that comes along."</p> + +<p>His odious smugness delighted Charles. So did his fidgeting about, his +hasty glances at his watch, his long solemn stares at himself in the +little mirror.</p> + +<p>"Poor old Talbott swears she must be interested in somebody else," +laughed Charles. "But he confessed he couldn't think of a man he knew +who'd be at all likely to interest a girl like that—I either." And +then, not to overdo it, he said interestedly: "But, Donald, what about +Blake & Steinert?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I turned 'em down," said the coming fiancé, and briefly expanded. +Of the fine old firm, he said: "They were associated with me on Hog Bay +Breakwater." Old Blake was a prince; Steinert a crackerjack. They had +raised their offer, so eager were they to get him, and insisted on +leaving it open for him. He had seen all the shows, lunched at five +clubs, "closed up several important deals," etc., etc.</p> + +<p>Dipping up his watch again, Donald said suddenly: "Seen Mary lately?"</p> + +<p>This being none of his business, Charles replied with a monosyllable.</p> + +<p>"Anything wrong between you two?"</p> + +<p>"Not that I'm aware of.... Great heavens! I'm a worker, my good fellow! +I haven't time to fuss around house-partying—pop-calling—all the +time!—Not, of course, that I don't wish I were going—"</p> + +<p>"Well, you won't have much time to be pop-calling on Mary," reproved +Donald, with his new responsible soberness. "Drop around this afternoon, +Charlie, after your lessons. See if you can't cheer her up a little."</p> + +<p>The limousine reeled off half a block before Charles answered:</p> + +<p>"Seems I'm behind the times again. What does Miss Mary need to be +cheered up about, exactly?"</p> + +<p>"What d'you s'pose now, Charlie? Going off to New York to live, herself; +me off to Wyoming for two years at least; Aunt Ellen moving to North +Carolina; home broken up—why, I tell you the thing is the worst kind of +smash-up! I've just been with Mary—never saw her so blue in my life."</p> + +<p>Charles said, after another silence: "But she understood all that from +the beginning, didn't she?"</p> + +<p>"Understood—what's that got to do with it? Besides, you never +understand things till you get right down to 'em. Take me," said Donald, +recurring to his favorite subject with a frown. "I hadn't an idea how +much I was going to mind this business—ending it all here, moving off +to the back side of nowhere to—"</p> + +<p>"Well, don't be sentimental about it, for pity's sake! This is a +realistic story we're living, or I miss my guess entirely.—When does +Miss Mary leave?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, about two weeks, I believe, but—"</p> + +<p>"Two weeks!"</p> + +<p>"Wensons want the flat around the 20th, I understand. We didn't speak of +that just now—Mary'll tell you about it. Let's see," said Donald, +fidgeting about and looking first out one window, then another. "Going +to your mother's to-morrow, I suppose? Drop in this afternoon, +Charlie—or to-night. And that's so!—you can take around a package for +me, things I bought for Mary in New York—oh, neck-fichus, silk +stockings—that sort of stuff."</p> + +<p>But the thought of himself as Mary's cheerer-up at this juncture in her +Career was bitterly ironic to Charles, and, answering curtly that he +would be too busy to run errands this afternoon, he changed the subject +at once. In short, when did Donald go to Wyoming? Unable to resist the +opening, Donald said that he would probably start on March 15th; and so +began to talk fitfully of himself. At the other window, Charles relapsed +into thought. He did not speak again until the car rolled up to the +entrance of the showy apartment-hotel where Donald lived. Then, rousing +himself abruptly, he said, with a well-done air of negligent +sprightliness:—</p> + +<p>"Oh, by the by, Donald—heard anything from our little friend in the +four-wheeler, as you call it? I haven't laid eyes on her since that day +you and I marched up like little soldiers to give back her books. Funny, +that was!—ha, ha!"</p> + +<p>Donald's face of a young man about to be married changed perceptibly. He +answered, quite stiffly:—</p> + +<p>"I fail to see anything funny in it. Miss Flower's perfectly well, I +believe."</p> + +<p>"Good!—glad to hear it. She needs her health, all the driving about she +does.... Why, where'd she see you to-day?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't say I'd seen her to-day, that I remember. By Jove, I don't get +a minute to see anybody or anything, rushed about this way all the +time!... Well! Obliged for the lift."</p> + +<p>"And how do you know she's well, then?"</p> + +<p>"Because she told me so over the telephone, if you give a darn! What's +this about, anyway?"</p> + +<p>"Why, not a thing! Why, my dear fellow! Of <i>course</i>, I understand +perfectly! You don't suppose I suspect you of being old Tilletts's +rival, do you? Not likely—ha, ha! No, I think it's awfully nice of you, +old fellow, knowing as I do that you don't admire her particularly. +That's what I wanted to say," proceeded Charles, laying his hand +affectionately and detainingly on Donald's arm. "Of course you know she +doesn't have much of a time—attention and all that—oh, I see through +you perfectly! It's just Talbott and the Oldmixon girls over again—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, she told me about <i>you</i>!" said Donald in a blustering manner; and, +snatching his arm away, he sprang out upon the sidewalk.</p> + +<p>His remark evoked curiosity; but Charles's overweening interest was not +in Angela now. And he was thinking intently: "He's not engaged to Helen +Carson yet, by a long shot. He's not even at the station—that's a +mile—on Washington Street. I'd better keep an eye on you, my buck ..."</p> + +<p>Aloud he said: "She did?—nothing good, I fear. Here!—wait a minute! +That package for Miss Mary, Donald—I expect you'd better leave it for +me to take, after all. I'll find some way to get it around to her—"</p> + +<p>"All right—"</p> + +<p>"You bring it by as you start for the station, that's the best way. Then +we'll drive down together," said Charles, fixing his friend with a +compelling gaze. "I've—ah—got some things I want to talk to you +about."</p> + +<p>"I'll bring it by," said Donald, non-committally, and rushed away.</p> + +<p>He went up seven floors, telephoned for the "staff valet," and proceeded +to business. There was a period of the wildest activity. At the end of +it, the hour being then too late for hope that any expressman would make +the train with the trunk, Donald engaged the valet to secure a +carriage, take down and check the baggage, get him a ticket and a seat, +and be waiting for him with these things at a given point. In such +slapdash, inefficient fashion this young man conducted all his personal +life.</p> + +<p>"And mind you see the baggage on the train," he warned the fellow. "This +is an important trip."</p> + +<p>He shot down again, dressed to "kill" the house-party, but lugging a +large box, and strode out into the fading sunshine. Before the hotel +door, to his surprise, stood Charlie Garrott's borrowed car, empty, and +before the car stood Charlie Garrott's borrowed driver, greeting him +with all his teeth.</p> + +<p>"What're <i>you</i> waiting here for?" said Donald, staring.</p> + +<p>"Goin' to drive you an' Mist' Garrott to the deepo—yessuh! Mist' +Garrott tole me to wait right here an' bring you round, suh!"</p> + +<p>Donald again was rather touched by the thoughtfulness of his friend. +Take him all in all, old Charlie was a pretty good fellow. However, he +would have ridden down in the hack with the valet, if he had wanted to +ride. Of course, he might send the box around by this fellow—but no, if +old Charlie was expecting him, that would seem pretty short, +particularly as Mrs. Herman's was right on his way.</p> + +<p>"I'm much obliged to you—er—Eustace—but I'll walk, I guess. I haven't +had any exercise to-day."</p> + +<p>"Boss, he say you mout not ketch yo' train if you was to walk."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I've got plenty of time for the train—plenty!" said Donald, +hastily, and shifted the box to look at his watch again. "I'll leave +word for Mr. Garrott myself."</p> + +<p>"Suh! Thank you kindly, suh!"</p> + +<p>Donald swung off toward Mrs. Herman's, but three blocks distant. Behind +him, unobserved, trailed the old lady's limousine, very slow. When he +was still a block from his destination, the hurrying young man was all +at once struck with an annoying recollection. "Curses!" he groaned. "I +forgot my sweater!" That meant that he would have to go back, without +doubt: for the sweater was a brand-new one, of brilliant Australian +wool, and specially purchased in New York for the winter-sports. Donald, +accordingly, felt unable to linger over his good-bye messages to +Charles. He said hurriedly to Mrs. Herman, who opened the door for him: +"How-do! Please give this box to Mr. Garrott, and tell him I decided to +walk. He'll understand." And on that, he sprang away down the steps, two +at a time, and started swiftly back to the Bellingham.</p> + +<p>But just as he reached the corner, he was suddenly arrested by the sound +of his own name, rolling loudly after him down the street.</p> + +<p>"<i>Donald! Hi, there! Stop!</i>"</p> + +<p>Donald halting, looked upward and all about him. Presently, through the +top branches of an intervening tree, he descried Charles Garrott leaning +far out of Mrs. Herman's third-story window. "Well?" called Donald.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter? Where're you going?" demanded Charles in a voice +that broke easily through the tree. "I said we'd drive down together!"</p> + +<p>He was heard continuing in another tone: "<i>No!</i> Stop, Eustace! Don't go +away—I want you!"</p> + +<p>"Much obliged," shouted Donald, "but I'd rather walk."</p> + +<p>Charles said something out the window, which Donald failed to catch.</p> + +<p>"What say?"</p> + +<p>"You come back!" cried Charles, beckoning, while passing pedestrians +craned their necks upward. "Wait for me—just a minute—I'm all ready! +And I've got to speak to you—about several things! About the package!"</p> + +<p>But Donald, objecting to the attention they were attracting, shook his +head decisively. "Haven't time now. Forgot something ... back to my +rooms."</p> + +<p>"If you haven't time to wait, you certainly haven't time to walk back to +your rooms! You're going to miss your train with all this walking!"</p> + +<p>That was pointed enough to cause Donald to pause again, and look at his +watch for the twentieth time. He found that he still had twenty-five +minutes, time enough, of course, but then he might have to hunt for the +sweater, and there was the business of the luggage at the station, too.</p> + +<p>Down through the branches boomed the strangely insistent voice of +Charles: "Why, by George! You've only got twenty minutes. Here, take my +car there, quick! You can barely make it, driving fast ..."</p> + +<p>And in a lower voice he said: "After him, Eustace! Get him to the +station as fast as you can. Don't fail this time."</p> + +<p>Donald was hesitating, struck as Charles meant him to be, with the fear +that his watch might be slow. He now called, with evidences of ill-humor +and disturbance:—</p> + +<p>"All right, then! But I can't stop for you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's all right, old fellow—my matters can wait! I'll look out +for the package! Just you catch your train, that's all!"</p> + +<p>Continuing to lean out of the Studio window, Charles watched the dullard +step into the old lady's tightly closed car, and whirl away—safe at +last. As the car shot round the corner, he suddenly laughed aloud: a +triumphant laugh, but charged with irritation, too.</p> + +<p>Then Charles, aloft, drew head and torso back into the Studio, banged +shut the window, and found Mrs. Herman just plumping the large white box +of things for Mary down on his writing-table. The spectacle brought +forward the other matter instantly. Of course, he had agreed to receive +the box purely as a means of keeping an eye on Donald.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes—as to the package, Mrs. Herman, perhaps you wouldn't mind +taking it down as you go, and just leaving it on the hall table? +I—ah—shall probably call a messenger to take it—a little later."</p> + +<p>"Certainly, Mr. Garrott," said Mrs. Herman, picking up the box again. +"And oh, would you mind telling the Judge I'd like to speak to him a +minute before he goes out?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, Mrs. Herman."</p> + +<p>The landlady, lingering, said: "He seems in poor spirits, don't you +think so, Mr. Garrott? His appetite is not what it was. And he goes out +and takes these long walks, alone, day after day, or sits here by +himself in the Studio. I don't think it's good for him. I think he +broods."</p> + +<p>"It's nothing serious, Mrs. Herman. He's annoyed with me, I fear, for +giving up some physical culture exercises which he hoped might make a +man of me yet. Also, for being such a continuous failure as a writer."</p> + +<p>"But it's not your fault, Mr. Garrott! You do the very best you can, I'm +sure. The Judge is unreasonable—that's what I say. Oh, I could coax him +into a good humor easily enough, but I scarcely ever see him nowadays, +except at meal times. I can't very well offer to go with him on his +walks, can I?—but I'm sure the solitude is bad for him."</p> + +<p>"Ah, you should get yourself a little Fordette, Mrs. Herman."</p> + +<p>"And what is a little Fordette, Mr. Garrott?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—simply a sort of wheeled device for going with people on their +walks. I'm explaining it in a story. But," said Charles, "I won't fail +to give the Judge your message."</p> + +<p>Left alone, the young man stood for a space in the middle of the floor, +gazing intently at nothing. Then he seated himself at his table and +produced manuscript from the drawer. Then he put the manuscript back in +the drawer, and stared at nothing again. Finally, he rose, opened the +bedroom door quietly, and said:—</p> + +<p>"Judge, I find I have to go out for a little while."</p> + +<p>Judge Blenso, in the bedroom, received the friendly information, and +then his message from Mrs. Herman, with only a cold "Very well!" He +stood at a long board, balanced on two distant chair-backs, listlessly +pressing the trousers he didn't have on; his instrument being a patent +electric-flatiron, which consumed quantities of current, which indeed +fairly gave the measure of his landlady's adoration. Catch Mrs. Herman +letting Two-Book McGee use so much as an electric curling-iron in the +Second Hall Back!</p> + +<p>"And Judge," added Charles, conciliatingly, "please don't bother to take +that manuscript to the express-office—I mean 'Bandwomen'—unless you +really want the walk."</p> + +<p>"Very well! I hear you! Good gad, very well!" said the Judge.</p> + +<p>Charles shut the door, regretfully. It had been like this between them +for some weeks now. Even his generosity in quietly yielding the name of +his own only novel produced no softening effect on his secretary's cold +bored disapprobation.</p> + +<p>He put on hat and overcoat, descended two flights, picked up the box of +things for Mary, and went out upon his errand. He walked slowly, down +Mason Street to Olive, and at Olive turned south.</p> + +<p>For the second time, Donald had contrived to force his hand in regard to +Mary: he was conscious of resenting that. Still—of course he had never +meant to let the old friendship end in estrangement, and doubtless the +casual pretext of the box was better than the formal "call" next week he +had had in mind. To appear as Mary's cheerer-up now was, indeed, +considerably beyond him. Nevertheless, he was well aware that what +Donald had told him in this connection had made an instant difference in +his feeling, made him readier to be friends again. If only she had felt +and realized all this in the beginning, if only she had showed him so +that day over the telephone....</p> + +<p>Still, feeling wasn't enough, unfortunately. There was this whole +business about Donald, for instance. In one way he could think of that +almost pleasurably. Mary seemed to suppose that if she but arranged a +house-party and gave Donald a sound talking to in advance, the whole +thing was settled, down to the orange-blossoms. It required him to +revise her crude plannings, put in the omitted <i>finesse</i>, and deliver +Donald safely at the station. But Charles, pacing gravely toward the +unpremeditated meeting, large box under his arm, found his thought of +the episode continually seeking deeper levels. If, two weeks from now, +Donald was still not engaged to Helen, whose was to be the +responsibility of pushing him on? Not Mary's, evidently. Was not this +youth, in fact, but one more of those countless intimate obligations +which strong women must "hack away," when resolved to lead their own +lives? Donald was the apple of Mary's eye. Normally speaking, she was +ready to do anything for him. But it seemed that even Donald, if he +crossed the trail of the Career, would have to look to himself.</p> + +<p>Or, more probably, he, Charles, would have to look out for him.</p> + +<p>At the corner of Washington Street, pausing, the meditative young man +consulted his watch; he shifted the box for the purpose just as Donald +had done a few minutes earlier. It was quarter past five, exactly. +Donald would be at the station now, without doubt, safe on the train. +Well, here was one thing he had done for Mary, at any rate, as he should +not fail to indicate to her. And thus, insensibly, his thought slipped +into the pleasurable vein again, the superior, masterful vein, and his +mind composed the light ironic sentences with which he should make known +to Mary her remissness and his own subtle services.</p> + +<p>Stepping down from the curb in this brown study, he all but walked into +a motor-car whirring by: a car that was stealing the wrong side of the +street, and cutting close to the sidewalk at that. Charles stopped and +stepped back, just in time. And then, all in the same breath, his ears, +his eyes, and his nostrils telegraphed his brain what car, and whose, +this was. It was the Fordette, none other, going at an unprecedented +speed, now curving back dangerously to the side where it belonged. On a +cloud of the dark smoke it sometimes emitted, Angela's girlish laugh +came floating back to him distinctly. But Charles's gaze was fixed on +the figure of the man who sat at Angela's side and held the Fordette +wheel; and his eyes all but started from his head as he perceived that +it was Donald....</p> + +<p>Yes, it was poor Donald fast in the Home-Making conveyance: Donald, +snatched, she alone knew how, from his wedding-coach.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XX" id="XX"></a>XX</h2> + + +<p>The famous Secretary sat at her desk in the well-kept sitting-room. She +sat in the midst of documents and letters; large white sheets of her +Education League writing-paper lay before her, the topmost sheet nearly +filled with her neat chirography. Oblivious to small happenings in the +world without, the Secretary was deep in her distinguished +correspondence. But her desk, as it happened, stood in the window, and +the Secretary, after all, was not so immersed in her affairs but that +she looked out into the Park now and then, sometimes for whole minutes +together. She looked, too, into the quiet street before the house. And +so it was that her eyes, in time, fell upon the familiar figure of +Charles Garrott; striding all at once into her range, turning swiftly in +at her door, vanishing again into her vestibule, scarcely five feet from +where she sat.</p> + +<p>Though thus aware that she was about to have a caller, Mary did not at +once spring up to go and welcome him. She sat, entirely motionless, her +permanently questioning gaze fixed on the spot where the caller had +passed from view. The ringing of the bell scarcely seemed to penetrate +her consciousness. But then, in a moment, she dropped her pen quickly, +and rose. Standing, she locked her two hands together before her, very +tight, released them again, passed out into the hall, and opened her +front door.</p> + +<p>"Good-afternoon! This is an unexpected pleasure," said she, in her +natural voice, or very near it. "Come in!—or can you?"</p> + +<p>Her visitor looked full at her from the vestibule, unsmiling.</p> + +<p>"Oh, certainly—if you're not too busy! It's what I am here for. How do +you do to-day?"</p> + +<p>"That's nice! You don't often honor us, and—I feared you had merely +stopped to leave that package."</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes!—the package! Some things Donald got for you—I suppose you +know? He asked me—"</p> + +<p>"Oh! I'm afraid that was very much of an imposition—and I was really in +no hurry for them at all."</p> + +<p>She thanked him, relieved him of the pretextual box, laid it on the hall +table, and, with inevitable but extreme infelicity, continued:—</p> + +<p>"You saw Donald to-day, then?"</p> + +<p>A small silence preceded his controlled reply "Oh, yes!—I saw him."</p> + +<p>"I've just packed him off to a house-party at the Kingsleys'—to make +love to Helen Carson. But perhaps he told you?"</p> + +<p>In the large mirror overhanging the table, the eyes of the once +excellent friends briefly encountered. She was puzzled by the quality of +his grave gaze.</p> + +<p>"He did mention a house-party, I believe. But—"</p> + +<p>Turning away toward the sitting-room, Mary filled the pause with a +little laugh: "But you think he won't make love to Helen, perhaps?"</p> + +<p>The grave young man, following her, did not burst forth, even then. His +restraint seemed curious, even to himself. Crossing Washington Street +just now, he had been full enough of plain speech, for this young +woman's good. "I've had quite enough of this!" he would say to her. "I +can't and won't give up my afternoons, my life, to playing nurse to +Donald. If you are satisfied to have him marry Miss Angela, well and +good. If not—" and then a last warning, far sharper, far more direct, +than the other. But then as he waited upon her steps, and then as he +looked at her in the door, the springs of this trivial anger had seemed +mysteriously to subside and dry up. No doubt the Career-Maker's own look +had something to do with that. Her face in the afternoon light was seen +to be thin and tired; he thought he detected faint circles under her +eyes, a slightly pinched look about her nostrils. But beyond all that, +beyond any question of "sympathy," or cheering-up, it seemed that the +affair itself had suddenly shrunk in importance. Donald's folly, +Angela's little foibles, seemed to matter less to Charles as he found +himself looking again at the departing heroine of his write-ups.</p> + +<p>So he discharged his bolt with restrained formality: "It isn't that. I +was only wondering whether or not you had packed him off, as yet."</p> + +<p>"Oh!—but haven't I?... I don't understand."</p> + +<p>"I happened to see him a minute ago, driving on Washington Street with +your cousin—Miss Angela."</p> + +<p>It was clear that the topic had lost no interest for Mary, at any rate. +She stopped short in the middle of the floor, utterly taken aback.</p> + +<p>"<i>Donald!</i>—as you came here?"</p> + +<p>And, instantly recovering from mere astonishment, her capable gaze flew +to the little watch on her wrist.</p> + +<p>Charles reassured her, as dryly as possible: "However, they were headed +toward the station, and going as fast as they could. I think he will +make his train."</p> + +<p>"But—it's not possible, I'm afraid! His train goes at five +twenty-two—it's just that now!... Ah, how <i>could</i> he!"</p> + +<p>Producing his own valued chronometer, the young man compared it with the +educator's small trinket.</p> + +<p>"I believe you're a little fast, aren't you? I'm five-eighteen. And it +was just quarter past when I saw them, for I looked to see. That gave +him seven minutes—"</p> + +<p>"Yes—well!—but Angela's little car is so slow—"</p> + +<p>"Oh!—it can go fast enough for practical purposes—I've observed. +Besides, Donald may have telephoned and found that the train was late."</p> + +<p>"Yes—that's true."</p> + +<p>Mary Wing looked toward the window, characteristically composed again, +but evidently concerned enough.</p> + +<p>"Well, I hope so. It would be too stupid of him to miss it, after +all ... I can't think how he happened to be with Angela—at the last +minute this way."</p> + +<p>"How, indeed? But sit down, do, and I'll tell you why it seems +particularly—mystifying to me. I hope," the formal caller added, with a +glance toward the busy-looking desk, "I'm not interrupting?"</p> + +<p>The General Secretary said no, with some brevity.</p> + +<p>In sentences less copious and biting than he had sketched out on the +corner, Charles recited the history of his futile afternoon. He could +not, indeed, believe it possible that Donald, having donned the solemn +bridegroom look for Helen Carson, would deliberately throw it off again +for the sake of a short drive in the Fordette: which, to say the least +of it, could be had at any time at his desire. Nor was Donald really a +born fool, who would miss a train through sheer childish carelessness. +The inference was that, encountering Angela, accidentally (more or +less), just after his second start, the youth had calculated that he +still had time to spare; and so had consented to exchange the speedy +limousine for the Fordette: quite probably in no spirit more serious +than that of a venturesome lark. Charles's remarks, at least, took these +generous grounds, reassuring as to the moment. And still a tinge of +exasperation crept into his account of his wasted labors. And still +something in him seemed to require that he should bring these small +responsibilities home where they belonged, for once: leaving them on her +doorstep, as it were, for her to jump over when she went away.</p> + +<p>But his story, inevitably, was one of ungallant efforts to evade +impending pursuit. And when, to point up his lesson, he guardedly +suggested a connection between the natural ambitions of Miss Angela, and +the two complete transplantations of her family, Mary Wing seemed to +gather more of his purely private thought than he had intended. One of +her intent interrogative stares brought him to an unintended pause. And +she commented quietly, but rebukingly, he considered:—</p> + +<p>"You seem to have changed your opinion of Angela since last week."</p> + +<p>There, of course, he hardly cared to justify himself. He could not well +explain what Angela's resemblance to her mother had signified to him, +and why he considered poor Dr. Flower the most magnificent romanticist +in the world.</p> + +<p>"I merely suggest," he said, with stiffening dignity, "that she does +seem to be much interested in Donald—and he in her—now. I happen to +know that he called on her twice the day he left for New York, and +talked with her over the telephone this morning. But you mistake me, if +you think I mean to criticize your cousin—personally. I hope I +understand better than that how—all this—is as logical and +mathematical as a natural law. How far in the other direction the +education of women ought to take them ... that, of course, is not for me +to guess.... My point is only that these—these perfectly logical +ambitions—are strong enough to be taken seriously by those who mean to +oppose them."</p> + +<p>"Do you doubt that I take this seriously?"</p> + +<p>"I have doubted it, I must admit.... Suppose this house-party comes to +nothing, what do you mean to do?"</p> + +<p>The former heroine of the write-ups did not answer him at once. She sat +in a straight chair, half-sidewise, a considerable distance away; her +arm was laid along the chair-back, her cheek sunk upon her hand. +Something in the pose made the caller think of Donald's exaggerated +statement, that he had never seen Mary so blue in his life.</p> + +<p>When she spoke, it was not again to suggest, offhand, that he should +save Donald by stepping in.</p> + +<p>"You are right, of course," she said with a certain dignity herself. "I +haven't been thinking of it as seriously as I should—evidently. Now—if +this doesn't come to anything—I'll need some time to plan about it."</p> + +<p>"It's going to be rather troublesome, I'm afraid. And you—I—"</p> + +<p>"I'll make it my chief interest, you may be sure."</p> + +<p>Then the stiff caller, examining his shirt-cuff as if he had never seen +such an object before, released his logical comment:</p> + +<p>"But I'm afraid you haven't left yourself a great deal of time, have +you? Two weeks may prove rather a small allowance—for a difficult +matter like this."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I—hope there will be time enough. Meantime, I—"</p> + +<p>"I hadn't realized you were going so soon, you see. That will add to the +difficulties, I'm afraid. Donald says you expect to leave on the 20th."</p> + +<p>He meant his rejoinders to be unanswerable, and she seemed to find them +so. Glancing up from his cuff in the silence, Charles found his famous +friend's eyes fixed upon him in a strange gaze, which her lids and +lashes veiled at once. Had that look struck him from any other eyes in +the world, he would have labeled it reproachful, without the smallest +hesitation. But Mary was never reproachful: she scarcely thought enough +of him for that; and, besides, the shoe was on the other foot, as she +should know very well.</p> + +<p>"I did say something of the sort last week, I believe—though no day was +really settled on. But it was very nice of you," she went on naturally +enough, but with too evident a wish to shift the conversation, "to take +so much trouble about it to-day. I do appreciate all your interest in +it—and I do believe it's going to turn out right, too. Donald certainly +left me with that feeling, this afternoon. So don't let's bother about +it any more now," said Mary. "I'd much rather hear—some more about your +writing. I hope you've gotten the book well started now?"</p> + +<p>But Charles, unique among the writers of the world, did not want to talk +about himself to-day. No, he had found the topic for him now.</p> + +<p>"No!—I haven't, I'm sorry to say. Your arrangements are all made, +aren't they? Judge Blenso tells me you're going to live with Sophy +Stein, who used to run the Pure Food laboratories here?"</p> + +<p>Again her brief look seemed to thrust upon him like a hand, and again +her reply glanced off:—</p> + +<p>"Yes—I was planning to live with her. You knew her, didn't you, when—"</p> + +<p>"I was going to say—if everything is arranged, perhaps you wouldn't +need to start so early.... Of course, the idea of your friends here +would be that you should wait till the last day."</p> + +<p>As she neither approved nor rejected this amiable suggestion, Charles +said: "How does that idea appeal to you?"</p> + +<p>To his surprise, instead of answering his question, Mary rose abruptly +and went over to her desk. He then assumed that she wished to show him +some letter bearing on her arrangements for her new life. But it seemed +that her movement had no such object. She merely stood there a moment, +fingering her papers in an irresolute sort of way; and then, without a +word, she moved a little farther, and stood, looking out of the window.</p> + +<p>He said, at once with bewilderment and with increasing constraint: "Or +possibly you don't wish me to know when you are going?"</p> + +<p>Then Mary Wing turned in the dying light, and said, not dramatically at +all, but in her quietest everyday voice:—</p> + +<p>"No, I don't mind your knowing. I'm not going."</p> + +<p>And still the authority on women did not understand.</p> + +<p>"Not going—when?"</p> + +<p>"I've decided not to accept the appointment."</p> + +<p>And, sitting down, suddenly and purposelessly at her desk, the young +woman of the Career added in a rather let-down voice: "I haven't told +anybody at all yet. I just decided—last night."</p> + +<p>Then came silence into the twilight sitting-room, surely a silence like +none here before it. In the Wings' best chair, the caller sat still as a +marble man, while the little noises from the street grew loud and +louder. And then, quite abruptly and mechanically, he began to rise, +exactly as if an unseen spirit were lifting him bodily by the hair. And +he could feel all the blood drawing out of his face.</p> + +<p>"Not going to accept the appointment," he echoed suddenly, in a queer +voice.</p> + +<p>And then, as if so reminded that his tongue possessed this +accomplishment, he all at once burst out: "Why—but—why! You <i>have</i> +accepted it! It was settled!—long ago! <i>Not going!</i>—what do you mean? +Why, what's happened?"</p> + +<p>The young woman seated so inappropriately at the desk, gazing so +meaninglessly into pigeon-holes, made no reply. And now Charles Garrott +was walking toward her, walking as the entranced walk, fascinated, +staring with fixed eyes that had forgotten how to wink.</p> + +<p>"What're you talking about? I don't know what you mean! Why, what's +happened—what's gone wrong?"</p> + +<p>Mary Wing grew restless under his questionings; she spoke with obvious +effort: "Nothing's happened—nothing's gone wrong. I say, I simply +decided that I wouldn't—take the position, after all. I decided I would +refuse it. So I was writing to Dr. Ames—to explain ... That's all I can +say."</p> + +<p>But the man standing over her looked more spellbound than ever.</p> + +<p>"Explain!—explain what?... Why—you can't put me off like this—can +you?" said he, all his stiffness so shattered by her thunderbolt, all +his struggle but for some effect of poise. "You <i>must</i> know—I'm +tremendously interested. And—I'm obliged to feel that something pretty +serious has happened to make you—"</p> + +<p>"No!—nothing has happened at all, I've said. I assure you—nothing."</p> + +<p>"But ... You can't imagine how absolutely in the dark ... Do you mean +you've found something else you'd rather do—here?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose that's one way of putting it—yes.... Why, I simply say that +when the time came—I wasn't able to do it, that's all.... No, I didn't +want to do it—that must have been it. Of course, people always do what +they really want most."</p> + +<p>"You didn't want to do what?... You know, that's just what I don't quite +understand."</p> + +<p>"But I've just told you," she protested; and there stopped short.</p> + +<p>She had overcome the brief weakness which had seemed to seize her when, +for the first time, she heard her intention declared aloud, the spoken +word, it may be, imparting to it the last irrevocable stroke. She, the +competent, would not be incompetent with her own great affair. And now, +as if she reluctantly acknowledged some right he had to understand, she +seemed to force herself to speak again, in a voice from which her +self-control had pressed all tone.</p> + +<p>"I mean that, when the time came, I couldn't pick up and go away—for +good—no matter what was at the other end. I mean I wasn't willing to. +I'd rather not."</p> + +<p>She took a breath; and then tone came into her sentences, but it was +only a sort of light hardness.</p> + +<p>"I suppose it all came down to this—that I wasn't willing to leave +mother—in the way I should have to leave her. I didn't want to. It was +not possible ... And I'm afraid that's all I can say."</p> + +<p>"But of course I understand you now," said the young man instantly, in +the strangest mild voice.</p> + +<p>"Then, if you will—please me—let's say no more about it."</p> + +<p>To that stanch speech he made no reply: perhaps he did not hear it. +Winter dusk had crept quickly into the pretty sitting-room. The tall +figure motionless by the little desk grew perceptibly dimmer.</p> + +<p>That understanding Charles spoke of had come upon him by successive +shocks, each violent in its way. His had been the mere mad sense of a +world too suddenly swung upside down, of the individual himself left +standing brilliantly on his head. That had been just at first; and then +perception had slid into him like a lance, and his feet had struck the +solid ground with a staggering jolt. It was as if, at a word, all the +supporting fabrications of his mind had turned to thin air, and out he +fell headlong, at last, upon the real and the true. And this real and +this true was Mary Wing, nothing else, standing where she had always +stood; Mary, his best old friend, whom he had given his back to, +belabored with harsh words, while she struggled at the crossroads of her +life—to this. Now contrition, now humbleness had shaken the young +authority, a poignant conviction of his failure, in understanding and in +friendship. And then she spoke again, making it all quite perfect with +simple words that he himself, in a dream, might have shaped and put into +her mouth. <i>I wasn't willing to leave mother.</i> And after that, it seemed +that nothing about himself could possibly matter in the least.</p> + +<p>"You know," he said, quite naturally, out of the small silence, "I think +it's beautiful that a girl like you can feel this way—a girl with your +abilities—your usefulness and splendid success—and now this +magnificent oppor—"</p> + +<p>"Don't!—please don't! I hadn't meant to speak of it at all. I—we +won't discuss it, please."</p> + +<p>She spoke hastily, pushing back the papers she had been pretending to +arrange, starting to rise. But that word or that movement seemed to +galvanize the still Charles into the suddenest life.</p> + +<p>"<i>Discuss it!</i>" he cried, in a new voice. "Why, we're going to have the +greatest discussion you ever heard!"</p> + +<p>For perhaps the strangest part of this destructive upheaval was that it +seemed to leave every idea he had ever had about this Career completely +reversed. One word from Mary Wing about not leaving her mother, and +nothing seemed to matter but that she, in her fine recklessness, should +not be allowed to sacrifice her triumph and her life.</p> + +<p>"No!—please! It's settled now. And it only makes—"</p> + +<p>But her friend, the authority, had flung himself into the chair beside +her, like an excited boy, and he seized her wrist on the desk-leaf in an +arresting grip.</p> + +<p>"No, it isn't settled till it's settled right!—don't you know that? Is +this your letter to Ames here? Let me tear it up for you now! Refuse the +appointment! Why, Miss <i>Mary</i>! You can't think of such a thing! You!—a +worker with a mission—and this your great call!—your big +opportunity—your <i>duty</i>! Yes, your—"</p> + +<p>She interrupted his flowing modernisms to say, quite patiently: "You're +hurting my wrist."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and I'm going on hurting it till I see that letter torn up! Now, +Miss Mary!—listen to me—for once—I beg! You won't suppose I don't +understand—now—what made you sit down to do this, and I—I needn't +say I admire you immensely for feeling so. But—don't you see—if life's +hard, it's not your doing, and if it's hardest on mothers, you can't +change the conditions by a hair's-breadth, no matter what you do.... +Why, if you were going to marry Donald, and go off to Wyoming, the break +here would be just as bad, but you'd never think it wasn't right—you'd +know that these were the terms and conditions of life. Oh, you know all +that as well as I! You know the duty isn't from children to parents—no, +I swear, it's from parents to children, every time. And your mother'll +be the first to say so—you know that, too! You know, when you tell her +you're thinking of doing this, she'll go down on her knees to beg you to +take your youth—and your life—and be free—"</p> + +<p>He was deflected by one of Mary's normal level gazes, turned upon him. +She said steadily:—</p> + +<p>"How long have you been feeling this way?"</p> + +<p>"Ten years! And then—for about five minutes."</p> + +<p>"I had understood somehow—I don't know how exactly—that you always +thought I should stay here."</p> + +<p>The young man felt a flush spreading upward toward his hair, but would +not lower his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I did have some such feeling—in a sort of—personal, illogical +way. But if it's the last word I ever speak—you've destroyed the last +shred of it."</p> + +<p>He rose abruptly, without intention. Nothing in the world was clearer to +him than that he and his reactions mattered little to her now; yet the +desire mounted in him to explain how it was never the thing itself, but +always the feeling about it, that had seemed so important to him. +However, the school-teacher, with a little definitive gesture of the arm +he had released, spoke first:—</p> + +<p>"Well, never mind! Don't argue with me, please. It's as over and done +with as something last year—"</p> + +<p>But Charles, upon his unimagined task of persuading Mary to act as the +Egoettes act, cried out: "No!—no! Argue! Why, d'you think I'll stand by +and hold my tongue, while you sacrifice the great chance of your life, +your particular dream—for a mere notion of <i>duty</i>! I say, and I've +always said, that freedom—and the right to do your work—belong to you, +if to anybody in the world! You've—"</p> + +<p>"Do you really suppose I've lain awake all these nights without learning +what my own mind is?"</p> + +<p>Having stopped him effectually with this dry thrust, she went on in +another manner, not controversial at all, rather like one speaking to +herself.</p> + +<p>"And as for my freedom—that's not involved at all.... I was thinking +just now that maybe this is just what freedom—responsible +freedom—really is—means. It's having the ability and the desire and +the fair chance to do a thing—<i>and then not do it</i>."</p> + +<p>And then Charles Garrott knew, quite suddenly and finally, that this, +indeed, was no talk in a book, but the realest thing in the world; that +this incredible had really happened: that Mary Wing, the "hard" +Career-Maker, was tossing her Career away....</p> + +<p>He stood quite silenced, while she spoke her last decisive word.</p> + +<p>"So you see you have a wrong idea of—what I'm doing, altogether. I +appreciate your—being so interested—I value it, you know that," said +Mary Wing in a controlled voice, hard even. "But I can't leave you +thinking that I'm simply sacrificing myself—to my mother, for instance. +It isn't that way at all. Of course, I'm no more to mother than mother +is to me. It's not a sacrifice.... Or, rather—I'm in the position that +people are always in—more or less. Either way, I've got to +sacrifice—and this is the way I choose. But it's getting very dark. I +must light the lamps."</p> + +<p>She rose as she spoke, and having risen, bent again, to snap on, +superfluously, her little desk-light. And as she so stood and bent, the +large hand of Charles Garrott reached out suddenly, and began to pat her +shoulder.</p> + +<p>She seemed but a slip of a girl, no more, that he, Charles, could have +tossed upon his shoulder, and so walked out upon a journey. But here, in +a wink, she had shot up so tall upon his horizon that he himself, beside +her, seemed to possess no significance at all. She might be right, she +might be wrong: but, to him, the authority, this crashing negation of +the Ego was the flung banner of a splendid trustworthiness, a fitness to +lead her own life, indeed, such as should not be questioned +henceforward. Never had this woman's independence of him spoken out to +him with so clarion a voice as now. And still, over and through her +unemotional firmness, the sense of what a giving-up was here swelled in +him almost overwhelmingly. It was the brilliant prize of ten years' +checkered struggle that his old friend to-day so stoically threw away. +Here was a refusal which would touch every corner of her life to its +farthest reaches....</p> + +<p>So Charles Garrott's warring sensations, his humility and his pride in +her, had instinctively expressed themselves in the awkward mute gesture +of his sympathies.</p> + +<p>By chance, it was Mary's more distant shoulder that his novel impulse +had prompted him to pat and go on patting: so, from the accident of +their positions, an eye-witness might have been with difficulty +convinced that this man's arm was not actually about the slim figure of +his friend. But a jury, without doubt, would have accepted the friend's +attitude, her entire indifference to what was going on, as fair proof +that this was purely a modern proceeding, and no caress. To ask why he +did this clearly did not enter Mary's head. Had she been a man, indeed, +or he her father, she could hardly have seemed more unaffected by +Charles Garrott's unexampled ministrations.</p> + +<p>With what speech he meant to accompany and justify his pattings, Charles +had not stopped to think. He had, in fact, himself just become conscious +of them, when Mary, straightening up, said suddenly in her normal +voice:—</p> + +<p>"There's the telephone ringing. Excuse me a minute."</p> + +<p>She gave him a brief look in passing, which may have been intended as +some sort of courteous acknowledgment of the pattings after all. And +then she disappeared into the hall, putting an end to talk: +inopportunely he felt; leaving him with, a vague sense of inartistic +incompletion....</p> + +<p>The young man stood still in the silent sitting-room, in a duskiness +just punctuated by the small green glow of the desk-lamp.</p> + +<p>One of those many minds of his, which are at once a writer's genius and +his curse,—that completely detached, cool overmind which never sleeps, +never ceases to scrutinize and appraise,—was quite conscious that Mary +had held him off with a hand firmer than his own. There was a tremendous +lot that he really needed to say, it seemed, in sheer admiration, sheer +feeling; and, the truth was, she didn't wish to have him say it. No; her +strength, though so far finer and more sensitive than the strength of +the Egoette, was, indeed, not "soft." She would not sentimentalize even +her own suicidal renouncing. As for weeping—he himself had seemed +rather nearer tears than his iron-hearted friend....</p> + +<p>But the intense thought of the central mind, of the net Charles, had +never wavered from its great stark fact, that Mary Wing was going to +stay at home—and be a school-teacher.... And why had he, who thought +himself as observant as another authority, been staggered so by the +revelation? Had not he himself divined just this subtler quality in her +long ago, when he found and named her as the best type of modern +woman?... But no, even in "Bondwomen," he had had reservations, it +seemed; open doubts in the write-ups.</p> + +<p>And now, Charles the author, in his turn, abruptly collided with a +strange discovery. He stood rigid, startled.... This strength and this +surrender, this power to act, this power to feel, this freedom fine +enough to accept the responsibilities of freedom, and to have no part +with that hollow Self-Assertion which traded round the world in +freedom's name: what was all this but the rounded half of that true Line +which, in the Studio, had so long eluded him? What had he wished to say +about freedom so much as just this? And why need he search in his fancy +now for his wholly Admirable Heroine?...</p> + +<p>Mary Wing appeared suddenly in the door. Unmoving, the young man stood +and gazed at her; and so vivid had his imaginings become that his stare +was touched with no greeting, no recognition even. And then, even in the +dusk, he seemed to see that she, his Heroine in the flesh, brought back +a face more troubled than she had taken out, eyes colored with a fresh +anxiety.</p> + +<p>He spoke rather confusedly: "What was it? Is anything the matter?"</p> + +<p>"Dr. Flower's very ill," she answered hurriedly. "He's had a stroke, or +something. I'm afraid it's very serious. I must go there at once."</p> + +<p>All the small fret of the earlier afternoon, every thought and +association with which he had walked into this room just now had receded +so fast and far that re-connection, all in a moment, was not easy. +Charles, staring, seemed to say: "And who, if you please, is Dr. +Flower?" And then his mind replied with a flashing picture of Angela's +father, as he had last seen him, sitting forlorn among his cigar-stubs: +and at once he touched reality again.</p> + +<p>"Ah! I'm sorry!" said he; and then: "You must let me go with you."</p> + +<p>"Well—thank you—if you like."</p> + +<p>And Mary, already moving away toward the bedrooms, added then, in a +colorless sort of way:—</p> + +<p>"Who do you suppose telephoned me from there?"</p> + +<p>"Who telephoned?—I don't know—"</p> + +<p>She paused, half turned, looked back at him, hesitated, and then spoke +but a single word:—</p> + +<p>"Donald."</p> + +<p>Brief though the reply was, it was sufficient to plant Charles Garrott's +feet permanently upon the earth.</p> + +<p>After an interval, with movements purely mechanical, he sought for his +watch. It was quarter past six. And he understood everything then.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXI" id="XXI"></a>XXI</h2> + + +<p>Charles thought that he understood everything now. In so far as he +built a theory on the cold Argument from Design, he understood, of +course, nothing whatever. The truth was that Angela had had other things +than Mr. Manford to think of to-day. That she had gone out in her +Fordette at all was only by the merest chance.</p> + +<p>Trouble had come into the little house of the Flowers. As early as one +o'clock, Dr. Flower had preëmpted the family attention. Coming in from +the Medical School half an hour before his regular time, he had shut +himself in his office, without explanation; and there he sat all +afternoon, declining dinner with a shake of his head, and otherwise +strangely uncommunicative and withdrawn. Reminded that this was Friday, +which meant another lecture at half-past two, he only said in his +puzzling way: "Quite so. I have no stomach for the small talk to-day." +Mrs. Flower, stealing now and again to the dark office, doing her duty +as wife and mother, returned each time more concerned by her husband's +remoteness, less reassured by his grave statements that he was not sick, +in stomach or elsewhere. The two women spent a long and uneasy +afternoon. And at the critical moment of it—the moment when, a mile to +the west, Charles Garrott leaned out of his third-story window—Angela +sat anxious in her mother's bedroom, discussing whether or not they +should take the responsibility of calling in Dr. Blakie, on the next +block.</p> + +<p>But Angela did not think that her father was ill, exactly: it was more +as if his increasing queerness had reached a sort of climax. And now, by +chance,—or was it destiny, in this its favorite mask?—he quite +suddenly got over his mysterious attack; and the deepening worry lifted +from her young shoulders. Of his own accord, her father emerged from the +office and his unusual aloofness together, and came walking upstairs to +the bedroom, speaking with his own voice—speaking, indeed, more freely +than was his wont. He said at once that his headache was better now: +this being his first reference to his head at all. As if struck by his +daughter's troubled expression as he entered, he smiled at her and +patted her cheek in the kindliest way; and then, becoming thoughtful, +unexpectedly produced a two-dollar bill from his trousers pocket, and +handed it to her with some characteristically strange words about her +dowry, words which afterwards she could never quite remember. There +followed some commonplace family talk, entirely reassuring.</p> + +<p>And it was only then, in the certainty that everything was all right +again, that Angela allowed herself to recall her own affairs once more. +It was only then, with the thought that her recovered father very likely +wished to talk alone with her mother, that she left the bedroom and her +two parents together. At the door, she mentioned that probably she would +go out and get a little air, before it was time for supper.</p> + +<p>The old clock in the dining-room downstairs had then just struck five. +However, very little more time could have elapsed before the relieved +young girl, hatted and coated, issued hurrying from the kitchen door, +toward the garage that had once been a shed. Yet another minute, and she +was rolling from the alley-mouth.</p> + +<p>To snatch Mr. Manford from his wedding-coach: was this the calculation +that sent Angela forth in the fair eve of the disquieting day? Perhaps +such a raid and capture would not have seemed quite a crime to her, or +to any woman that ever lived. But nothing, of course, was further from +her thoughts. That she might conceivably meet Mr. Manford while she took +the air, and even exchange a few words with him, Angela did, indeed, +think, and hope. But this mild maidenly fancy was as innocent as it was +rightfully hers. Good reason she had to know that a little chat in +passing, if so be it should come about, would be no less acceptable to +Mr. Manford than to herself. Had he not told her by telephone this +morning that if he could find so much as a minute in this rushing day, +he would spend it in calling on her?</p> + +<p>On the eleventh floor of the Bellingham, Donald stood hastily rolling +his new sweater into a brown-paper parcel. Now into Washington Street, +the little Fordette came curving and snorting toward him: toward him, no +doubt, in a spiritual, as well as a geographical sense. And still the +full depth of the young girl's design was simply this: that her new +principal friend, going off for a gay week-end among maidens more blest +by opportunity than she, might go with a last pleasant thought of her.</p> + +<p>For Mr. Manford was Angela's principal friend now; there was no longer +the smallest doubt of that. On that day of culminating results last +week, when the unusual line of vehicles had stood before her door, the +stalwart engineer had definitely moved up to first place in her +thoughts. Not only had Mr. Manford called for an hour and three-quarters +that day, while Dan Jenney cooled his heels in the office, and then went +off for a walk alone: but then also he had first shown, by unmistakable +signs, that he was truly interested in her. Moreover, in the very same +moments, by a strange and rather exciting coincidence, she found herself +becoming almost certain that she was truly interested in Mr. Manford. +She must have been pretty certain, even then, for it was that night +after supper, just before she started off to the theater with Mr. +Tilletts, that she had told Dan Jenney in the parlor, sadly but firmly, +that it could never be, and given him back his ring.</p> + +<p>And since then, the shy girlish surmise had been further fed. One +pleasant happening continued to lead to another. When she had asked Mr. +Manford, half-jokingly, to send her some picture post-cards from New +York, for her collection, it was—again—purely from the instinctive +wish to know that she remained in her new admirer's thought, even when +he was far away. But he had sent her not only stacks of the loveliest +post-cards, showing the Flatiron Building, the Statue of Liberty, and +other well-known sights, but also the most beautiful book, called +"Queens"—a book of gorgeous pictures of American girls, all in color, +by one of the most famous artists in Chicago. Of course, common +politeness demanded that she should thank him—for "Queens," if not for +the post-cards—just as soon as he got back. And the resultant talk, +quarter of an hour over the telephone, had been just as satisfying as +possible....</p> + +<p>Thus it was nothing less than a complete realignment of the coterie that +had taken place, this week. For if Mr. Manford had advanced rapidly in +the young girl's thought, even more rapidly, of course, had her old +principal friend dropped backward out of it. After the unattractive way +he had showed his pique that day, Angela had thought about Mr. Garrott, +indeed, only long enough to take a final position about him. That +position came simply to this, that if he was the sort of person who +expected to take liberties with you all the time, then he was not the +sort that she, Angela, cared to have anything to do with. She recalled +now her early premonition, that Mr. Garrott was a man of low ideals. And +she was glad to remember how she had put him in his place, the night he +had showed his real nature, and positively refused to compromise her +standards, simply to keep him on, as so many girls would have done.</p> + +<p>Now, in the tail of the complicated day, Angela thought only, and with +right, of her engineer. Rapidly up the Street of the Rich she drove, and +alert she kept her eyes. But, in truth, the hope in her heart had been +but a slim one; and now, with each passing block, she felt it growing +slimmer. When she got as far as the Green Park, and saw the time by the +church-clock there, it dwindled away blankly to nothing: the worry about +her father had kept her in till too late, just as she had thought all +along. In short, her mind's eye was picturing Mr. Manford already seated +in his train, when he suddenly made her start and jump by appearing at +her elbow.</p> + +<p>The meeting was his doing altogether. The maid scanned the sidewalks as +she proceeded; the man in a closed conveyance came skimming down the +middle of the highway. Nothing on earth could have been easier than for +him to skim on by her unseen, and nobody a whit the wiser. On the +contrary, he must have given the order to stop with instantaneous +alacrity. The very first Angela knew of Mr. Manford's nearness at all +was the sight of his head sticking out the door of a great car, just +ahead of her.</p> + +<p>The door was open; the car was coming to a standstill; Mr. Manford was +signaling. Nimbly, with an inner leap of happiness, the girl complied +with his obvious wishes.</p> + +<p>The two self-propelling vehicles, the big one and the little, stood side +by side in the middle of Washington Street, while passing chauffeurs +detoured around them with looks that cursed as they went. Between the +vehicles, on the asphaltum, stood Mr. Manford, dark head bared, speaking +sweet, hasty parting words: explaining what a terrible rush he had been +in since eight o'clock this morning, saying (and looking) how sorry he +was not to have been able to call. Eager manly words and self-conscious +manner, he was all that a girl could have wished. But then he stopped +himself, quite abruptly, as if he had recollected something, and put out +his hand with the solemnest look. "<i>Good</i>-bye!" he said, and seemed to +sigh, as if he never expected to see her again.</p> + +<p>But Angela did not take Mr. Manford's hand. Possibly these two minutes +should have filled the round of her expectancy; possibly not. Now there +rose in her a graceful thought which the sight of her admirer in a +conveyance of his own had momentarily rolled flat.</p> + +<p>Lifting her soft eyes to his, she said: "I wish—is there time for me to +drive you to the station? Or had you rather...?"</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" said he, staring. "That <i>is</i> an idea!"</p> + +<p>The two normal young people gazed at each other through five seconds of +intense silence. When the man's gaze broke, it was only to fling it upon +the watch he had hurriedly jerked out. And that movement seemed to +settle everything. One glance was enough to satisfy the young +bridegroom that there was time. He so announced, and proceeded +accordingly.</p> + +<p>Thus, for the second time in fifteen minutes, Eustace and the Big Six +were sent empty about their business. And Donald, dressed to "kill" the +Carson house-party, sprang to the wheel of Angela's Fordette.</p> + +<p>"I'll hop her along," cried he, laughing with the excitement of the +thing, as he made the turnabout, "till she won't believe it's <i>her</i>!"</p> + +<p>And so he did, as old Charlie Garrott, passed unnoticed on the next +corner, could have testified, and did. Ten full blocks Donald proceeded +toward his train at a wholly honorable, indeed dangerous, celerity. And +then his single-mindedness began imperceptibly to yield.</p> + +<p>It was, indeed, touch-and-go with Mary Wing's male cousin, here at the +turning-point of his life. Had he not forgotten his sweater—well, who +knows? Now as the station grew steadily nearer, now as the pretty and +familiar voice spoke at his side, one thing was leading to another, and +his nervous fidgeting increased.</p> + +<p>It occurred to Donald, not for the first time, that he was being rushed +about a great deal here lately, with never a minute he could call his +own. Managed around all the time—that was about the size of it, here +lately: railroaded along into things, with no chance at all to stop and +think quietly what he wanted to do.... Then, in a quiet stretch before +the turn at Ninth Street, he looked down at the beguiling soft creature +beside him, whom he had come to know so easily, so quickly, and so well. +His gaze rested upon the rounded girlish bosom, rising and falling with +tender young life, at the neck fair as a lily where the V of the thin +white waist liberally revealed it, at the big eyes of a woman looking +back at him so dark and sweet. And he was surprised at the sensations +the look of these eyes now had power to draw up out of him. How? Why? +Had absence made the heart mysteriously fonder? Or was it something in +the intimacy of this swift adventure together—her sharing his dash for +the train like some one who belonged to him?...</p> + +<p>"I wish I didn't have to run off this way," he muttered, restively, +after a long silence.</p> + +<p>"I'll miss you," said she, and the dark eyes fell.</p> + +<p>He found the simple reply oddly stirring, arresting, and significant. He +was going to be away only three days, and she, this dear, different +fellow-being whose gentle weakness already seemed to depend on him, was +going to miss him. At some risk, for they now bounced through the +traffic of Center Street, he looked down at her again. And once again +the sum of all Donald's observations was this, that Angela was a +Woman....</p> + +<p>No jawing here about the isms of the day, Browning—Tosti—no, +Tolstoy—those chaps; no arguing back at you over things a man, of +course, knows most about. No; this girl was all Woman....</p> + +<p>"I suppose," said she, all at once, "there isn't a train just a little +later you could take?"</p> + +<p>By singular chance, the thought of the later train had that second +knocked at Donald's own mind. Marveling at the coincidence, he +hesitated, and answered weakly:—</p> + +<p>"Well, there's sort of a train at 7.50—a local. But—this is the train +they're expecting me by."</p> + +<p>She made no reply. Glancing down, he got no answering glance: she was +looking, large-eyed and wistful, into empty space. Her silence, that +look, seemed in some subtle way to lay hold on whatever was best in the +young man, compellingly. Beyond his understanding, they seemed to +envelop Donald with a sudden profound pressure, immensely detaining.</p> + +<p>Now, over lower roofs, the station clock-tower, two blocks away, shot +suddenly up into the fading sky before them. They saw together that it +was twenty minutes past five.</p> + +<p>"Oh, hurry!... You've caught it, haven't you?"</p> + +<p>The speech, for some reason, pressed more than the silence. He answered, +shortly: "Remains to be seen." Down the long hill, the little Fordette +raced and rattled. The young man's hard breathing became noticeable. And +the broad entrance of the station was but half a block away when, with +abrupt violence, he threw out his clutch and jammed on his brake.</p> + +<p>"I've missed it!" said he, in a voice that brooked no argument.</p> + +<p>Tommy's valuable gift had stopped with a hard bump. Angela did not mind +the inconvenience. Her eyes were rewarding her principal friend. Her +heart seemed to turn a little within her. Into her cheeks flowed the +sweet warm pink.</p> + +<p>Together, the two normal young people laughed, suddenly, a little +unsteadily. Then, with gayety and some suppressed excitement, they sat +discussing an important point, viz.: what to do with their two hours' +holiday, before the later train?</p> + +<p>It was quickly decided that they should go home. Angela's Home was the +one intended; Donald it was who decided the point, as befitted the man. +He flung out a commanding hand to notify whom it might concern that he +purposed to face about, yet again. And the faithful Fordette, which had +set forth with so frail a hope, turned and snorted homeward with the +great victory of its career.</p> + +<p>Angela sat with shining eyes. She would not have been a woman, she +would not have been human but a plaster saint on a pedestal, if her +natural happiness had not had the added poignancy of a triumph among her +sisters. Just how far Mr. Manford considered himself interested in Miss +Carson, she had never yet been able to determine exactly; but that +beautiful damsel's position in the scheme of things she, of course, +understood perfectly. If her own intuitions had lacked, there were the +plain hints Cousin Mary had given her only the other day. Hence, since +last week, it was impossible to view Miss Carson other than as a rival, +an enemy almost, and one possessing all the odds. For Miss Carson was +rich and prominent, with powerful family connections behind and around +her, and every possible opportunity and advantage: while she, +Angela,—as we know,—had practically not a single rich relation on +earth, and not one soul to help her but herself. And still—here was Mr. +Manford at her side.</p> + +<p>They stepped up on the verandah of the home; and the girl remembered the +anxiety of the afternoon. But, listening as she opened the front-door, +she heard from above the distinct murmur of her mother's voice, talking +to her father, and knew again, with fresh relief, that all was well. Mr. +Manford having accepted an invitation to stay to supper, she disappeared +briefly to confer with Luemma—bribing Luemma with the promise of her +old black skirt, in short, to go out and purchase certain extras, in +honor of the guest. Returning again, she found her guest standing in the +dark hall exactly where she had left him, motionless, a strange absorbed +look on his masculine face. And as he met her eyes, there in the dimness +by the hatstand, some of the fine color seemed to ebb from his cheek.</p> + +<p>They went into the parlor, and sat down on the dented sofa; and her +conquest, still, was but part of a day that had belonged to another. But +now it quickly became clear that matters had taken a headlong jump, +beyond all calculation.</p> + +<p>It was, indeed, as if the man himself was profoundly reacted upon by +those proofs of his own interest which had so stirred the maiden. +Unknown to any one, he had missed his train and important engagements +for nothing else than to be here with this girl: and it was as if the +fact of itself thrust her far forward in his imagination, wrapped her +about with a new startling significance. Men didn't do these things for +any girl that came along. Or, possibly, the heady sensations were but +the cumulative results of a slower process, and the friendly vehicle now +resting at the door had done its decisive work before to-day. At any +rate, Angela soon observed that Mr. Manford's behavior was quite +embarrassed and peculiar; and of course, in the womanly way, his +manifestations reacted instantly upon her. The more peculiarly +interested Mr. Manford showed himself to be in her, the more peculiarly +interesting she found him. Stranger still, the more she found him +advancing, the more it was in her mind to retreat. Or, no—not in her +mind; it was, of course, much deeper than that. This reluctance could be +nothing else than the ancient virginal recoil, somehow remembered, +strange latter-day reminiscence of old flights through the woods.</p> + +<p>Instinctively, Angela talked commonplaces. The man's replies showed that +he hardly listened to her. As she recounted how her father had missed a +lecture for the first time to-day, he interrupted brusquely:—</p> + +<p>"What's that ring you're wearing?"</p> + +<p>Oh, that; oh, an old family ring, she explained, that her mother had +given her on a birthday once. He must have seen it a dozen of times. Mr. +Manford said, on the contrary, that he had never seen it before in his +life. So—was it the voluntary lingering, perhaps, a backward look +through the leaves, as it were?—Angela lifted her hand for him to see. +The hand was tightly clasped at once. "Where's that other ring—the one +you were going to wear till—you know?" Oh, that one? She had given +that one back to the person it belonged to. When? Oh, last week. Why? +Because she knew then that she could never care for him. "Does that mean +you know somebody you—you care for more?" She said that <i>that</i> wouldn't +mean anything so very much; and thereupon made an effort to withdraw her +hand.</p> + +<p>"There is a time for lighting a fire; there is a time for leaving it to +burn of itself." Put otherwise, Angela saw that Mr. Manford wasn't even +glancing at her ring. However, her proper gesture to recover it +accomplished no more than her commonplaces. For the cells and tissues of +the gentleman, too, harbored ancestral memories, masculine recollections +of agreeable old captures. And the touch and cling of the warm soft +<i>her</i> had seemed to set them all to singing, drawing him, drawing him. +So far from recovering that hand of hers, in fine, the fleeing maiden +abruptly lost possession of the other one.</p> + +<p>Thus in the storied way, there approached the second Occurrence on a +Sofa. It may have been only the last recoil; it may have been that that +other occurrence, fruitless contact with the low ideals of man, had +permanently injured the womanly trustfulness. There was, at least, a +kind of terror among the mingled sensations, as Angela beheld the second +event resistlessly approaching.</p> + +<p>"Oh, please!... You mustn't ..."</p> + +<p>And—so sardonically does life twine joy with sorrow in its willful +tangle—it was as she spoke these words that Mrs. Flower, standing at +the head of the dark stairs, first called Angela's name. However, that +call died unheard. The mother's voice was low, the daughter, for her +part, could be conscious of nothing but that this dear and imperious Mr. +Manford was a very difficult person to resist. Perhaps something in her +had been against resistance from the first; but now, over his +inconclusive endearments, the pardonable inquiry sighed from her:—</p> + +<p>"Oh, why do you do this? Tell me."</p> + +<p>Angela's mother stood two steps farther down: "<i>Angela!... Angela!</i>"</p> + +<p>But Angela, deep in her great business in the world, once again failed +to hear the alarmed low summons. Now sweet nearer speech filled her +woman's ear. For Mr. Manford, it is welcome to record, did not run, as +the cads run, from that artless challenge: he met it ready, like a +soldier and a gentleman. That touch of lips softer than a flower had +taught this young man, once and for all, what it was he wanted; huskily +his voice came from a swelling chest. "I love you!" said Miss Carson's +anointed, unmistakably. And then, indeed, the maiden, unaware of all +else, let her conquered cheek rest upon her victor's breast: still and +awed with the discovery that she loved, and in the same breath thrilled +with the knowledge that she was a Successful Girl.</p> + +<p>For our ruling passions are strong in death: more particularly, of +course, when the death in question is not our own....</p> + +<p>Yet her moment of exquisite peace was brief enough, poor child. Scarcely +had the dearest words been spoken, scarcely had she known her awe and +her thrill, when all was snatched from her. That other voice outside, +more insistent, struck suddenly in to her unsteadied mind; too quickly, +the surrendered cheek lifted. There was a swift upstarting, the abrupt +parting of lovers: and after that fear descending, precipitate and dark +as a cloud, over the new great joy.</p> + +<p>The course of the succeeding hours was never clear in Angela's memory. +There was a rush of unfamiliar and frightening activity. Donald was gone +at a run for Dr. Blakie. She herself fled for Mrs. Doremus, on whose +judgment her mother much relied. Mysteriously, Mrs. Finchman and poor +Jennie appeared, tipping up the steps. Then Mr. Garrott stood suddenly +in the hall, with Cousin Mary and Mrs. Wing, all very grave and +breathless, they had come so fast. Mr. Garrott must have left very soon; +there was nothing for him to do; but Cousin Mary, who had once meant to +be a doctor, took charge of everything from the start, and was very +helpful. She slept that night in Wallie's room.</p> + +<p>At ten o'clock, Donald left her to take Mrs. Wing home; but he, her new +comforter, returned directly, in the sweetest way, to say good-night. +Earlier in the evening Donald had dispatched a telegram to Mrs. Kingsley +at Hatton, in which he said: "Serious illness in my family prevents +coming." The due excuse was strong enough, in all conscience. But the +matter had gone beyond illness now.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Thus it was that the strange day, already memorable to Charles Garrott, +memorable, too, to Mary Wing, turned past all counting into the +unforgettable day of Angela's life. Thus, into the little house in +Center Street, life and death came stepping side by side.</p> + +<p>After this day, there came another, and another and another: and still +it seemed that death overshadowed life, and joy was overwhelmed in +grief. The shadow of this first final parting seemed to close down on +the young girl's happiness like a cover, and for a space her engagement +was less real to her than the shut office downstairs, the empty seat at +the table.</p> + +<p>But youth, after all, is made for life, and thereby equipped with a +merciful resilience. The passage of time, mere use, worked wonders. And +Angela's blessing it was, no doubt, that from the beginning she had +others than herself to think about, and the need for much activity. +First and foremost, there was Donald, who was with her morning, noon, +and night, whose first sight of her in a black dress had moved him +almost to tears. It was not fair to the man who had won her that she +should give way to a limitless melancholy. Beyond that, loomed the +sudden colossal fact of the wedding, which would have to take place +almost immediately; for her duty now was to her future husband, and the +demands of his work must overcome her girlish shrinkings from such +unwonted haste. And a wedding must mean clothes, at all times, and +clothes, even at the plainest and simplest, must mean some thought and +some diversion.</p> + +<p>Insensibly, death turned back to life again. The great confused day of +Angela's life was a week old; it was two weeks old; it was three. And +winter now was fading from the softening air...</p> + +<p>They were the quietest weeks imaginable. Except her mother and her +<i>fiancé</i>, Angela saw no one for days together, not even Mary Wing. For +Mary, as it happened, was sick at this time—her first illness in five +years, so Mrs. Wing said. She had caught cold, it seemed, in the wet at +the funeral, and the cold had developed into quite a serious attack of +bronchitis, which kept her in bed two weeks or more. Thus the young +couple, in their mourning, were left completely to themselves. In their +isolation, in the still little parlor, they were planning at great +length about their future, going over and over their new common problems +from every possible angle. And the more Angela's fatherlessness was +accepted as a permanent fact in the order of the future, the clearer it +became that this fact must color and affect everything else.</p> + +<p>In chief, this question of the girl's came more and more to the front +of the loverly discussions: How could she go off to wild remote Wyoming, +now that her mother was a widow?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXII" id="XXII"></a>XXII</h2> + + +<p>It was March now, the mild March of an early spring. There came new +days, zephyrous and sweet. All the world seemed to love a lover. But +other matters were afoot in the world, too, necessarily: afoot even in +the old coterie itself.</p> + +<p>Charles Garrott, descending Miss Grace's steps on an afternoon that +looked like April and felt like May, thought not of young Romance. What +with the groom's absorption, and Mary Wing's unprecedented illness, the +old principal friend had, indeed, heard little or nothing of the happy +pair through these days. He had accepted the event, long since, once and +for all, with fatalistic philosophy; and though the nuptials were now +but six days distant, they were far from his mind in this moment, as, +his hated tutor's stint done, he turned his long stride hurriedly toward +Olive Street.</p> + +<p>Charles, as we know, was not a caller. It was true that he had hardly +seen Mary Wing since the day when she, the heroine of his write-ups, had +so suddenly indicated herself as his larger heroine as well; true also +that, in the engrossed and very fruitful solitude of the Studio +succeeding, he had thought of her much, bookishly and otherwise. But +these facts had not changed the essential nature of Charles. Still he +was not a caller; still when he rang people's door-bells, it was morally +certain that he had definite matters to urge upon their notice.</p> + +<p>And so it was to-day. Charles, in a word, had conceived a new plan for +helping Mary.</p> + +<p>That she, the admirable, by way of reward for her smashing denial of the +Ego, should find herself fixed for life as a grammar-school teacher, +"demoted" and disgraced: this state of things had naturally seemed +unendurable to Mary's good friend. That Mary did not need his help, that +he recognized her now as competent, in the finest sense, to manage her +own affairs henceforward, seemed to have little or nothing to do with +the case. Hence, while she lay withdrawn from the battle of life with +bronchitis, the helper had been elaborately at work on new lines: +stalking School Board members for Mary, in fine, with great cunning. But +this plan, unluckily, his fourth and most troublesome, had lately +collapsed about his ears. It had cost the young man much valued time, +and not a little money for lunches; and the net practical result of it +had been to leave him angrily conscious of "influence," mysteriously +pervasive, and by no means possessed by him. A friendly disposition +toward Mary, personally, seemed to be everywhere joined to an unshakable +conviction that she could not hope to get back to the High School before +the fall, if then. Such was the fruit of five diplomatic conferences: +the sixth had stopped Charles short. Young Dr. Hazen, who was almost as +much Mary's representative on the School Board as Senff was Mysinger's, +informed him that Mary herself had already canvassed over the Board with +him, Hazen, and abandoned all hope in that quarter.</p> + +<p>What, indeed, could he do for Mary Wing that she could not do better for +herself?</p> + +<p>The fifth plan concerned Public Opinion again, and a new use of the gift +he had. It inspired less confidence in its author than any that had +preceded it. And it was to submit it, in advance, for Mary's discussion +and approval, that Charles now presented himself at the Wings' front +door.</p> + +<p>However, he met with a disappointment. Mary was out. She had gone to the +Flowers' soon after luncheon—unexpectedly, it appeared—and, at +half-past four, was not yet back. That seemed more or less surprising. +Mrs. Wing, who had answered his ring, looked somewhat concerned, he +thought. However, as it was agreed that Mary could not remain with +Angela indefinitely, the caller decided, after brief hesitation,—for +the Studio allured in these days as never before,—to wait for her.</p> + +<p>So he came again into the sitting-room, and Mrs. Wing sat to keep him +company. Naturally, there was but one subject for their conversation.</p> + +<p>Charles liked Mrs. Wing. She always began every conversation with him by +asking: "And how did you find your dear mother on your last visit?" +Mary's mother had never seen his mother, and possibly never would, but +(being a frightful sentimentalist) she assumed that all mothers are +dear. It was next her habit to inquire whether Charles had written any +stories lately, and why they never saw anything of his in the magazines. +Such things tended to create a bond. And recently the tie had been +strengthened by an unusually intimate talk on the subject of Mary, whose +surrender of her great prize had, indeed, upset and distressed her +mother even more than Charles had predicted.</p> + +<p>To-day, again, Mrs. Wing appeared somewhat unlike her usual calm self. +She omitted her inquiry about Charles's writing altogether (thus denying +him his chance to mention the recent rather gratifying acceptance of +Dionysius, no less), and the flattering things she kept saying of Angela +had, to his ear, a faintly tentative ring, requiring his confirmation. +But his first vague wonder, whether anything could have happened, was +soon lost in other reactions. Thus, he had to wince a little in +agreeing, once more, that Donald's future wife was a thoroughly "womanly +girl." Few authorities enjoy denying the ripe sum of their own best +thinking. But a later remark of Mrs. Wing's took a much deeper twist in +his mind.</p> + +<p>"Really," she said, slowly and dubiously, following a pause, "I have but +one fault to find with Donald's choice, and that is—well, frankly, +Angela seemed to care so little for Paulie and Neddy Warder.... And +Donald was such a goose over them, dear boy."</p> + +<p>As he did not see his way clear to replying to that, "I hope you're +mistaken, ma'am," Charles merely smiled vaguely, and said nothing. But +what he thought, on the delicate implication, was nothing about Angela +at all—only that Donald had been rather less of a goose over Paulie and +Neddy than Mary Wing had been....</p> + +<p>Then the sitting-room clock ticked for a space, while Mrs. Wing communed +with herself. And Charles, gazing out into the park, waiting for his +friend, thought how it was that a young woman's work—even an +extraordinary young woman like Mary—always subtly lacked just that +ultimate touch of grim seriousness which justified the "fierce hackings +away" of a man. For, as an abstract truth, there was positively no such +thing as a Permanent Spinster: and women who were not spinsters, and +normally desired Paulies and Neddies of their own, could not possibly +fulfill their longings without serious complications to themselves, then +and thenceforward. It was no human or escapable "tyranny" that had made +Woman, to this degree, to her glory or her disaster, forever the victim +of her sex: and, by the same token, fixed the final responsibility for +the economic support of the family upon the shoulders of the predestined +and uncompromised provider, Man....</p> + +<p>Yes, then and thenceforward ... Could you, for example, imagine Mary +Wing—who had had chances to marry before now, who might reasonably +marry at any time—could you picture Mary packing off her three little +darlings to a crèche every morning, that she might go and grow her soul +at a desk somewhere? Maybe so; but he wondered....</p> + +<p>He was thinking whether he could contrive to discuss the crèche and +endowment arguments in his novel—for of course you could make a story +carry just a certain amount of "solid stuff," and only dreary prigs of +readers would lie still while you tried to feed them forcibly with a +spoon—when all at once Mrs. Wing, near by, was heard to strike her +hands together, with a little ejaculation.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Garrott! I do believe Mary's at the High School all the time!"</p> + +<p>That made the thoughtful visitor turn swiftly enough.</p> + +<p>"At the <i>High School</i>?"</p> + +<p>"It's so stupid of me!" she explained, with some relief, it seemed. +"I've just remembered. You know, she never cleared her papers and things +out of her office closet there, and it got on her mind when she was +sick. And to-day, when she came in from school, she told me she had +arranged with Mr. Geddie over the telephone—the man who has her office +now—to go and attend to it this afternoon. Yes, that's it—I'm sure!"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Charles, not a little perplexed. "And then, you mean—she +decided to go to the Flowers' instead?"</p> + +<p>"Well, to go there first—I suppose. Donald came in just as she finished +lunch—to talk with her about something. Then, when he had gone, Mary +told me she was going down to see Angela. It was all rather +unexpected—and somehow the High School went out of my mind completely."</p> + +<p>"But I hope nothing's happened?" he said quickly.</p> + +<p>"Well—I don't know that there has."</p> + +<p>Perplexity passed at once into the certainty that something had +happened. The instant thought in the young man's mind was: What's Angela +done now? Having risen, he gazed with direct inquiry at his elderly +friend. But her eyes glanced away from him; and she put him off further +by repeating: "It was stupid of me to keep you."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Wing added that Mary was certainly at the High School now. Charles, +turning disturbed away, remarked that perhaps he would still be in time +to help with the office cleaning, and she said that was very kind of +him.</p> + +<p>"She'll be glad to see you, I know. Indeed, she has appreciated all +you've done for her—those beautiful articles, for example—more than +you quite realize, perhaps."</p> + +<p>But the young man shook his head, and said with a kind of bitterness: +"I've never done anything for her in my life."</p> + +<p>And then, as he took the lady's hand to say good-bye, he asked abruptly: +"But why shouldn't I know what's happened, Mrs. Wing?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Mary's mother, and hesitated.</p> + +<p>"Yes, why shouldn't you?" said she, and hesitated again.</p> + +<p>"Well," she began again slowly, "it's nothing so serious, as I +said,—just a fresh disappointment for Mary,—that is really all it +amounts to with me. Very likely Donald has intimated to you that he was +not going to Wyoming?"</p> + +<p>The caller stared at her dumbfounded.</p> + +<p>"Not going to Wyoming! Why!—why not?"</p> + +<p>"Well, he feels, in his new circumstances," said Mrs. Wing, uneasily, +"that it would be more suitable to accept the position in New York. +But—I really had little opportunity to discuss it with Mary. She +seemed—to be frank—much disturbed, she had so set her heart on this +work in the West—"</p> + +<p>"More <i>suitable</i>!... How?"</p> + +<p>"Well, for one thing—it doesn't seem fair to separate Angela so far +from her mother, as would have to be the case in Wyoming."</p> + +<p>But into Charles's mind there had suddenly popped back a stray remark +let fall by Donald, in the only talk he had had with him for weeks: "I +tell you, Charlie, it's pretty rough on a girl to be dragged off to live +in a shack nine miles from nowhere!" A mere passing observation, that he +had paid no attention to at the time—but was that it? Was that the +reason why another of Mary Wing's most cherished plans must suddenly +cave in?</p> + +<p>He stood utterly dismayed.</p> + +<p>"So Mrs. Flower," he asked, with some want of composure, "is going to +live with them in New York?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no,—not for the present, I believe. She feels, and so do I, that +young couples should be left to themselves to make their start. But +they will be so near that they can visit back and forth—which would be +impossible if Donald—"</p> + +<p>"But Mrs. Flower can't live here by herself?"</p> + +<p>"Well, no," said Mrs. Wing, and fussed with books on the table. "That +has been the great problem, of course. Dr. Flower's death has +complicated the situation sadly. I believe the present plan is for +Wallace—the boy, you know—to come back and live with her—just for the +next few months, while Donald and Angela are finding themselves."</p> + +<p>Charles stood without a word. But perhaps his look betrayed what he +felt, for Mrs. Wing threw out her hands with a helpless gesture, and +cried: "Well, he is the man of the family now!"</p> + +<p>"However," she added, turning away, "perhaps Mary will be able to hit +upon some other arrangement. That is what she went there for—to talk +the whole situation over with Angela."</p> + +<p>But Charles, who had always thought of Angela as "soft" and Mary as +"hard," seemed somehow quite certain that that talk had accomplished +nothing. With brief speech, he moved toward the door. Doubtless struck +with the fixed gravity of his look, Mary's mother, who had been an +old-fashioned girl herself once, said with an effort, and yet firmly +too:—</p> + +<p>"It is life itself that is hard. Marriage means—readjustment. That is +the only comment to make."</p> + +<p>It was precisely the point on which the silent young man did not agree +with her. To him, as to her, all the sharp force of this tidings was, +indeed, in Mary's new overthrow. And yet for the moment there seemed to +be room in him for nothing else but comments on the vast void in Mary's +so different cousin.</p> + +<p>Angela was wanting in the responsible qualities of a full-grown human +being. Her fatal lack was in human worth. It was the sum of all he had +thought about her since the day he had called upon her poor father. It +was the cap and climax of all he meant to say about her in his New +Novel.</p> + +<p>So Charles took his leave with an abstracted face.</p> + +<p>In the drawer of the Studio table, there was growing now, night by +night, a fresh stack of manuscript, steady and firm upon a new Line. +Mary Wing had straightened out this Line for Charles: Mary who had +taught him once and for all that a woman could be finely independent, +and still uphold the interdependence which held the world together. Yet +Mary, the admirable, was after all but his "contrast" and his foil: it +was for the peculiarities of her opposite that he had finally whetted +his pencil. And, in the intense and retrospective thinking which went +along with the best writing he had ever yet done, the young man +considered that he had got to the bottom of Angela's case, and her +sisters', quite thoroughly explored the souls of the Waiting Women of +Romance.</p> + +<p>But this news of her, these final touches as to the Nice Girl's brother +and her future husband, seemed to fling at him, as it were, a last +conclusive chapter for his "Notes on Women." That marriage meant +readjustments he, the authority, doubtless understood as well as +another. That this marriage might make it necessary for Wallie Flower to +be readjusted out of his education: even that was allowed as +conceivable. But that the very first act of Angela's new life should be +to influence her husband in the direction of his weakness, and, as it +seemed, of her own good comfort—what was this, indeed, but a brilliant +certification of all the grounds of his own attack?...</p> + +<p>The author's face, the author's swift feet, were set toward the High +School. His errand—now—was to cheer up Mary Wing. "Make her look on +the bright side": so her mother had urged at parting. That necessity +remained as a soreness and dull anger through all the young man's +consciousness. And yet, in nearly a mile's walk, he hardly thought of +Mary once.</p> + +<p>He was surveying, as if from a new peak, the unhappy situation of +Home-Makers with their Homes yet to seek: the considerable army of the +involuntary spinsters of leisure. And more than ever now, perhaps, he +saw these sisters as a Type, pathetically marked: the innocent +creatures, the helpless victims, of a dying ideal of themselves.</p> + +<p>Here was poor little Angela, his Novel's case in point. She was born a +human being, she was born a being with sex. And in twenty-six years' +contact with the rich and human world, she had gathered nothing to her +sum beyond what tended to enhance her sex's attraction. So selecting, +she had permanently lost the fullness of her double birthright: all in +nice, unconscious and inevitable response to an environment which +continually assured her that being a woman was enough.</p> + +<p>If life had been real and bright and turbulent around her, and she sat +within and polished her pink nails, it was because she was a woman. If +she was given no education beyond the demands of provincial parlor-talk, +no training for her hands, no occupation for her head, if no one ever +thought of her as a full-statured being who must pay her way in +substantial coin; this, again, was because she was a woman, and a woman +(if any one bothered with argument at all) some day might—or might +not—be the mother of children. Surely it had not been Angela's fault if +she was early apprised, though through a sweet mist, that she had but +one faculty of any value in the world's market; not her fault if, amid +general approval, she innocently spent her youth and idleness in +tricking out her value, and bringing it steadily to the attention of the +only beings who could have a use for it. Least of all was it her fault +if her peculiar business, and her odd specialized training, were +bounded, not by marriage, but only by a wedding-day. For the final +unnaturalness, the crowning wrong in her situation was exactly this: +that, being told that she must be a wife or nothing, she was +coincidently told that being a wife was a matter which a nice girl did +well to know nothing about....</p> + +<p>The author, sharpening his phrases, walked in angry abstraction. He +passed old acquaintances as if he had never seen them before....</p> + +<p>Oh, it was true (he conceded), a thousand times true, that many women of +this crude bringing-up did develop, when their time came, a splendid +competence over all their special field. But it was a little too much to +assume that every creature in the female form could be counted on to +perform such a feat of pure character. And Romance, which gallantly or +indifferently made these exact assumptions, defending and cherishing the +queer but comfortable orientalization with the cloak of false +"womanliness," scarcely pretended to believe its own agreeable fictions.</p> + +<p>Here was Angela again, his little case in point. Angela was reasonably +good-looking, adopted a flattering attitude toward eligible young men, +knew her place, and kept no opinions on matters of interest to her +betters; hence she was called a "womanly" woman. Being womanly implied +the possession of certain home-making virtues, present and to come; +hence it was assumed, and she inevitably and naïvely assumed, that she +possessed these virtues. Odd as these deductions sounded, he himself, he +could not deny, had swallowed them once,—that night at the Redmantle +Club,—romantically accepting the appearance for the reality, willfully +investing the humdrum commonplace with the full beauties of the ideal. +But for him, at least, all obstinate optimisms concerning La Femme had +exploded with a bang in a party-call. You did not gather figs of +thistles. And now it was no longer conceivable to him that she who in +quarter of a century had developed no human interests, tastes, resources +at all, who seemed to lack even an average interest in Paulie and Neddy +Warder, should all at once blossom marvelously into the responsible and +"justified" matron. No, for him, Angela at forty, having "let herself +go" now that nothing more was expected of her, sat forever in a room +that she had not swept, plaintively reminding a fatigued Donald of the +priceless gift of her Self.</p> + +<p>And Donald, though his interest in exploring the creature once so +elaborately mysteried was long since utterly exhausted, would probably +take that argument amiss no more than Dr. Flower had done. Romantic +males, with their poor opinion of the worth of a woman, might hope for +true domesticity, true maternity: but in their hearts they had thought +all along, with a wink, that "possession" was enough. It was "what a +woman was for."</p> + +<p>But in that they were mistaken. Possession was not enough. Being a +female was not enough. Great heavens!—thought Charles Garrott, and +muttered as he strode.... What a shame, what a staggering waste of rich +human potentiality, to classify and file away one half the world as only +"<i>marital rights</i>!"</p> + +<p>Wasn't it about time to stop all this? Wasn't it time for modern writers +to pull away the rosy veils and let the Angelas meet themselves—while +they could still do something about it? Didn't it lay up needless future +misery to go on deceiving helpless women into putting a preposterous +overvaluation upon the mere possession of their sex? Lastly, and above +all, wasn't it a colossal libel on all womanhood to accept the strut and +mannerism born of this deception as the true essentials of +"womanliness"?</p> + +<p><i>Womanly!...</i> Why, womanliness was a prime human quality, integrally +necessary to the work of the world—a great positive quality, not a +little passive one, productive, not sterile, of the spirit, not of the +body. Womanliness was the mother and guardian of great social virtues: +of a finer and deeper emotion, of more sensitive perceptions, of a +subtler intuition of the sources of life, of an all-mothering sympathy, +a more embracing tenderness. Womanliness had no more to do with the +light bright plumage of the mating-season than a waxed mustache had to +do with being a soldier.</p> + +<p>There was a time, he understood well, when the fact of womanhood had +implied substantialities: when being a wife meant also being a domestic +factory superintendent, not to mention being a continuous mother. That +time was gone forever. You might argue for the passing, you might argue +against it: meanwhile it had happened. Inexorable economics had dried +the heart from the old tradition; and in the sudden vacuum thus created +there moved and thrived anomalous little creatures who never knew that +they had lost all touch with reality. Untroubled by a rumor of change, +Angela held contentedly to the remnant, a low ideal of herself. But it +was not so with her finer sisters. For the passing of the old +womanliness of four walls and dependence had flung a window wide to a +nobler prospect and a vaster horizon. And already the woman of to-morrow +was rising in her lusty strength to prove her fundamental racial virtue, +her womanliness, upon nothing less than the world.</p> + +<p>Well, hadn't he told Mary long ago that the object of all this was only +to make women more like themselves? In that, he would stake his life, he +had been exactly right.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>A concrete High School smote across the vision of the seer, and the +cloud-stepper's feet trod but the hard sidewalk again.</p> + +<p>Groping for truth upon his favorite subject, he had been briefly lost to +the issues of the practical: he had a power of concentration, as he +would have been the first to admit. But the flight of his rhetoric was, +after all, only an incident of his indignation and distress; which +sentiments, he knew all the time, yet had to be faced on their own +account. And now, as he rounded his last corner, and his destination +rose abruptly before him, Charles recalled for what he had been walking +so fast and far.</p> + +<p>Or, no ... What was he coming for exactly?</p> + +<p>It was all very fine and easy, as a writer, to polish up demolishing +phrases for poor little Angela. But what did he, as a man and a friend, +have to do for Mary Wing?</p> + +<p>The helper crossed the street in the lingering vernal sunshine. Here was +the great building where Mary had once held an important place, where +she came to-day, by special permission only, to remove the last traces +of that association. Now that plan with which he had set out to-day +looked back at the young man with rather a small face, and wry. He had +never thought much of the plan: only to persuade Mary to let him make +public the facts about her rejected honor from the Education +League—legitimate news for the papers, fine peg for a new publicity +campaign, etc. But all at once he knew that he wasn't even going to +mention this to Mary now. With what words, then, did he rush to her in +her fresh disaster? Doubtless to say, "I'm awfully sorry." A stirring +exploit. Hadn't she shown him on that other day that she, the strong, +had no desire for his fruitless sympathies?</p> + +<p>The truth was, and he had known it from the beginning, he rather shrank +from seeing Mary at all now, in the stress of this final defeat. Final, +yes: for while Angela was attaining success to the full limit of her +small conceptions, every aspiration that Mary had cherished, literally, +had one by one gone down. And if this last was not the worst, perhaps, +neither was it the easiest to bear. No, if anything on earth was +calculated to harden and embitter a woman who could not easily yield, +surely it must be her own so easy overthrow by pink cheeks and soft, +empty eyes.</p> + +<p>And these white-stone steps Charles now ascended had for him a +reminiscent power, by no means comforting. The last time he had trod +these steps, he had sworn, in anger, that he, single-handed, would force +the School Board to bring Mary Wing back here, without delay. Mary would +have a right to smile, if she ever heard of that. She had been thrown +out of this building only because she was a woman: under all the +argument, that was positively the reason. And now three months had +passed, and he, her helper, came to say, "Well, I'm very sorry...."</p> + +<p>Charles pushed through the tall bronze doors of the High School, where +he had seen Miss Trevenna one day, strode long-faced into the dim spaces +of the entrance hall. It was five o'clock: the whole building seemed +silent and empty. A rare sense of impotence within him, troubled also by +a secret shrinking, the young man went stalking across the corridor +toward the stairways. But just here he encountered a brief diversion.</p> + +<p>A glazed door at his left, at which he happened to be looking, came +suddenly open. The door was marked, in neat gold letters, <span class="smcap">PRINCIPAL'S +OFFICE</span>. And reasonably enough, the jaunty figure that came stepping out +proved to be none other than the principal himself.</p> + +<p>Always a hard but uncomplaining worker, Mr. Mysinger was evidently just +leaving for the day. Light overcoat on his arm, stick and gloves in his +hand, he whistled blithely to himself, to the tune of labor done. But at +the sight of Charles Garrott here on his domain, he checked his gay air, +stood still in his official door.</p> + +<p>Over half the corridor, the two men gazed at each other. And Mr. +Mysinger's specious face, after the first surprised stare, assumed the +smile of amity and pleasure.</p> + +<p>"Ah, Garrott! Well met!"</p> + +<p>Charles had halted, too, without premeditation. The chance meeting here +was natural enough. All that gave it the force of coincidence was that +he had in that instant been thinking, not for the first time, of Mary +Wing's old saying of this man: "If he let either Board know that he +wanted me back, it would be done to-morrow...."</p> + +<p>"I've wanted to see you for some time," said Mr. Mysinger, smiling and +easy—"about a certain matter of common interest—"</p> + +<p>On the great stairway the sound of descending feet was heard, those of a +belated teacher, doubtless. But neither man looked to see. And within +the sedentary Charles there was slowly spreading a vast iciness, akin to +a bodily nausea.</p> + +<p>"Can't you step into the office half a minute?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly."</p> + +<p>Mary's former principal stood aside from his door, bowing, with +elaborate welcome. Charles, advancing, passed through it, passed through +the anteroom, stepped silent into an office large as a magnate's. Here +he stood, just inside the door. Mysinger, following with his faint +swagger, went by him toward his handsome flat desk.</p> + +<p>"Have a cigar?"</p> + +<p>"Thanks, no."</p> + +<p>The good-looking principal leaned against his desk, facing his visitor +with the same air of too good-humored assurance.</p> + +<p>"Garrott, let's be frank," said he. "You feel that I am hostile to one +of your friends, and stand in the way of her advancement in the schools. +You are really mistaken in that. So far as my personal opinions might +carry weight, I am anxious for her—for all the teachers—to go forward +just as fast as their abilities would justify. But as you know, Garrott, +the Board and the Superintendent settle all these matters, and I myself +am only one of the teachers under their direction."</p> + +<p>He paused encouragingly. But the young man at the door only continued to +look at him with the same lidless fixedness.</p> + +<p>"At the same time," said the principal, a rather more resolute note +tingeing his voice, "you appreciate as well as I that teachers +can't be picked up and moved about like chessmen. We must have +some—permanence—some constancy—to insure efficiency. And frankly, my +personal judgment—after fifteen years' experience, and considering the +brilliant work of Johnson Geddie—is that you could hardly hope to see +your friend promoted—well, immediately."</p> + +<p>"So you would advise—?"</p> + +<p>Mysinger's eyelid seemed to flutter a little: he really did have a +purpose, it seemed.</p> + +<p>"I am told—ahem!—that your friend has recently received a most +flattering offer—from elsewhere?"</p> + +<p>How had he known this? "Well?"</p> + +<p>"Well, the party in question," said he, with his set smile, "seems to +have a certain prejudice against me. She refuses to speak to me, in +fact,—why, I cannot imagine. All the same, I am, and always have been, +her sincere well-wisher. And after earnest thought, I honestly feel sure +that her friends would make no mistake if they urged her not to let slip +this—ahem—well-deserved promotion. I thought," he added, his gaze a +threat now, "I'd better bring the point to your attention."</p> + +<p>Charles's fixed eyes did not waver. But before them there unrolled a +thin gray mist, briefly shutting the principal from his sight. The mist +queerly turned red, and became shot with fiery sparks. Then all cleared; +and, behind him, the young man's hand felt for, and touched, the open +door. Gently, moving only his arm, he shut it. And it seemed to him that +he must be turning white inside.</p> + +<p>"You," said he, "are more used to insulting women than I am."</p> + +<p>Mysinger flung up a deprecating hand. "Tut, tut, my dear sir! Talk of +that sort does no good whatever, I assure you. You would do well to look +at the matter in a sensible way, and believe that I speak—<i>Here! +What're you doing there?</i>"</p> + +<p>The principal had suddenly heard a strange sound: the click of his own +key in his own lock, in fine. At the same time, his visitor was observed +to be regarding him with a new and peculiar intentness, arresting and +significant. And his only reply to his host's indignant inquiry was to +drop the key in question in his coat-pocket.</p> + +<p>Now Mary's old conqueror, and his own, had straightened from that +lounging swagger. His voice rang more angrily: "You—! What do you think +you're up to, anyway—?"</p> + +<p>"I think I'm going to beat you to a pulp," said the author,—"<i>you +puppy</i>!"</p> + +<p>And he started forward with a kind of bound, like one who goes to fill, +at last, a long-felt need.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXIII" id="XXIII"></a>XXIII</h2> + + +<p>Mary Wing was considered a reliable person. When she announced that she +would clean out an office closet on a certain day, you could make your +plans on the thing's being done. And to-day—if her usual principles +might have weakened a little—Mary was further bound by the definite +engagement she had made. As Charles had reflected, a demoted +grammar-school teacher could not walk in and out of a principal's office +like one who had some rights there.</p> + +<p>Mary had not remained at the Flowers' interminably, after all. She had +entered the High School before Charles Garrott had arrived at Olive +Street, and had been upstairs for half an hour, when Charles, following +on to help her, strode through the great bronze doors. Nevertheless, she +was a full hour behind the time mentioned to Mr. Johnson Geddie over the +telephone, and this increased her hope that her only too obliging +successor would not be found waiting for her. However, Mr. Geddie was +found waiting for her; very much so, in fact. Nothing could have +exceeded the exuberance of his courtesy, and nothing could have been +less welcome.</p> + +<p>The new assistant principal was a plump, white person, in whose face a +reddish mustache and gold-rimmed spectacles—his own personal addenda, +as it were—were the only salient features. Not brilliant, he was rising +by character, evinced in an unconquerable optimism. "Keep a-smiling, +brother—it costs you nothing!"—so Mr. Geddie's roguish eyes seemed +continually to say. But perhaps they seemed to say it more than normally +to-day, by way of striking a happy average with the quite unsmiling late +incumbent.</p> + +<p>Mary, during her brief tenancy, had stored here a long accumulation of +printed matter, chiefly duplicate files of "The New School," with sundry +assorted leaflets of the Education Reform League. Her task to-day was to +go through these files, destroy what was no longer useful to her, and +pack the rest for removal. Her successor had thoroughly prepared for +her. There on the floor was the packing-case, there on the floor was a +table to sit at, there against the wall stood a stepladder. But Mr. +Geddie would not weary in well-doing. The moment he understood what the +proposition was, as he termed it, he said that, of course, he would help +Miss Wing. Refusals drowned in a sea of smiles. Allow Miss Wing to climb +that rickety ladder, and lift down those heavy stacks of magazines? +Positively, she must not ask him that. Trouble? A pleasure, Miss Wing; a +genu-wine pleasure.</p> + +<p>He had his way, as people of strong sunny character always do. Mary, +having overcome the impulse to make an excuse and abandon the +enterprise, sat at the little table. Kind Mr. Geddie went up and down +the ladder, fetching her dusty armfuls to sort over. In the intervals, +for he had the shorter end of the job, he was down on his knees beside +her, brightly stacking discarded "New Schools" into piles against the +wall.</p> + +<p>The work went forward steadily, on the woman's part almost in silence. +That, however, made no difference. It was the man's power to be able to +talk more than enough for two, and he did. As the old assistant +principal grew steadily more quiet, the new one seemed increasingly +buoyant. And it seemed to Mary that she had been listening to his +conversation for a long, long time, at the moment when she heard him +suddenly exclaim, from the ladder:—</p> + +<p>"Well, well! Look who's here! Come for the spring-cleaning, Mr. Garrott? +Ha, ha!"</p> + +<p>She, in her inner absorption, had failed to hear the approaching feet. +But at that she raised her head, with a kind of jerk.</p> + +<p>"Don't mind the dust, Mr. Garrott—it eats all right! Ha, ha! Walk in!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Garrott stood silent in the office door, looking at Miss Wing. The +eyes of the old friends briefly met. Something in the young man's +appearance vaguely arrested Mary Wing. She had noted, as her glance +lifted, the torn glove on his right hand. Now she was remotely aware +that the face looking back at her so intently appeared somehow subtly +changed: there was something faintly wrong with it, it seemed. But such +details Mary's consciousness hardly registered at all. All in one flash, +she wondered how he happened to be here, thought how good it was of him +to come, and knew that she had never been less glad to see anybody in +her life.</p> + +<p>"Good-afternoon," said she.</p> + +<p>"How'do, Miss Mary?" said Charles; and then started forward. "How are +you, Mr. Geddie? I seem to be rather late to help with the good work."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sirree!—Can't come in at the eleventh hour and take our credit +away! Can he, Miss Wing?—ha, ha! All over but the applause!"</p> + +<p>However, Mr. Geddie did not know himself for a tactful man for nothing. +Observing that Miss Wing continued to drop magazines on the floor in +silence, and that her young man there didn't seem to know what to do +with himself, he gracefully adopted a new position. From the third round +of the ladder, he made a roguish address, the meat of which was that +there was a whole corner left of the bottom shelf, and if Mr. Garrott +insisted, etc.</p> + +<p>"I'll relieve you with pleasure," said Charles, coldly.</p> + +<p>So Mr. Geddie lumbered down from the ladder, wiped his hands on his +pocket-handkerchief and re-attached his cuffs. He implored Miss Wing to +make herself absolutely at home in his office, assured her, not once but +three times, that John the porter, on the floor below, would be +positively gratified to do any service for her, however small. In the +moment of parting, he volunteered a new civility.</p> + +<p>"Why, here, Mr. Garrott!" he hastily exclaimed, "your coat's all dusty +in the back! That won't do! Just a minute while I get my whisk—"</p> + +<p>But Miss Wing's young man interrupted him rudely.</p> + +<p>"No, I'm not dusty at all! Thanks—don't trouble."</p> + +<p>Another person who didn't know the value of a smile, clearly. And the +man <i>was</i> dusty, of course. Well, no affair of his, of course. Mr. +Geddie kept a-smiling.</p> + +<p>"Well, good people!" said he. "Olive oil!"</p> + +<p>When he had got a polite distance down the hall, Miss Wing's young man +shut the office door upon him. So at last came privacy. For the first +time, since the unforgotten afternoon last month, Charles Garrott stood +alone with his admirable heroine.</p> + +<p>He moved toward her, deliberating.</p> + +<p>Downstairs there, he had been having five of the most engrossing, the +most completely satisfying, minutes of his life. Being able to come +upstairs at all, he had come in the spiritual state of his stimulating +experience. Over all that was unsettled and unhappy, there persisted in +him a fierce young elation. By the oddest luck, he was not here +empty-handed, after all: he came with something rather better +than a hope to give. And doubtless—since he was incurably a +sentence-maker—there had already come into his head discreet phrases +with which to communicate the hope, at least: phrases which, though +gallantly suppressing his own exploits, might yet be somewhat tinged +with a protector's strength.</p> + +<p>But all this dropped from Charles's mind in the instant when Mary raised +her head over the table, and looked at him.</p> + +<p>He had seen his friend for a few minutes on Friday, her first day up and +about. But that passing glimpse, it seemed, could hardly have counted. +For now her gaze had an unexpected power for him: the sight of her came +on him with a sort of impact, as if this were some one he had heard +about often, but never before seen. Undoubtedly, that small phenomenon +was due to the amount he had been thinking about her of late, behind her +back, as it were. But beyond all this, the particular look of Mary's +face had made him instantly certain that, whatever she had gone to +struggle with Angela about to-day, she had, indeed, been routed. And +that he had not miscalculated the effect of this upon her, he was also +certain from the first sound of her voice....</p> + +<p>Mary did not look up as her helper advanced, or cease the work of her +hands. But it was she who spoke first:—</p> + +<p>"How did you happen to come here?"</p> + +<p>"I've been to your house. Your mother told me you were here."</p> + +<p>She said, with a curious stilted politeness: "It was very good of you to +come. But really you must not wait for me, please. I have a good deal +more to do—a great deal more—and it is work of a sort that I have to +do alone."</p> + +<p>"Miss Mary," said Charles, "your mother told me, at my request, what has +happened this afternoon."</p> + +<p>Mary flinched, just perceptibly. But her voice, when she spoke, seemed +harder than before.</p> + +<p>"Well, it's the fact. That's all there is to say. There isn't anything +more to discuss."</p> + +<p>"I don't mean to discuss it, of course. There was just one thing I +thought of—a—sort of suggestion."</p> + +<p>Finding himself neither questioned nor forbidden, he continued: "Do you +think it would be such a bad way out of the—the difficulty, if Donald +were just to go on here for a while?"</p> + +<p>Still Mary waited, hardly encouraging him, examining a "New School," +silently laying it down in the packing-case at her feet.</p> + +<p>"I know you feel," said Charles, inspecting the top of her hat, "that +settling down to this consulting work, in a city that offers so many +distractions all the time, won't be a good thing for Donald—from any +point of view. Staying here won't take the place of the chance with +Gebhardt he's throwing away, of course—that's pretty serious. Still, +there ought to be plenty of good work for him to do here—isn't +there?—for a few months, a year or two, if necessary. That would give +him—and you—a little time to adjust things to—the new conditions. +And then from the point of view of the Flowers, too,—of Mrs. Flower, in +fact,—it occurred to me it mightn't be a bad sort of working +compromise.... What do you think?"</p> + +<p>"I think it is very sensible," she replied, with the same labored +courtesy. "It is what I suggested, too."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Charles, and paused. "But Donald didn't want to give up Blake +& Steinert, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't suggested it to Donald."</p> + +<p>That brought a considerable silence.</p> + +<p>"It's—settled, then?"</p> + +<p>"It was settled last week."</p> + +<p>A curious let-down feeling took possession of the young man. He pressed +his hand to his forehead; and then for the first time was aware that his +head ached furiously. In the same moment, his eye was unpleasantly +caught by his burst-out gloves. Having stared at his hands for a second, +he silently stripped off the gloves, balled them, and pitched the ball +into a waste-basket near by.</p> + +<p>"I'll just have a look into this closet for myself," said he, turning +away. "I don't believe Geddie—"</p> + +<p>"No!—please don't!—don't trouble! I really don't need any help, thank +you. I don't ..."</p> + +<p>Her wish to be alone was all but woundingly plain to him. And still it +seemed to Charles physically impossible to turn now and walk out of the +door. So, not looking at her, he answered in a peculiarly mild manner +that, of course, this wasn't help at all, only a little indulgence of +himself, which she really mustn't refuse him. And while he yet spoke, +allowing no opportunity for such refusal, he hung his hat on Mr. +Geddie's hook, and all the forepart of him disappeared upward into the +closet.</p> + +<p>After an interval rather longer than necessary, he re-emerged to view, a +few periodicals in one hand, a faded bundle of typewritten papers in the +other.</p> + +<p>"Geddie's made a clean sweep. There's hardly another armful."</p> + +<p>His manner was almost as cheery as Geddie's own. His "note" was to go +ahead as if nothing had happened.</p> + +<p>"Put them here?" asked Charles.</p> + +<p>Mary Wing's arms quivered a little on the table.</p> + +<p>"Put them <i>anywhere</i>! It doesn't make the <i>least</i> difference!"</p> + +<p>So Charles laid his burden down on the table, and quietly went up the +ladder again. Here, for a space, he pretended to be impossibly busy over +nearly empty shelves.</p> + +<p>And then, out of the silence behind him, he heard his friend's voice, +painfully stiff, somewhat strained.</p> + +<p>"You see—you oughtn't to have come to see me to-day. I—I'm not fit for +society. I tried to warn you. I haven't had time—to get philosophical +yet."</p> + +<p>The helper spoke into the dusty closet: "Well, you don't need to get +philosophical with me. I'm pretty mad myself—as far as that goes."</p> + +<p>"I wasn't prepared for it—at all.... And then I've been beating my head +against it—like a fool—all afternoon."</p> + +<p>Well he knew Mary's horror of weakness, her warranted confidence in her +own self-control. Well he understood her regret for that uniquely sharp +speech of hers. Was it this, a novel impulse to justify herself in his +eyes, that seemed to force her on, beyond his expectation and against +her own will?</p> + +<p>"But don't suppose I went there expecting to have my own way about +everything—manage them around like children. I didn't. I went +respectfully. I went to beg. But it was no use."</p> + +<p>Silence: and then the hard voice went on rapidly:—</p> + +<p>"She and Donald had talked it all over, and decided that it would be +best for his career to go to New York. She and Donald ... I <i>did</i> think +that, as I was planning Donald's work when she was still in short +dresses, my opinion might have some weight with her. And I thought, just +as you did, that something might be saved if they stayed here for the +present—kept the house and all the rest of it. And then, of course, I +lost my temper—that makes twice.... I reminded her how she had told me +once that nothing could induce <i>her</i> to leave her mother, as a widow.... +What was the use? Of course she only cried, and said it was hopeless to +try to explain to me—how differently a woman felt about all these +things when she was going to be married. I believe she said I was +incapable of understanding the new emotions that came with a great +love."</p> + +<p>That, indeed, seemed a romantic description of the mild, chance product +of the Fordette. However, the replete young authority only said:—</p> + +<p>"Then I suppose it's great love that taught her engineering so +quickly—and all Donald's little peculiarities?"</p> + +<p>Mary Wing made no answer. Her capable small hands took up the literature +lately provided by Charles. And when she spoke, it was as if his +unaccustomed acrimony had met and destroyed her own.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's natural that we should see everything differently. She is +really a sweet-natured girl. I'm sorry already for what I said to +her.... And her not wanting to stay here—you mustn't think that's just +a selfish whim—just wanting to live in New York. Of course, what she +wants is to have Donald to herself—to have their young married life to +themselves. And my going there to give advice to-day—naturally that +made her more certain than ever that she could never have that +here—with me just around the corner. She let me understand that, +finally. She intimated that Donald had said as much—he was tired of +being managed.... Oh, it's perfectly natural, perfectly right. +To-morrow, I'll accept it easily enough.... As I say—I haven't had much +time."</p> + +<p>He was more touched by that speech than everything that had gone before, +yet more resolved, too, not to say, "I'm sorry."</p> + +<p>"As a matter of fact," he asked straightforwardly, "what <i>was</i> +decided—as to Mrs. Flower?"</p> + +<p>"It's not decided yet, at all. However, I have a plan—another +suggestion—which it seems to me might meet some of the difficulties."</p> + +<p>"Aren't there friends or relatives here that she might stay with for a +time?"</p> + +<p>"That's it. I think I can persuade her to live with us—till we have a +chance to see how all this—"</p> + +<p>"With <i>you</i>?"</p> + +<p>"It's just a hope, as I say. I didn't think of it till just now. Mother +is very fond of her. And Wallie can't give up college, of course. That +would be—quite the worst thing."</p> + +<p>The school-teacher spoke with characteristic matter-of-factness. If she +was adding final touches to the portraits of two women, she did it, +certainly, with supreme unconsciousness. In the brief stillness of the +office, she efficiently neared the end of her task. The top of her table +was almost bare, the litter on the floor was deep. And now she spoke +again, dryly and quite conclusively.</p> + +<p>"At any rate, nothing fatal has happened. Nobody knows that better than +I do—really. No doubt it's personal vanity with me, as much as +anything. And now—"</p> + +<p>"Do you know," Charles Garrott spoke up suddenly, as if he did not hear +her at all—"I think you're the best I ever knew? The best—the +<i>best</i>—absolutely the most of a person—"</p> + +<p>She, the strong, seemed to start and shrink; she broke in sharply, with +instant signs of a shaken poise: "No—<i>please</i>! You don't understand me +at all. I do—not need sympathy! It's just what I've been trying to +say—"</p> + +<p>"Well, you aren't getting it from me, no fear. Sympathy! If ever there +was honest looking up, if ever—"</p> + +<p>"No!—don't! I didn't tell you about it for that!—only to explain why I +seemed so ... It was due you. As I say, nobody understands better than I +how unreasonable it is—to be so disturbed. And if you hadn't come here +to-day—"</p> + +<p>"Won't you give me credit for some understanding? If you were ten times +as disturbed, I'd think it the reasonablest—"</p> + +<p>"Yes—for a woman. Well, I'm not that kind of woman," said Mary Wing, +with curious agitation, as if she could stand any sort of talk better +than this. "Please don't say any more. I don't tell my troubles to be +comforted—patted on the head. I'm not feminine, I hope, after all these +knocks. You make me—"</p> + +<p>"Thank God, <i>no</i>!" said the young man on the ladder, considerably moved.</p> + +<p>And then that connection which he must have been groping toward for a +month flashed startlingly upon him, and he, the authority, blurted out +like a boy:—</p> + +<p>"No—<i>you're womanly</i>!"</p> + +<p>He saw his old friend's face quiver a little as the strange word struck +her: oddly, it seemed to silence her. But it was not possible that she +could be one half so struck with that word as he, Charles Garrott, was. +<i>Mary Wing was a Womanly Woman</i>.... And now she could no more have +stopped his speech than she could have stopped a river when the one gate +in the dam, long locked, has suddenly burst open.</p> + +<p>"That's it. Of course.... Funny, I was just thinking over all that as I +walked around here—how different those things are. No, not +different—they don't belong in the same story at all. What's character +got to do with—feathers in the springtime?... Born stupid," said +Charles, in a low, stirred voice—"that seems to explain me. I'd better +have been one-eyed—beat me over the head with it, and still I can't +see.... Won't see. That's it!—it's worse. I'm just an old-line +male—that's what. Just the sort who've taught women not to bother to +try to be womanly when being feminine comes so much cheaper. Why, look +at me, criticizing you in my thoughts, not liking it because you +were—independent. What was that but just pique—don't you know?—just +common ordinary male jealousy—because a woman didn't need my shoulder +to lean on. Manly protector ... seventeenth-century stuff. Well, you've +punished me, don't you worry.... Just standing where you always stood, +just being your Self. Acting straight from your own law all the time, +doing the best sort of things, one after the other—the biggest, +the—the <i>tenderest</i>—"</p> + +<p>"Don't," said the grammar-school teacher again, but in the littlest +voice he had ever heard from her lips.</p> + +<p>Rapt as he was, that voice penetrated him. More, it alarmed him: and +with reason, too. Staring down with a new fixedness, touched with a +faint, purely masculine horror, Charles beheld the strangest sight seen +by him in many a day. Mary Wing, the unconquerable, had suddenly put her +face into her hands.</p> + +<p>He had really only been finishing that other talk of theirs, with a +certain sense of right; but of course this wasn't the time for that. He +had been indulging his analytic propensity, his fatal tendency to +comment, at her expense. Hadn't he understood that she feared nothing +so much as his sympathies?...</p> + +<p>His friend, in her arresting attitude, sat as rigid as a carven woman. +The stillness in the little office was profound. Then a voice strained +out, very thin, but still not defeated:—</p> + +<p>"Don't be alarmed. I'm ... not going to cry."</p> + +<p>And that seemed to settle it. It was as if, in that silent struggle +waged all the way from the Flowers' to now, the speaking of the word +itself was the fatal admission. The school-teacher had no sooner +pronounced it than her arms spread suddenly out on the table before her, +and her head came down upon them.</p> + +<p>Charles Garrott, on his ladder, was heard to take one breath, sharply. +After that, no sound came from him. Quite motionless he sat, in the +chance position in which the sudden disaster had overtaken him: long +arms dangling from his knees, large feet hooked under a ladder-rung, +some distance down. He hardly winked an eye.</p> + +<p>Mary Wing was crying. That painful hard tension had snapped; the +indomitable slim figure drooped beaten, for once. She, also, made little +sound in her peculiar difficulty. But her body shook with a stormy +racking. And it hurt her, he was sure; hurt her physically, as if she +couldn't find tears without breaking something inside....</p> + +<p>Strange it seemed that once, in this very room, and only the other day +really, he had wanted to see Mary cry. He had thought of it then as a +desirable sort of symbol, hadn't he?—something of that sort. What did +her tears have to tell him now? Then he had conceived himself as +watching her emotion, moved doubtless, but yet with a secretly gratified +masculinity. Now every heave of those slender shoulders was like a +clutch upon his heart.</p> + +<p>And still there was something in Charles that was not distress at all. +He was aware of another and quite different inner sense—peace, the end +of struggle, fulfillment—he could not say what it was. It was strange. +He was not unhappy....</p> + +<p>There came, after a time, signs that his friend was overcoming that hard +revolt of feelings too much put upon. Even in the beginning she had +never seemed to abandon herself, quite. At length, somewhat +unexpectedly, she moved, turned from her seat under his eye, and, +rising, went away to the office's one window. There she stood, her back +toward him. And presently she began to clear her throat, with nervous +quick coughings.</p> + +<p>Through this, Charles had not spoken, or thought of doing so. To pat +Mary's shoulder, this time, had not entered his head. His instinct +seemed to feel the banality of any intrusion upon her freedom: she +should weep or not weep, just as seemed best to her. Now, as his grave +eyes followed her, it occurred to him that his presence here had been, +and was, a considerable intrusion. And about the time he had reached +this conclusion, Mary spoke, naturally enough, except that a sharp catch +of breath broke her sentence in the middle.</p> + +<p>"I'm giving you ... a pleasant visit to-day."</p> + +<p>The young man stirred on his perch. He answered, oddly, with a sort of +growl:—</p> + +<p>"That's right! I'm a fair-weather friend. Keep things pleasant for <i>me</i> +all the time—or good-bye."</p> + +<p>His heroine was sniffing repeatedly, in the humanest way. She kept +clearing her throat. Her movements made it clear that she was searching +busily for her handkerchief. However, there lay her handkerchief on the +table, under his eye. And if she, perhaps, hardly wished to turn and +come for it just now, no more did he see his way clear to going and +taking it to her.</p> + +<p>"No—but what's the sense of it? I'm—doing just what I told Angela not +to do. Feeling sorry for myself, that's all."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't feel sorry for you. Don't worry about that."</p> + +<p>Charles came down the ladder, and stood a moment kicking at the "New +Schools" strewn about the floor.</p> + +<p>"Look here, suppose I save time by arranging about this box now? You +want it to go to your house, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"No—I'm going to send it to the grammar-school."</p> + +<p>"Oh—all right. I'll attend to it," he said, briefly. "I'll tell the +porter to keep it to-night, and get a wagon to-morrow."</p> + +<p>On which, without more ado, he stepped from the assistant principal's +office, and shut the door behind him.</p> + +<p>Charles's conference with the negro porter in the corridor below lasted +a minute, perhaps. His diplomatic retirement lasted ten minutes, at +least. His surplus time the young man spent in staring out of a tall +window into a white-paved courtyard. But that it was a white-paved +courtyard, or that it was a courtyard, he never knew. The instant he +found that he was staring at it, he jumped a little, and went +upstairs....</p> + +<p>If he had meant this interval as a punctuation and the turning of a +page, Mary, it seemed, had so accepted it. Reopening Mr. Geddie's door, +Charles saw that his absence had been employed for a general setting to +rights. The table had been moved back against the wall; the books and +globe restored to it, the chair Mary had occupied returned to its place, +the window opened to blow out the dust. Mary herself stood in the +middle of the room, coated, buttoning her gloves. Without looking at her +exactly, he was aware that the white veil which had been caught up +around her hat was now let down.</p> + +<p>Bygones were bygones, clearly: the least said, the soonest mended. +Charles remarked, exactly as if house-cleaning were the sole interest he +knew of here: "Well, you've made a good job of it."</p> + +<p>And Mary replied, with equal naturalness: "I did what I could. John will +have to attend to these things on the floor."</p> + +<p>"Yes—I told him to see to that at once."</p> + +<p>"He ought to give the closet a good cleaning, too. I'd better tell +him—this is just the time."</p> + +<p>"I told him to be sure to scrub the closet. It'll be all right."</p> + +<p>Looking up, she said: "You seem to have thought of everything."</p> + +<p>"Let me get my hat," said Charles.</p> + +<p>But Mary, standing in his way, was regarding him with a sudden +directness he had no wish to reciprocate. And she answered his remark +about the hat with a little exclamation.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with your eye?"</p> + +<p>"My eye?" said the young man, and involuntarily put his hand there. +Recollecting, he finished: "Nothing—nothing at all."</p> + +<p>The school-teacher came a step nearer, but he went round her as he +spoke, and continued his way.</p> + +<p>"But there's a good deal the matter with it!" she exclaimed, concerned. +"It's swollen—it looks discolored, too.—How did you hurt yourself?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, that? Oh!" said Charles, carefully fitting on his hat, and then +removing it again. "I remember now—it's nothing. Got a tumble this +afternoon, that's all. Stupid thing."</p> + +<p>"You must let me get some hot water down the hall. I'm afraid it's—"</p> + +<p>But he indicated, quite brusquely, that his eye was all right, just the +way he liked it, that having water put on it was, in particular, the +last thing he would ever dream of.</p> + +<p>She said behind him, slowly, after a pause: "If you won't, you won't, of +course.... But it's so exactly like you—"</p> + +<p>"Ready?" said Charles.</p> + +<p>But when he turned he found that Mary had turned, too, after him—stood +facing him anew. And this time the confrontation was too near, too +immediate, to be further avoided.</p> + +<p>He now discovered that the thin veil had not withdrawn his friend very +far. Looking at her for the first time since her cataclysm, he saw that +her delicate face wore that look described as "rain-washed," which +commonly means peace, but peace at a price. The redness of her eyelids +was quite perceptible. What struck the young man particularly, however, +was the look of the blue eyes themselves. More or less irrelevant eyes +he had always thought them, for all the heavy arched brows which so +emphasized their faculty for steady, sometimes disconcerting, +interrogation. That characteristic grave intentness was in Mary's gaze +now: but it was not this that gave her look its power to hold Charles +Garrott in his tracks.</p> + +<p>The peculiar commotion within him gave forth in a short laugh, testy and +embarrassed: "Honestly, if you say the word 'eye' to me again—"</p> + +<p>"I wasn't going to speak of your eye," said Mary Wing, with quite +remarkable meekness.... "I was thinking of that remark you made—about +being a fair-weather friend."</p> + +<p>And then she went on hurriedly, with a rare, impulsiveness: "I've just +been thinking—I don't suppose since the world began there was ever such +another rainy-day friend as you. It's got so now that I never get into +trouble without thinking right away—as I was thinking this afternoon +when I left the Flowers'—that you'll be right there to help me with it. +Yes, I was. And it's so—perfect. Nothing to spoil it ever—not one thing +for you to gain—all just your rather extravagant idea of what being a +friend means. You don't know—how much it means...."</p> + +<p>The strange speech—strange blossom of her disruptive emotion—ended a +little short; but that it ended was the principal thing. Doubtless there +had been a time when words such as these from Mary Wing, this fine frank +expression of abiding friendship, would have been sweet and acceptable +to Charles Garrott, crowning him with a full reward. But it seemed that +that time must have passed, somewhat abruptly....</p> + +<p>The two moderns stood, gazing full at each other. And now, in the same +moment, a little color tinged the girl's cheek, beneath her veil, and +the young man turned rather pale.</p> + +<p>"Miss Mary, you must be dreaming," said Charles, gently. "I've never +done anything for you in my life. We both know that. Let's go."</p> + +<p>Mary, her eyes falling, had resumed the buttoning of her gloves. She +moved toward the door. The descent of the High School stairs was made in +comparative silence. The chief item of importance developed was that +Mary intended to go home by street-car; she was tired, she mentioned. It +seemed that Charles, on the contrary, had no intention of foregoing his +afternoon constitutional. He said that he would see Miss Mary to her +car, however; and he did.</p> + +<p>So the old friends parted casually on a street corner, as they had done +a hundred times before.</p> + +<p>But in the Studio, there could be no such reserve, no such slurring of +the characteristic services of men. Here combat must have its fair due, +in the moral order of a too sedentary world. Judge Blenso, in brief, +from whom no secrets were hid, had the full facts relative to the +altered eye within ten minutes of Charles's homecoming, an hour later; +and the Judge's cold manner, already somewhat softened by the heartening +acceptance of Entry 3, straightway dissolved in exultation and proud +joy. The reconciliation between uncle and nephew was instantaneous and +immutable, and there followed, by consequence, the most broken, the most +conversational, evening in the history of the Studio.</p> + +<p>Charles was very glad to be reconciled with his relative. He was very +glad to feel that his secretary no longer viewed him with bald disgust. +Nevertheless, there were times, necessarily, when a writer wished that +he had no relative and secretary at all; and this, in a word, was one of +them. Charles did not wish, to-night, to go over and over one set of +primitive facts indefinitely; he did not wish to listen to sporting +anecdote and reminiscence, hour after hour; in chief, he did not wish to +go to bed at half-past ten o'clock. However, he did each and all of +these things, perforce.</p> + +<p>"Always retire early after a fight!—that was my father's rule, long as +he lived!" cried Uncle George, his black eyes dangerously bright.... +"No—let's see. <i>Before</i> a fight—that was father's way! Well, good +gad!—too late for that now! You come along to bed, my dear fellow!..."</p> + +<p>But, in time, a sweet snoring from the parallel white couch indicated +freedom, welcome solitude, at last. And then the young man rose +noiselessly in the dark, and slipped back to the familiar Studio, where +all his personal life had so long had its heart and center. On the old +writing-table, in front of which he had sat and pondered so many hours, +so many nights, the green-domed lamp was set burning anew. However, +Charles did not sit at his table now. Beside the lamp, Big Bill without +surcease ticked off the flying minutes of a writer's prized leisure. But +Charles heeded not Big Bill. Wrapped in a bathrobe grown too short for +his long shanks, he paced his carpet on slippered feet, up and down; and +there was no such thing as bedtime now. For this day the authority had +made the last and the best of all his many discoveries about Woman: and +he did not see how he could ever sleep again.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXIV" id="XXIV"></a>XXIV</h2> + + +<p>Luemma, the twelve-dollar cook, had never dreamed of having +opera-glasses of her own; hence she looked pleased, for once in her +life, when her departing young mistress unexpectedly presented her with +a pair: old and somewhat shabby, doubtless, but still possessing the +valuable power of bringing distant objects near. And it must be assumed +that the nice man who sold the gasoline was equally glad to have the +Fordette for his own: else he would probably not have fattened up the +trousseau, one day, by purchasing the interesting little vehicle (cheap) +for cash.</p> + +<p>Because of mourning in the bride's family, the Flower-Manford nuptials +would be "very quiet." Invitations were strictly limited to near +relatives of the contracting parties, with a very few of the most +intimate friends. So the social columns of the "Post" had warned and +notified all persons in due season. However, Charles Garrott, reading, +was not cast down. As the groom's chosen supporter in his "most need," +Charles had had his fixed place from the beginning.</p> + +<p>Further, he considered himself fully entitled to be present in the +category of intimate friends, not to mention his peculiar relation as +one who had narrowly escaped a yet closer privilege in the premises.</p> + +<p>Angela's was an afternoon wedding: the hour of "taking place," five +o'clock. At four o'clock on the set day, Charles prematurely snapped his +tutorial watch at Miss Grace (who was still waiting), and rushed away to +his rooms. At half-past four, after scenes of wild haste, he stood out +in the Studio, for final inspection. He was arrayed in what the Britons +like to call a "morning coat": a morning coat new-pressed by Judge +Blenso's skillful hand and patent iron, made glorious by Judge Blenso's +best new waistcoat, especially urged for the occasion. Now the admiring +secretary pinned a white carnation in the morning-coat lapel, as excited +over it all, oddly enough, as if the wedding afoot were his young +employer's own. So dismissed with a blessing, Charles jumped into a +taxicab, at four thirty-five precisely, and shot away to the Bellingham. +Here, in a bedroom upstairs, a brief delay occurred, owing to the +appearance and behavior of the bridegroom. The face that Donald, in his +regalia, turned upon his best man, bursting in, was seen to be a pale +green in color; his voice and speech were highly erratic, his attempt at +a brave smile a sight to rend one's heart. On this pitiful funk, +Charles's gibes, his appeals to the higher nature, had but small effect. +"Here's the ring," said the groom, with a sick croak. "Charlie, hadn't I +better take one little drink?"</p> + +<p>However, the cab was swift. The drive to Center Street was but a matter +of five minutes. Once more the two young men were stepping, side by +side, up the worn brick walkway. It made Charles think of the day they +had come to return the books. But this time the line of vehicles before +the weather-beaten door was conclusive testimony to the triumphant +activity within.</p> + +<p>In the hall, a lady greeted them, a near relative doubtless. A dim +pleased significant hush seemed to emanate from the lady, and pervade +the house. From behind the dark curtains of the parlor, there proceeded +the murmur of assembled persons, waiting. Even the hatstand, though +essentially unchanged, somehow conveyed a mysterious expectancy.</p> + +<p>They were sent aloft to an upper chamber, conceived to be Wallie's. Here +they were instructed to wait quietly till somebody had need of them.</p> + +<p>The waiting was rather trying. Tête-à-tête in the small bare room, groom +and attendant talked but fitfully. Donald seemed to have drawn little +courage from his dram. He sat stiffly on a chair-edge, jumping at each +peal of the loud little bell below. Much more unreasonably, the best +man showed signs of nervousness, too: it was observed that he had +cut himself twice while shaving. And suddenly, jerking out his +watch, he announced that probably he had better step out for a +minute—reconnoiter—see what he could see.</p> + +<p>"They ought to want you now, seems to me," quoth he. "I'll see. You sit +tight, right there."</p> + +<p>"Awright," croaked Donald.</p> + +<p>So Charles stepped out from the nuptial waiting-room, and closed the +door behind him. Having done this, he came to a standstill, abruptly: +for here, in the Flowers' still upstairs hall, he beheld just the sight +he had gone forth to seek.</p> + +<p>At the other end of the hall, in the dimness, stood the bride's +attendant, Cousin Mary Wing. She, too, had just come out of a door, it +seemed; she, too, had stopped and was gazing. And the first look of the +blue eyes, over the space, released in him, the old helper with his +secret help, a vast content; just touched with a subtle sadness that +such a little gain could mean so much to her now.</p> + +<p>He moved toward her in the expectant quiet....</p> + +<p>Doubtless, it was no small thing that Mr. Mysinger had kept, more or +less, that promise he had made under threat and duress; marvel enough +that he had, in fact, "personally requested" Mr. Senff to "see what +could be done," etc., as agreed. Surely the whole matter had been fuller +of openings for double-dealing than an egg was of meat. And yet, to +Charles, the upshot of all the hoping and planning had been a cruel +disappointment. For Life, alas, still differs from Romance, realities +still refuse to fade like a dream, at just the suitable moment. In +brief, the School Board, by a majority of one, had yesterday ruled that +Mary should have her reappointment to the High School staff, "as soon as +arrangements would permit"; but of the assistant principal's office no +word was said.</p> + +<p>To one who had voluntarily surrendered her great promotion, this seemed +but a scanty recompense. And as for the new plan, his and Hazen's, +concerning the Assistant Superintendency of Schools next year—no +less—("There's really a good chance, now that the Mysinger bunch are +showing a better spirit," said Hazen)—that was much too remote to seem +very substantial just now....</p> + +<p>In the dark upstairs hall, the friends greeted briefly, in voices +scarcely above a whisper. Mary said hurriedly: "Donald's here? Angela'll +be ready to see him in just a second."</p> + +<p>"I'll produce him—dead or alive."</p> + +<p>The best man laid his hand on the banister. But his subconsciousness +warned him that the banisters were dusty, and he took his hand away.</p> + +<p>"You look happy to-day."</p> + +<p>"Yes—shouldn't I be? Weren't you—pleased, when you read—"</p> + +<p>"They've treated you abominably—no other way to express it."</p> + +<p>She smiled at him, but looked away. And he perceived, or thought he did, +that the memory of their last meeting remained with her, touching her +manner with a faint self-consciousness.</p> + +<p>"You are hard to satisfy," she said. "I've felt like singing all day.... +Will you tell Donald to come now?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I'm going to see you after this is over?"</p> + +<p>But no, she, the busy, was to stay here for the night, it seemed, +keeping Mrs. Flower company in her daughterlessness. And Charles, having +anticipated this occasion principally as her holiday-time and his own, +turned away with the sense that most of the wedding was over....</p> + +<p>Yet this, of course, was but the side-play of elders, counting for +nothing. Now the prime action of the day, the culminating hour, was at +hand.</p> + +<p>Donald was whisked away for a brief glimpse at his love. Returning, he +confronted almost immediately the moment of his public appearance and +confession. Word came to Wallie's room that the gentlemen were to +descend forthwith, for better or worse. "Now then!" whispered Charles, +as they started down—"chest out, chin up!" And Donald grinned back +feebly, as if to prove to himself that he still could. Now the dim hush +deepened and thickened, the little house seemed to hold its breath. +There was no music to cover these preliminaries, because of the +mourning. In complete stillness, groom and escort stepped through the +curtains into the assembled company, which, though limited in numbers as +it was, seemed to fill the little car-shaped parlor. Through a narrow +lane between vaguely discerned relatives and friends, the young men +moved to their appointed place. Here they stood, almost stepping on a +stout clergyman, undergoing his frank, interested scrutiny, through a +dreadful pause. Then at last a stir in the company made it clear that +the bride was at hand; and after that Donald could feel that nobody was +paying any attention to him.</p> + +<p>So without great pomp or ritual, fuss or feathers, came the great moment +to which all one woman's life had looked forward, to which, conceivably, +it might all look back. Standing statue-like a few feet from her, the +fingers of one hand feeling in Judge Blenso's waistcoat-pocket for the +ring, those of the other resting lightly on the cold Latrobe, Charles +listened to the beautiful words which converted Angela Flower into Mrs. +Donald Manford.</p> + +<p>Angela "was married in a traveling-suit." She was a little pale, like +her lord and master; her responses were just audible. And never had +Charles seen her look so maidenly sweet, so feminine and engaging and +desirable. Her soft and pretty face, yet unbroken by a line, was +immensely serious. Her look into the beyond was faintly wistful, a +little awed, supremely innocent. A wonder dawned in the great dark eyes. +Here girlhood ended: in great happiness, doubtless, yet in great +mysteries too. Here came change, so colossal that no man could ever know +change in these terms. Where led this unknown parting of the ways, what +was the heart and meaning of Life?</p> + +<p>And Mary Wing's face, glimpsed once or twice over the bride's shoulder, +was surprised wearing much the same look too. No woman, perhaps, even a +fighting educator, listens quite unmoved to these old words. Sweetly +pensive, Mary gazed at her so different cousin. And Charles wondered if +she had got quite philosophical now, and wished that she had something +much bigger to feel like singing about to-day....</p> + +<p>"I pronounce you <i>mon</i> and wife," cried the parson: and it was not the +first thing he had pronounced loudly, either.</p> + +<p>So came relaxation from the solemn stiffness. There was a flutter of +movement, human speech again, the swift embrace of bride and bride's +mother. Then speech became free and general, and the near relatives +rushed upon the happy pair.</p> + +<p>Charles, having wrung Donald's hand in the approved manner, had his due +turn before the center of the visible world. It was the first time he +had seen Angela, to speak to, since the day of the party-call. But, +though she was naturally a little nervous and staccato in the +circumstances, he considered that she received his felicitations with +dignity and graciousness.</p> + +<p>"Donald and I appreciated your gift so much. I hope you got my note? It +was perfectly lovely. We shall think of you whenever we use it."</p> + +<p>Interesting, indeed, it was to Charles to see these pretty eyes, that he +had once caused to weep, resting upon him with this genuine bright +restless indifference.</p> + +<p>"When you're in New York, you must be sure to let us know. Donald and I +will always be so glad to see you. I hope we'll have a guest-room, and +then you must come to stay with us. I do hope you will have better luck +with your stories, Mr. Garrott. I'll be watching for you in the +magazines—remember! How do you do, Cousin Annie? Donald and I +appreciated your gift so much ..."</p> + +<p>So Charles Garrott passed on, a bachelor still, still thinking about his +"story."</p> + +<p>In the "small reception following"—to quote the "Post" again—Charles +did what he could to make the affair a success, circulating about like a +valued member of the family, speaking winningly to old ladies whom he +did not know, heartening the timid with cake and wine. His own best +moments in the reception were short talks with two Flowers, brothers of +the bride. But Wallie, the chemist and lamp-repairer,—so it was now +written on the stars,—was down for his Easter vacation only: he was +returning to college next week. "The Wings want mother to visit them, +till I come back in June," he let fall, with truly masculine +unconsciousness; and felt no irony in his sister's impending departure +to lead her own life, while Mary Wing, staying at home, took care of her +mother.</p> + +<p>As for the older brother, the wealthy and generous Tommy, it seemed that +he had run on all the way from Pittsburg for the express purpose of +"giving Angela away." A handsome volatile little chap, Tommy proved to +be, with a mustache, a manner, and a worried look in the corners of his +eyes: and Charles, introduced, examined him with unaffected interest. +For Charles had often thought of Tommy, often wondered if Tommy might +not be, at heart, a master humorist. Unluckily, that interesting point +was never settled, the acquaintance being cut short untimely by the +general movement toward the hall.</p> + +<p>The embarkation of Mr. and Mrs. Manford was "very quiet." There was no +hurling of old slippers, no unseemly merriment. They came down the +narrow stairs amid a little rice, a last subdued chorus of farewells. +The bride's pallor was noticed now, her pretty smile was a little fixed. +The groom, on the contrary, affected the hearty, the jovial: his manly +backbone was obviously reasserting itself, now that he was a lawful +protector henceforward. It was observed on all sides that they made a +good-looking and well-matched couple.</p> + +<p>So Angela and Donald went out on their great adventure. And Charles went +with them down the walkway, with a bag or two to carry, doing his duty +as he saw it, to the end. With his own hands he clicked shut the door +of their wedding-coach. (A liveried one it was, the symbolic vehicle not +being available, for reasons explained.) "We'll hope to see you soon, in +our own Home," said Angela, the Home-Maker, the very last thing. And +then the coach leapt away, and he, the old principal friend, stood +motionless, bareheaded in the mild sunshine, staring after it....</p> + +<p>Stepping up on the verandah again, Charles encountered the relative who +had welcomed him on arrival—Mrs. Flinchman, Finchman, did she say?—and +who now welcomed him anew, beaming.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mr. Garrott!—your friend is a fortunate young man, is he not? I +don't think I ever knew a sweeter, truer, more womanly girl. And you," +she queried, with immense archness, "knew her so very well, too, I +believe?"</p> + +<p>He intimated pleasantly that few, indeed, had known her better, perhaps: +whereon the lady's expression grew more significant than ever.</p> + +<p>"Well, no wonder the men were all flocking about her, I'm sure—a +lovely, old-time young woman! But I understand it was love at first +sight with these two—they simply <i>flew</i> together! Ah," said Mrs. +Finchman (Flinchman?) with a sigh, which, however, did not disturb the +deeply gratified look indigenous to women at weddings—"ah, it's very +sweet! A real old-fashioned romance, that's what I call it, Mr. Garrott! +And now that we've come to the end of the story, who can doubt that +they'll live happy ever after—as you literary men are so fond of +putting it?"</p> + +<p>"Who, indeed, madam? It—all went off very smoothly, I thought? +Well!—"</p> + +<p>"You must be going? Then <i>good</i>-bye!—so sorry it's over! Knowing of you +so well as dear Angela's faithful friend, Mr. Garrott, I feel that we +are anything but strangers, and hope so much you will find time to come +in and see us, one evening very soon. We live quietly on Mason Street, +next to the Methodist Church—I and my sweet girl Jennie."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He left the house, after all, with Mary Wing, who was going home for an +hour's work on school examination-books, before returning to sup with +Mrs. Flower. This decision she had casually communicated, by the +hatstand just now. So the "holiday-time" came to a six-blocks' walk: and +even that was an after-thought. Truly, if a man had a mind to see this +woman, without definite transactions to discuss, he had need of all his +delicacy and tact. Calls, drives, bridge-parties, going to places, doing +things: she had no room in her life for such as these. Time was more +precious to Mary than to a writer. And she had convinced one writer, at +least, by a moving tribute to his perfect friendship, that she had never +had a personal thought of him in her life.</p> + +<p>But Charles did not despair. He was a young man still. And meantime he +was happy.</p> + +<p>"You should wear a hat like that every day," she said, agreeably, as +they turned into Washington Street. "You look seven feet tall at +least.... By the way, did you feel your ears burning, about one o'clock +to-day?"</p> + +<p>He said no, and smiled a little. Her intention of keeping the +conversation away from certain topics—topics that might have been +uppermost in both their minds to-day, perhaps—had been perfectly +evident to him from the moment they crossed the verandah.</p> + +<p>"I met Judge Blenso as I came home to lunch," continued Mary, "and he +stopped for a talk—purely to tell me what a wonderful person you were, +it seemed. But in that connection, he gave me some exciting news—that +you've just had a very flattering offer for 'Bondwomen'—and refused it! +I couldn't understand why."</p> + +<p>At that, he looked subtly pleased, while affecting but a modest +amusement. The event in question had been, in truth, sweet balm to the +spirit and the confidence bruised in so many rebuffs. Still, his reply +was only that his relative was born for a press-agent clearly. Requested +to explain this dark saying, he gave a light disparaging account of his +only offer, stating that Appleholt Brothers, before accepting his book, +had desired him to rewrite it throughout, completely revolutionizing the +character of his heroine and omitting not less than fifty thousand +words, including the existing plot.</p> + +<p>Mary glanced up at him. "I'm taking this with a little salt—shall I?"</p> + +<p>The author laughed. "Well, it was about like that. Still," he added, as +if there were such a thing as carrying modesty too far,—"of course I +could do what they want easily enough—in a month, I think."</p> + +<p>"You don't seem excited at all. But you aren't going to do it?"</p> + +<p>"On the contrary, I have now formally changed the name of my old novel +to 'Bandwomen,' and—put it in the Morgue."</p> + +<p>"The Morgue?"</p> + +<p>"A repository for deceased manuscripts, recently founded by my +relative."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said she, slowly. And, after a pause: "You don't feel any longer +that it's good?"</p> + +<p>"I <i>do</i> feel that it's good! I'd swear it—before a publishers' +convention. But—it doesn't happen to be the story I want to write any +more. I'm not interested in it."</p> + +<p>There was another pause.</p> + +<p>"It doesn't represent you now, I suppose? And the one you do want to +write?—you're writing it, aren't you? Judge Blenso says you work till +all hours of the night—and this is going to be your masterpiece."</p> + +<p>"I shall have to caution the Judge about this, I see. We won't have a +friend left, between us."</p> + +<p>"But I'm interested, very much so. I've wondered ... Do you remember your +speech at the Redmantle Club last winter—on work for women? Do you think +you'd make the same speech to-day?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," he said, lightly, "I don't know quite so much as I did last +winter, you see. I'm not in the class with the lady in Sweden any +more.... Why do you suspect my—loyalty?"</p> + +<p>"Suspect?—no. I was only deducing from what you just said. I know +something about the point of view you took in 'Bondwomen'—you told me +once—and now if you're so dissatisfied with it that—"</p> + +<p>"No!—no! It isn't that! My point of view hasn't changed at all. It's +only—"</p> + +<p>He glanced down at her, and away, suddenly struck with hidden +significances, abruptly recalling that this woman beside him had played +hardly less part in the making of "Bondwomen" than in "Bondwomen's" +final consignment to the Morgue....</p> + +<p>"I—I want to approach the whole question differently—lay a different +emphasis—that's all.... But if I believed in the value of work last +year, as—as a liberal education in responsibility—I believe in it ten +times as much now. Don't you know that?"</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you feel so. And that's what you're going to say in this +book?"</p> + +<p>"Hardly anything else."</p> + +<p>They walked on a little way in silence. The afternoon was fine; the last +flickers of a vernal sun danced along the sidewalks. Many people moved +on the promenade. The passing moderns attracted the favorable gaze of +not a few acquaintances. In appearance, Mary was judged one of the +variable women. She, the worker, with her habitually colorless face and +faintly fragile look, responded remarkably to dress, as Charles had once +before had occasion to note. And to-day, she was dressed as for a holiday +and a fête. However, he hardly looked at her once, throughout the brief +walk.</p> + +<p>"Do you know," she said suddenly, again with some touch of +consciousness, he thought,—"every conversation you and I have had for +months has been about <i>me</i>? That came over me, with a sort of shock—the +other day. I feel that there's a great arrears to make up. And I doubt +if you know how much I've wanted to hear about this book—since you told +me you had your 'line' straight at last. See how I remember.... Don't +you mean to give me any idea what the story's to be about?"</p> + +<p>The young man's heart seemed to move a little within him.</p> + +<p>"Can you imagine a writer's turning away from an opening like that?"</p> + +<p>"Well—but when will you?"</p> + +<p>"It's a long story. I don't think I could make it all clear in five or +seven minutes—and that's all the time you have to spare nowadays."</p> + +<p>"Do I seem as bad as that?... But I know literally nothing about it yet, +you see, except what I've just extracted. Idleness is bad for +able-bodied persons, including women. Does that state your point of +view—approximately?"</p> + +<p>"Precisely."</p> + +<p>"And how are you developing it this time? I mean—with a working-woman +as your central figure?"</p> + +<p>"No—principally with a woman who has nothing to do—and reacts +accordingly."</p> + +<p>"Oh!... That's what you mean by a difference of approach, I suppose? +She's married?"</p> + +<p>"No—that's the trouble."</p> + +<p>"You are dreadfully mysterious. How <i>does</i> she react?"</p> + +<p>"Of course, she marries."</p> + +<p>"Then it's not a story of work at all?"</p> + +<p>"Hardly at all. It's an old-fashioned romance."</p> + +<p>"I see—told from a new-fashioned point of view?"</p> + +<p>Charles laughed. "The description was suggested to me—very recently. Up +to a point, it fits. You see, I'm still learning."</p> + +<p>"You know," said Mary, after a step or two, "you like to picture +yourself as one who can't be restrained from talking about himself and +his work, on the smallest provocation. In reality ... Tell me honestly, +do you object to being cross-examined this way?"</p> + +<p>His gaze kept straight ahead.</p> + +<p>"By you?—oh, no. Of course, I ... I've wanted to tell you my story some +day."</p> + +<p>"Then I'll continue my quiz now. I know it's usually a stupid question +to ask—but have you decided on a title yet?"</p> + +<p>But that happened to be the one thing he did not care to tell her now.</p> + +<p>"You can't fix the title till you're done, you know," he evaded lightly. +"A story changes so. But I have a sub-title in mind ..."</p> + +<p>She asked if his sub-title was a secret, and he said no.</p> + +<p>"I'd thought of—'A Comedy of Temporary Spinsters'—something like +that," said the author, and, unseen, colored abruptly.</p> + +<p>"That's <i>good</i>!" Mary exclaimed after a moment. "It suggests—so much! +Temporary Spinsters.... Only—I hope you don't mean to be cruel to your +heroine?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no."</p> + +<p>They turned into Olive Street.</p> + +<p>"And by the way," said Charles, "she's not my heroine—only my central +figure."</p> + +<p>"Oh! Is there a distinction? Then will there be two women in this book?"</p> + +<p>"Of course—a common principle of writing. Your central figure—in a +character story—needs the comment of contrast, you know—of a—a foil."</p> + +<p>"I hadn't thought of that. You had only one woman in 'Bondwomen,' you +see.... And the contrast—she'll be as different as possible—a +working-woman, I suppose?—a Permanent Spinster! That's interesting, I +think—a study in contrasting types. Now—by my catechism—I really +begin to get an idea—"</p> + +<p>"Do you? I don't know. There are points—there are points—which I've +never been able to settle yet, myself."</p> + +<p>Mary began to search for her latch-key. Splendidly competent though she +was, she did not appear to have a regular place for keeping her key, +like a man. And Charles wondered if she had quite forgotten that offhand +remark of his, the day of his luncheon to Helen Carson, that he was +drawing his Line from his life....</p> + +<p>"But the men in the story," she was saying—rather mechanically, he +thought—"I conclude there must be some, even though you don't mention +them. What type do you make your hero?"</p> + +<p>"Oh!—hero! There isn't any. The hero's the reader."</p> + +<p>"The reader!—I fear that's too technical for me."</p> + +<p>He explained: "My—my study develops by the method of 'progressive +revelation,' so-called—the principal characters being first set out, of +course, with the wrong labels carefully pinned on them. Well, the hero's +just the commentator on this development as it takes place, thinking it +out to save the reader the trouble."</p> + +<p>"But—isn't it the theory nowadays that there shouldn't be any +commentator?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, there may be a <i>theory</i>!" he retorted, the artist briefly flashing +in the man. "However, I comment."</p> + +<p>They went up the Wings' three steps, and Mary put her key into the lock.</p> + +<p>"But your hero can't be altogether an abstraction," she insisted, thus +engaged—"else how can there be any old-fashioned romance?"</p> + +<p>The young man's laugh covered an interest in the conversation intense to +the point of physical pain.</p> + +<p>"Really, this won't do. We get it more and more backwards. I haven't +even described the story to you right. It's not an old-fashioned +anything—primarily—it's not a study of types. No, it's—it's an +intellectual autobiography. Do you work on Sundays?"</p> + +<p>The school-teacher wheeled in her open but inhospitable door, with +something like reproach in her eyes, and said: "<i>No!</i>"</p> + +<p>"Then you can't escape me. I'll stay in town this Sunday, and you shall +hear it all from the beginning. You—you've brought it on yourself now."</p> + +<p>The two moderns looked at each other. And the young man in the tall hat +was breathing rather hard.</p> + +<p>"But—wouldn't that disappoint your mother? I know—I've noticed—that +you never let anything interfere ..."</p> + +<p>His look changed perceptibly at that. And still, it was not the son, not +the old critic of Egoettes, who answered, slightly chagrined:—</p> + +<p>"What time have you to give me, then? Some day in the summer vacation?"</p> + +<p>Mary Wing's eyes fell to her hand on the door-knob. "I hoped," she said, +"that you would come in now."</p> + +<p>"But your—your work?"</p> + +<p>"I—thought I would take a holiday to-day."</p> + +<p>So they went into the house. And Charles stood alone in the Wings' +silent hall, slowly pulling off his wedding-gloves.</p> + +<p>In the sitting-room Mary was similarly occupied. Though she was going +back to the Flowers' so soon, she took off her hat. Having done so, she +stood before the mantel-mirror, fluffing up her hair a little, where the +hat had pressed it down. It is the immemorial fashion of women: a +characteristic position, and so an engaging one. Delicately the upraised +arms defined the lines of a graceful figure.</p> + +<p>But when Mary saw in the mirror that Charles Garrott had come into the +room, and had stopped short just over the threshold, looking at her, she +knew only that the moment had come when she must make acknowledgments +due for good aid and comfort received. And in her, the strong, +nervousness spread now like a fear.</p> + +<p>So she plunged hastily, the moment their eyes met: "I know, of course, +there isn't time to tell me about it now. But—I don't seem to get any +picture of your—your man at all.... What sort of man is he, +personally?"</p> + +<p>The author, starting a little, moved forward in the dusky room.</p> + +<p>"Oh, let's not speak of him," he said, with visible effort. "He's only a +writer. That's polite for a poor stick."</p> + +<p>"No—don't! Tell me—in the action of the story—what does he do?"</p> + +<p>"Not a thing—really. Just sits around and thinks."</p> + +<p>Strength came into her low voice: "Why—<i>why</i> do you always belittle him +so?"</p> + +<p>Continuing to look at her, he said, remotely surprised: "Belittle him? +But I don't."</p> + +<p>The school-teacher's fingers closed over the mantel, and the tips of her +nails whitened.</p> + +<p>"Then I don't understand at all," she said, steadily. "I've been +thinking that it was he who almost murdered the villain, and gave one of +the Spinsters her old place back...."</p> + +<p>Charles Garrott stood like a man turned to stone, fascinated gaze upon +the eyes in the mirror: girlish eyes, doubtless, but quite unwavering +now. And then, in an instant, his face was scarlet from neck to brow. +His embarrassment was frightful to see: that of a soul too suddenly +stripped bare.</p> + +<p>"Oh!... So you've been looking through me—all along. I see ... the +Judge didn't confine himself to ... Well, his knowing—was purely an +accident. He had, of course, no—"</p> + +<p>"And why must my knowing be an accident, too?"</p> + +<p>"I—it was simply something you had nothing whatever to do with. And +there was an understanding—the—the matter was entirely private. You'll +please forget the Judge's—small-talk, and—"</p> + +<p>"Not if I live to be a thousand! I'll forget everything—I'll forget my +name!—but that!—no, you ask too much of my feelings."</p> + +<p>That, indeed, checked the young man's horrible self-consciousness. He +saw, with unsteadying bewilderment, that this was no light conversation +of hers, that Mary Wing was more deeply moved than he had ever seen her. +And suddenly he was aware, by some swift flicker of his intuition, that +it was to say this to him, and nothing else, that she had come home, +made a holiday, to-day....</p> + +<p>"And you told me you had done nothing for me," she said, in the same +passionate low voice—"that day—when you had just done everything—what +nobody else in the wide world would ever have done for me! And you +were—hurt, too...."</p> + +<p>She stopped, abruptly. Her face quivered, just perceptibly, but he saw +it. Strange and incalculable.... Surely he had tried to do bigger and +better things for Mary, than the impromptu display of his primitive +passion.... Was this, also, of the primal and everlasting; did this, +too, touch the immutable and true?</p> + +<p>The helper was making reply, not exactly with <i>insouciance</i>: "Why!—why, +but I can't let you think of it—it was <i>nothing</i>! I <i>enjoyed</i> it! I +simply didn't think he had behaved to you as he should. Naturally, I +didn't like that...."</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> didn't—because that's the way you are. You expect nothing—but +give everything. I don't like to hear you make light of yourself. I +don't."</p> + +<p>She turned away, went over to her desk by the window, where the school +examination-books awaited her. But once more it was clear that she had +no purpose here. She moved the piled books on the desk-leaf, half an +inch, perhaps, and went on in a controlled voice:—</p> + +<p>"But I can't tell you how I felt, and feel, about it. And it's foolish +to—try to say thank you. We must talk of something else.... Sit down, +won't you? I'll give you some light in a minute."</p> + +<p>But the young man in the wedding raiment did not sit down, gave no sign +at all that he had heard her conclusive and hortatory speech. His eyes, +turning, had followed her as she went away from him. And now, as she +ended, he only stood and looked; looked over the familiar room at the +slender figure of a woman which, all so suddenly, had shot up to fill +the world for him.</p> + +<p>Fading light from the Green Park just touched Mary's face, where she +stood. She was a school-teacher, thirty years old. Life had buffeted +her: hard contacts with the real world had left upon her their permanent +marks, traced lines not to be eradicated beside these fine eyes. This +woman's first youth, her April bloom, was gone forever. But to this man +on the hearthside, her presence, her nearness, were charged now with an +intense power over depths in him which would stir to no fleshly +prettiness.</p> + +<p>He had her secret now. He knew her, a Woman revealed. And, standing and +looking at her over the darkening room, he was mysteriously shaken with +a profound emotion.</p> + +<p>This was his best old friend, this was the being he admired most upon +earth. She was his dearest comrade, his work-fellow and his playmate, +his human free and equal. She had a mind as good as his, a spirit whose +integrity he respected no less than his own; hands that were capable and +feet that she stood upon, and did not depend. She had an honor that was +not woman's honor, a virtue and character that had no part with the +business of sex. There was no competence a man had that this woman did +not have: she was as versatile and thoughtful and fearless and free as +the best of them. And, through and beyond all this, there was the +discovered marvel, that she had tilled and kept sweet the garden of her +womanhood. Underlying her rich human worthiness, as the mothering earth +lies under a tree, there was the treasure he had hardly glimpsed, this +store of her secret tenderness.</p> + +<p>So it was that Charles Garrott spoke up suddenly, with a kind of +huskiness:—</p> + +<p>"No, there's only one thing to talk of now. You will have to hear my +story."</p> + +<p>The grammar-school teacher did not move. The twilit sitting-room was +stiller than a church. The young man went toward her on feet not now to +be stopped.</p> + +<p>"But not from the beginning—no. That doesn't matter. It's the ending—I +have waited to talk with you about."</p> + +<p>He stood now by the hard-worked little desk, an elbow rested on the top; +he looked down at the bent familiar head, the thick crown of feminine +fair hair. Just so, he had stood and looked on that other day, when she +had written upon his heart what freedom meant to her.</p> + +<p>"I wanted to show how one man—got his education in womanhood—learned +how strength is stronger for being sweet—just by coming to see and +understand the moral beauty of one woman's life.... That is my story. +But it isn't enough to end with."</p> + +<p>Some of his dignity, some of his self-control, seemed abruptly to +forsake the hard-pressed young man.</p> + +<p>"You are that woman," he said, hoarsely. "You've educated me. But it +isn't enough."</p> + +<p>She, his only heroine, raised her head, gave him one look from under her +arched brows; a strange look, that might have said good-bye to the +perfect friendship he had forever changed now. And he saw in the dusk +that her face was very pale.</p> + +<p>"You've supposed I want nothing for myself. I am here asking for +everything...."</p> + +<p>Her lashes fell. He was so close to her now that, just by putting out +his arm a little, he could have taken one of the small hands on the +desk-leaf. So he did put out his arm thus. Her hand, possessed, was cold +as ice; but it was not withdrawn. No, Mary's hand seemed to stay and +cling, like a hand come Home.</p> + +<p>And now he heard her voice, as tender as a mother's:—</p> + +<p>"Ah, have I anything to give, do you think—that hasn't been given? What +sort of ending do you want?"</p> + +<p>So Charles told her then what sort of ending he wanted. And that, and no +other, was the sort of ending he had.</p> + + +<h3>THE END</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="By_Henry_Sydnor_Harrison" id="By_Henry_Sydnor_Harrison"></a>By Henry Sydnor Harrison</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">ANGELA'S BUSINESS Illustrated.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">V. V.'S EYES. Illustrated.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">QUEED. Illustrated.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Angela's Business, by Henry Sydnor Harrison + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANGELA'S BUSINESS *** + +***** This file should be named 34297-h.htm or 34297-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/2/9/34297/ + +Produced by Darleen Dove, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Angela's Business + +Author: Henry Sydnor Harrison + +Illustrator: Frederic R. Gruger + +Release Date: November 12, 2010 [EBook #34297] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANGELA'S BUSINESS *** + + + + +Produced by Darleen Dove, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + ANGELA'S BUSINESS + + BY HENRY SYDNOR HARRISON + + + WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY + FREDERIC R. GRUGER + + BOSTON AND NEW YORK + HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + The Riverside Press Cambridge + 1915 + + COPYRIGHT, 1914 AND 1915, BY HENRY SYDNOR HARRISON + + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + _Published March 1915_ + + To JACK + _Who does not think as I do._ + + +[Illustration: "I DECIDED I WOULD REFUSE IT"] + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"I DECIDED I WOULD REFUSE IT" + +"NO! MORALS ARE THE BULWARK OF THE NATION!" + +CHARLES HAD NO GREAT CHANCE TO SHOW HIS FEARLESSNESS OF PUBLIC OPINION + +"OH!... WHY DO YOU DO THIS?" + +"WELL, I WON'T MARRY HER! I WON'T!" + +ANGELA PEEPED OVER INTO WASHINGTON STREET + +THIS SPINSTER SUPPLIED A QUIET CHARM + +"HO!--HAD YOUR SPIES ON ME, HAVE YOU?" + + + + +ANGELA'S BUSINESS + + + + +I + + +Being an author actually at work, and not an author being photographed +at work by a lady admirer, he did not gaze large-eyed at a poppy in a +crystal vase, one hand lightly touching his forehead, the other tossing +off page after page in high godlike frenzy. On the contrary, the young +man at the table yawned, lolled, sighed, scratched his ear, read +snatches of Virginia Carter's "Letters to My Girl Friends" in the +morning's "Post," read snatches of any printed matter that happened to +be about, and even groaned. When he gazed, it was at no flower, but more +probably at his clock, a stout alarm-clock well known to the trade as +"Big Bill"; and the clock gazed back, since there was a matter between +them this evening, and seemed to say, "Well, are you going to the +Redmantle Club, or are you _not_?" But that was precisely the point +on which the young man at the table had not yet made up his mind. + +Of course, if he went to the Redmantle Club, he could not possibly spend +the whole evening here, writing, and, oddly enough, this was at once a +cogent reason for staying away from the Redmantle Club, and a seductive +argument for going to the same. No lady admirer could ever grasp this +paradox, but every true writer must admit that I know his secret +perfectly. + +From time to time, no diversion offering, the author would read over the +last sentence he had written, which very likely ran as follows:-- + + We have a society organized on the agreeable assumption that + every woman, at twenty-five or thereabouts, finds herself in + possession of a home, a husband, and three darling little + curly-headed children. + +Stimulated a trifle, he would thereupon sharpen up his pencil and charge +forward a few sentences, as now:-- + + Slipshod people never test such old assumptions against + actuality; they cling to what their grandfathers said, and call + their slipshodness conservatism. So (like ostriches) they avoid + the fact that there are three large and growing classes of + women who simply have no relation to their comfortable old + theory. I refer, of course, to the classes of Temporary + Spinsters, of Permanent Spinsters, and of Married but + Idle--childless wives living in boarding-houses, for example. + Let no Old Tory conceive that he has disposed of the Woman + Question until he can plainly answer: What are all these + various women to DO in their fifteen waking hours a day? + +Following which, he lit a cigarette in a moody manner, and sat frowning +at the back of the head of his relative and secretary, who was clacking +away all the while on a second-hand typewriter near by. + +It will be contended that some hesitancy was fitting enough to the +writer's thesis, Woman having raised perplexities in the bosoms of +philosophers from the earliest times on. But perplexity did not happen +to be the trouble with this philosopher, Charles King Garrott. These +sentences Mr. Garrott so apathetically set down were the ancient +commonplaces of his mind, the familiar bare bones of special researches +long holding a unique position in his life. The dull General Public, +with its economic eye, might yet rate him merely as a private tutor, +formerly of Blaines College; the relative and secretary there might +judge him only a young man of an unmasculine thin sedentary quality, who +mysteriously gave his youth to producing piles of strange stuff that all +had to be copied out on the typewriter. But, in the privacy of his own +soul, Charles Garrott was, through all, not alone the coming American +novelist (which rather went without saying), but, in that direct +connection, probably the only man in the world who really understood +Woman. + +Old times used this phrase unscientifically; "understanding women" has +acquired misleading connotations. The words seem to call up the picture +of a purely gallant observer, one with a polished mustache and amorous +gay eyes, sitting under a sidewalk awning and ogling out over a purplish +drink. We may go so far as to state plainly that they call up the +picture of a Frenchman. The young man at the table is scarcely imagined +as this sort of authority, viewing Woman crudely as La Femme. As he +could not put pencil to paper without revealing, Charles Garrott viewed +Woman, never as La Femme, but exclusively as a Question. Himself the New +Man obviously, he saw Woman solely as a Movement, meditated about her +strictly as an Unrest. When he considered her in the concrete--and that +he seldom did nowadays, if we need not count his friend, Mary Wing, who +was as New as he, to say the least of it--his eye reviewed and +criticized her, not as a Sex, but strictly as a human being against an +environment. Charles Garrott would scientifically diagnose a Woman to +her face, in a manner which she, poor creature, but little suspected. + + Romance [he began again] left us with the sentimental tradition + that a w---- + +"Charles!" said his relative and secretary, speaking for the first time +in ten minutes, a long silence for him--"I'll thank you for your +attention a moment." + +"Certainly, Judge," said Charles Garrott, with that alacrity with which +a true writer habitually welcomes an interruption. + +"Here, near the end of this story--passage I can't for the life of +me.... Here! Seems to go like this: 'Let a man,' cried Dionysius, +cracking walnuts with a sort of splendid sadness, 'but free his eyes +from the magic of sex, and mask my words'--no!--let's see--'_mark_ my +words, Bishop, he shall see strange truths.'" + +There was a pause. + +"Mistake somewhere!" said the gentleman at the typewriter, with a +chuckle. "Well, what's what?" + +"No, that's right, I believe. Why, what's the matter with it?" + +"Why!--there's no sense in it!" + +"Oh--it's advanced talk, you know. Modern, epigrammatic stuff, you might +call it." + +"Conceding that, here's the bit about the nuts. That's where the mistake +is, _I_ claim. Let me see--'cracking walnuts with a sort of _splendid_ +sadness.' Good gad,--that can't be right, Charles! 'Sober sadness,' +'sorrowful sadness'--something of that sort you meant, eh?" + +The secretary had swung about suddenly, revealing a face almost +startlingly handsome, fine-cut as a cameo, pink and white as a +professional beauty's, and topped with a magnificent crown of snow-white +hair. + +"'Pathetic sadness,' now, my dear fellow? Go just a little better, +wouldn't it?" + +"Well--no, Judge, not just in this particular story. Fact is, it's meant +to be a little queer, you see." + +"It _is_ queer, that's my point!" said the Judge, rather worried. +"'Cracking walnuts with a sort of splendid sadness'--if the public +understands _that_!--Well, as you like, of course." + +Having thus washed his hands of all responsibility, the relative gazed a +moment at a little red "Nothing But Business, Please" sign that hung +above his typewriter-table, hummed a bar or two in a sweet tenor voice, +and resumed his now expert clacking. + +Similarly his employer resumed his composition:-- + + Romance left us with the sentimental tradition that a woman's + sex was a complete, indeed a glorious, justification of her + existence (_v._ F. Dell: "Women as World Builders"). Because + she some day would be, or might possibly be, a mother of + children, she was set upon a pedestal and left there, exempt + from further responsibilities meanwhile. The potentiality of + motherhood became a claim to life-long support in idleness, + etc., etc.-- + + Now, we have long understood that the controlling fact in the + life of every man is the way in which he gets his living. We + have long understood that the essential immorality is to get + something for nothing. But only lately have we come to see how + these two general laws apply, have always applied, to women. + Only late-- + +But there the pencil, which had been dragging, came again to a halt. + +This writing went forward in an old exercise-book, on the label of which +a fine trembling hand had written "_French Composition_." It was seen +that firmer fingers had overwritten that inscription with another: +"NOTES ON WOMEN." Here, in brief, the authority was reducing certain +views to essay form, according to a plan he had: squeezing out the meat +of his mind into the exercise-book, as the moral basis of a great new +novel, nothing less. And the truth was that he had no sooner begun the +stock-taking process than difficulties appeared, and the present want of +ardor made itself felt. Faint doubts and questionings, indeed, knocked +at Charles Garrott's mind in these days; not touching Woman, of course, +but certainly seeming to touch his last year's formula for her. "I'm an +ultra-modern with conservative reactions," he had thought to himself, +with a sense of important discovery, but a night or two ago. And on the +whole, he felt that that had explained him scientifically into the best +company in the world. + +The reference was to the one other existing person who, it was conceded, +might possibly know as much about Woman as he, Charles, did. That one +was a lady in Sweden. And, reassuringly enough, he had long since noted +in the Swedish lady's bold modernism, also, this precise same tendency +toward judicious reconsideration. + +Suddenly the young man put away his writing, shut his table-drawer with +a click, and said:-- + +"I'm going out for awhile, Judge--to a meeting of the Redmantle Club. +Think I need a little stimulus." + +He went away to the bedroom, thinking, but not of the Redmantle Club, +for which, to say truth, he cared little. Nor were his thoughts in line +with the swingeing sentences he had just been writing in the +exercise-book. On the contrary, the young authority was openly inquiring +of himself: _Was_ economic independence the complete solution of the +Unrest? _Were_ there no Values in the world but Utilitarian Values? + +The bedroom door shut, and Judge Blenso, who had replied with a mere +busy nod to Charles's announcement, desisted from his clacking, and +produced a late copy of "The Rider and Driver" from the little drawer of +his typewriter-table. He began to look at pictures with a happy +expression upon his striking face. + +Why was Mr. Blenso called the Judge? An interesting point, on which I, +for one, unluckily can shed no light. But if he has also been called a +relative and secretary, that was for the sake of peace only. To say +outright that this fine large gentleman was Charles Garrott's nephew +(his half-nephew, to be exact) would necessitate a vast deal of +explanatory genealogy. That was a fact, as the family Bibles of the +Blensos and Minters clearly proved, but it is a fact that had better be +quietly ceded. Judge Blenso was a relative, and it is quite true that +his young half-uncle had been reared from infancy to address him as +Uncle George. Garrott, who had no other nephew in the world, had always +thought it a little unfair. + +The Judge's disaster had come upon him in the prime of a gallant +widowerhood. He had dived from an unfamiliar pier, one luckless day, in +the interests of a stout young woman, who flattered herself that she was +drowning. Diving too close to avoid her bulk, Charles's relative had +struck his head upon a submerged beam which should not have been there; +and the stout young woman, so far from drowning, had promptly proved +that she could float enough for two. She had saved her rescuer's life, +in short. + +But the beam had had the last word in the encounter, after all. When +Uncle George Blenso got well of his concussion, it was early discovered +that he was just a little "different"; also that his nominal Real Estate +and Loans business downtown was far, far from solvent. It was +accordingly proposed in the family that Uncle George should go to the +Garrott place in Prince William County; but this proposal had been +rejected at once by Uncle George, who protested indignantly that he was +a city man. The upshot was that Charles, being the only city relative +extant, had invited the Judge to share his third floor here, turning out +his young friend and room-mate, Donald Manford, for that express +purpose. That had seemed to settle the issue. But no; very soon the +lively kinsman was pointing out that he would need money, of course, for +clothes, club-dues, and so on, and accordingly it was arranged that he +should become Charles's literary assistant on a regular salaried basis. + +It happened that Charles had as yet had occasion to publish but a single +fiction ("The Truth About Jennie"; see "Favorite Magazine," for August, +1910). He had, indeed, as much need of a private chaplain as of a +secretary. The peculiarities of the case, thus, often struck and amused +him; and they did so now as, opening the door of the bedroom, hatted and +coated, he saw his secretary's still youthful head bowed pleasantly over +the magazine. + +"Ah, my dear fellow, there you are!" said the secretary, with just a +little jump. + +And putting down his reading-matter in a manner suggesting that, of +course, he had had to kill time somehow while waiting for Charles, he +went on at once in an agreeable confidential voice:-- + +"By the by, I intended to ask you--you've heard about this Miss +Trevenna? Gad, you know, Charles! Her father won't let her name be +mentioned!" + +The employer eyed him gravely, pulling on his gloves. The story alluded +to was not unknown to him: how one modern girl, claiming more Freedom +than existed, had too rashly crossed the great gulf, and how, her +enterprise proving fatally unsuccessful, she had lately come home again. +He felt very sorry for Miss Trevenna. + +"Fact!--her mother visits her in secret, in lodgings," said his +secretary, dropping his eager voice further. "A sad case--sad, yes--but, +my dear fellow, can we allow our girls to run off with other people's +husbands? No! Morals," said Judge Blenso, sternly, "are the bulwark of +the nation!--that's what _I_ say! Am I right, Charles?" + +[Illustration: "NO! MORALS ARE THE BULWARK OF THE NATION!"] + +Charles said that he was perfectly right. He then proposed that the +Judge should knock off work for the night, forthwith. But the Judge +looked rather shocked at the suggestion, and began to clack vigorously +at Dionysius. + +"There's really no hurry about this short stuff, you know. Why not go +down and cheer Mrs. Herman up a bit? She always appreciates a call from +you." + +The relative's hand irresistibly rose to his mustache. + +"A fine woman, a charmin' fine widow-woman," said he, in his rich voice. +"But!--business _before_ pleasure, Charles. That's _my_ way, my boy." + +However, the ringing motto seemed a little too good to live up to. +Hardly had the front door shut on Charles when Judge Blenso--he rather +insisted on the official title, now that he was secretary--hooded his +old typewriter for the night, turned down the light in the green-domed +lamp on the table, and descended to visit his landlady. That he had +small reverence for his half-uncle's New Thinking now became clear. The +Judge left the Studio (as he himself had christened it), chuckling +silently to himself, and on the steps began to chant aloud a sort +of gay recitative of his own composition. The chant went a beat +to every step, thus: "Cracking--piffle--walnuts--piffle--in a--sort +of--piffle--sadness!" + + + + +II + + +The Redmantle Club was more advanced than Charles, and he knew it. And +when he told his relative that he was going to it for stimulus, he must +have been secretly well aware that it was but a treacherous stimulus he +was likely to get. + +The Club had been founded by Mrs. Frederick B. Seaman, who had once had +a novel published, long ago, at a nominal expense of two hundred and +fifty dollars. The name Redmantle had some significance which eludes +memory, but there seems to be no doubt that the founder's original idea +had been merely to gather together a few congenial persons to abuse the +publishers to. The times, however, chanced to be ripe for a broader +forum, one where the most advanced women of both sexes could meet and +freely speak out the New Mind. The Redmantle had seemed to fill the +long-felt want, from the start. Now its meetings began with a Programme, +and you may be sure nobody bothered with such small fry as a publisher. +The Redmantle speakers won salvos only by completely exterminating the +Family and the Home, or proving beyond successful contradiction that +Love Is Going Out. + +By arriving late on purpose, Charles Garrott missed a speech by Mary +Wing on the New Education, for which he was rather sorry. For a year or +more he had regarded Miss Wing as one of his best friends, and he always +liked to hear her demolish, in characteristically forceful sentences, +the surviving tradition that the true object of education is to +ornament gentility. He liked to see Mary Wing lay her hand upon her +breast, her Self, and cry out: "So long as I live, whatever I do or +think or am, the center of the world for me is _here_. I will not +conjugate dead languages or recite the imports of Uruguay, before I +learn the first fact about my Self--my body and my mind, my background +and my opportunity!" On the other hand, by his late arrival, Charles +missed Miss Frothingham's advanced harp-solo, and Professor Clarence +Pollock's tribute to a celebrated lady anarchist. As to the elder Miss +Hodger's address on the New Ego, he was not much less opportune. Miss +Hodger was nearing her peroration as the writing tutor appeared at the +door. + +He took up a position just inside, and looked through the parlor smoke. +The smoke emanated principally from the ladies, who were, however, as +five to one. Miss Hodger towered by a baby-grand piano, one hand upon an +album, and clamored for her Rights. She demanded these Rights of hers, +whatever they were, with such iteration and passion that a kindly, +simple person, had there been any such present, must needs have cried +out, "Give that lady her Rights there!--and quick about it!" + +Miss Hodger's was a tall figure, bony but commanding; she had a flat +chest, a tangled mane of sorrel hair and a face somewhat like a horse's. +Of her argument, little need be said; you may find it in detail in the +very books where Miss Hodger found it. It was, in sum, an unanswerable +demonstration of woman's sacred duty of Developing her Ego. The expose +of the Home proved particularly searching; it brought loud cheers. Much +Miss Hodger said, too, of the Higher Law and the Richness of +Personality, of Contributions to the Race and Enhancement of the Life +Stream. In Charles Garrott's ears one sentence seemed to ring and stick +above the rest: "Fiercely and relentlessly shall Modern Woman hack away +all that impedes her in her Self-Development--all, I care not what it +is!" + +She ended with a kind of yell, thumped the album twice, and strode away +from the baby-grand. There were bursts of clapping, a chorus of +approval, and then general buzzing and commotion. The Programme was +over. Everybody was standing: all talking, nobody left to listen. +Servants entered bearing trays of light refreshments; light, indeed, +they looked. It was the Redmantle's social hour, the hour of good, free, +courageous talk. + +Charles Garrott moved into the noisy room. All his sides, of course, +were not known to his fellow members, and yet he had a standing here. He +was recognized as one of the pioneer Rightsers; his last year's speech +before the Club, on "Work for Women," had been generally adjudged a +first-rate piece of Modern Thinking. And all the Redmantlers seemed to +like to talk to him, too; they would get round him and back him up into +corners in a way he scarcely liked. Mrs. Frederick B. Seaman looked as +if she meant to kiss him. "And now," she said, beaming, "for a good long +talk about my new book." He cleverly evaded her, but in so doing fell +right into the net of the hearthside anarchist, Professor Pollock, who +drew him in with a hand as large and soft as a beefsteak. Pollock was a +thin, bald young man, with the conventional flowing necktie, and the New +disappearing chin, and secretly Garrott had always thought him a most +terrific jackass. + +"How are we going to relieve this White Slave situation, Garrott? How? +How?" + +"It is one of the grave problems of the day," said Charles. "At the +moment I can only answer, as President Taft answered the workman at +Cooper--" + +"What, you admit that you have no remedy to lay down? None whatever?" + +"At the moment, none. It is one of the grave--" + +The younger and even freer Miss Hodger, who had been hovering near, +exploded a mouthful of cigarette smoke, and exclaimed excitedly:-- + +"Oh sister, only think! Mr. Garrott has no remedy for the White Slave +situation!" + +They thought it most reprehensible of him to have no remedy, and closed +in on him, bursting with theirs. "Have you not considered the +necessities of the living wage!" demanded the elder Miss Hodger's +joyless voice, suddenly at his elbow. "Living wage--bah!" said Professor +Pollock, hotly. "A mere sop--a mere feeble temporizing--" "You must get +into their homes!" cried the youngest Miss Hodger, who admitted homes +only as places to get into. "You must take them very, very young...." + +So they fell to quarreling among themselves, and Charles Garrott +wriggled away, wishing that he were as cocksure about anything as the +Hodgers were about everything, and resolving to try to be henceforward. +So he eluded Miss Frothingham, who was handicapped by her harp and +nearsighted besides, but ran at once against a crimson-faced woman in a +purple negligee, a stranger to him he felt sure, but she asked him at +once, in an angry sort of way, "Don't you favor a public reception +_immediately_ to splendid Flora Trevenna?" In spite of his resolution, +Charles's eyes fell before the threatening gaze. It seemed to be the +sixth time, at least, that he had caught the name of Miss Trevenna among +the Turkish fumes, but the idea of the public reception immediately was +new to him. "Don't you think she's struck a great Blow for Freedom?" +demanded the crimson one, with rising indignation. "Don't you think +she's weakened the hold of the horrible Tyranny of Marriage?" + +Thus the Modern got stimuli, of just the sort he had known he would get +if he came. Members jostled him, blew smoke in his eyes, laid +demonstrative hands upon him. All about him in the dense air, he heard +hot voices crying out incorrect statements of things they had lately +misread; at best loose bits plucked from authors whom he, Charles, had +turned inside out year before last, as like as not. And why, he +wondered, need Redmantlers _look_ so queer? Why must new ideas, if only +the least bit radical, invariably attract people who liked to wear +breakfast-gowns in the evening, people with uncombed hair and burning +pop-eyes, people who had little chin, indeed, but yet far more chin than +humor? + +And then suddenly, in the midst of the febrile Newness, the young +authority found himself talking to a sweet-faced girl from the country, +who looked at him with woman's eyes, and spoke simple little things in a +pretty voice: "Do you play bridge? Do you tango? It must be _wonderful_ +to be a writer...." + +It was really an extraordinary experience. + +The development came by way of his good friend, Mary Wing, whom Charles +reached at last with a certain sense of making port. Miss Wing, it must +be known, was the assistant principal of the great City High School, +where no woman had ever been before her, where she herself had arrived +only after eight years' incessant battling upward. She was also, this +long time, president of the State Branch of the National League for +Education Reform, with the prospect of presently mounting far higher, to +nothing less, if you please, than the General Secretaryship of that rich +and powerful body. Considering her history and her exploits, it seemed +that she should have been six feet tall, with a gaze like a Gorgon and +a jaw like Miss Hodger's. But Mary Wing was actually a slight and almost +fragile-looking creature, with quite girlish blue eyes in a colorless +face that wore an air of deceptive delicacy. + +She was two months older than her friend, Mr. Garrott, which made her +thirty in December. And she was undoubtedly the most distinguished +person in that strident room, not excepting (at the present writing) Mr. +Garrott himself. + +The assistant principal was discovered leaning against a bookcase, +eating sandwiches in large bites, two bites to a sandwich, and paying no +attention to the earnest talk of the group she seemed to belong to. "It +must be the effect of speaking," she said to Garrott. "I'm ravenous. But +goodness, there's no nourishment in these little paper things." And +almost at once she demanded, firm as a Redmantler, if he had ever been +to call on Dr. Flower; some cousin or other of hers, this was, who +(through her connections in the educational world) had lately taken an +appointment as lecturer at the Medical School. Charles had agreed to +call on this worthy, it seemed, but naturally he hadn't done so. + +She chided him for his remissness. It was a mild enough reproof, in all +conscience; yet it was at that moment that he, with his diagnostic +tendency, caught himself eyeing Mary Wing critically, as if she were any +other Redmantler. And then he seemed to become aware that, without +knowing it exactly, he must have been eyeing Mary Wing critically for +some time past now. + +"He'll need some patients, too, to eke out. I must look into that," said +she, popping the second half of a sandwich into her mouth. "I suppose +you don't know anybody who intends to be sick soon, in a costly way?" + +He shook his head. He himself, he intimated, had no idea of getting sick +merely to oblige her rural cousins. + +"What does that girl do?" he added, almost irritably. "Didn't you tell +me there was a girl, twenty-five years old? Why doesn't she work, and +eke out?" + +"She does work. She runs the house." + +"Apparently you didn't see Mrs. Waldo's statement that quarter of an +hour a day was quite enough for that so-called work." + +"Do you believe that?" + +"I know it's false. Still there are ninety-six quarters of an hour in a +day, people estimate. What sort of girl is she? Little nitwit, I +suppose?" + +"She's my cousin." + +"Lots of people have little nitwits for cousins. Why doesn't she pitch +in and earn her keep, like a free personality--as our friend Miss Hodger +would say?" + +Miss Wing was observing him with a strange air, resembling amusement. +"You must really ask her that yourself some time, Mr. Garrott." + +"I'll do it with pleasure, the first time ever I clap eyes on her." + +"Well, then," said she, with a sudden laugh, "do it _now_!" + +And thereupon, within ten seconds, the managing young woman had whisked +him around a knot of Redmantlers, whisked him around the bookcase, and +was saying in merry, efficient tones:-- + +"Angela, this is the famous Mr. Garrott you've heard so much about--my +cousin, Miss Flower! Mr. Garrott's very anxious to--" + +She paused wickedly, but after all finished without malice, "To make +your acquaintance." And so Mr. Garrott did not have to ask the country +cousin on the spot what she was thinking about not to earn her keep. + +The girl had been standing against the other corner of the bookcase all +the time, it seemed. She was talking, in a polite sort of way, to +another guest--Mr. Tilletts, the wealthy and seeking widower--and +fanning away tobacco smoke with a hand too small for the heavy odds. Mr. +Tilletts was removed at once by the thoroughly competent Miss Wing. + +Charles Garrott, recovered from the sudden little surprise, looked at +the cousin with interest, and was at no loss for easy conversation. +While he knew of Miss Flower very well, he pointed out, he had had no +idea that she was here this evening. In fact, he hadn't gathered that +Miss Flower went in for--well, for this sort of thing, exactly. + +"Why--I really don't, I'm afraid," said she in her soft voice. "I don't +suppose I understand it all very well. I just came--because Cousin Mary +invited me!" + +She hesitated, then laughed, and finally said: "And you see, it's the +first party I've been invited to since I came here to live!" + +"And you like parties?" + +"Yes, so much. Don't you?" + +The remark, at, and as to, the Redmantle, seemed delightful. + +"I did, when I was young and gay. Now, I never seem to have time to +enjoy myself any more. You've been meeting a good many people, I +suppose?" + +"Well, no,--not many yet. Really hardly any." The girl laughed, and +again showed a charming naivete: "You're the very first man I've met +since we came here--except Mr. Tilletts!" + +"But that's a tremendous exception, Miss Flower. You appreciate that +he's one of our leading swains?" + +"Oh, _is_ he!" she said, a little disconcerted. "Why--I hope he didn't +think I was rude! I thought he was--somebody's father, you see, or +uncle...." + +Charles Garrott regarded the cousin pleasurably, with no thought of +cross-examination. He, the authority, it need scarcely be said, had +recognized this girl at sight. Manifestly, she was none other than the +Nice Girl, the Womanly Woman, whom he and all moderns were forever +holding up to scorn. Doubtless it was merely the increased conservative +reaction: but Charles, for the moment, seemed conscious of no scorn in +him toward Miss Angela Flower. + +The cousin was pretty; not beautiful, no throne-shaker; but pretty, and +attractive-looking. Wholly normal she looked, quite engagingly so, with +her fine clear skin, smooth dark hair, and large limpid eyes. In her +manner there was something soft, simple, and sweet, an ingenuous desire +to please and be pleased; Miss Flower was feminine, in short,--it could +not be denied. In a company, where the women acted like men, and the men +acted like the Third Sex, this girl seemed content to remind you, like +her mothers, that she was a woman. + +Her conversation, intrinsically speaking, was not remarkable. But--the +insidious contrast again--in a Midst where everybody else was conversing +remarkably, plain conversation itself became an episode, and a charming +one. She spoke of bridge, saying that she and Cousin Mary were hoping to +"get up a table" one night very soon; of Mitchellton, where she had +lived seven years till September; of the maxixe and the smallness of the +house Mary Wing had taken for them; a dozen such un-New simplicities. +And then, as she happened to be saying something about the strangeness +of the city, "just at first," Charles Garrott exclaimed suddenly, rather +pleased:-- + +"There's a friend of yours, at any rate, Miss Flower--Donald Manford! +The last one in the world you'd expect to meet here." + +The engineer must have just come in; over bobbing heads, through waving +arms, his fine figure and bronzed face had been suddenly glimpsed at the +doorway. This young man was another cousin of Mary Wing's; she, indeed, +had raised him by hand; and he looked hardly less alien at the Redmantle +Club than Miss Angela Flower herself. + +To Garrott's astonishment, Miss Flower did not know Donald from Adam. + +"Is _that_ Mr. Manford?" she exclaimed, surprised apparently by her +cousin's cousin's good looks. "Of course I've known _of_ him for the +longest time, but--" + +"Why, that's strange--he's like a brother to Mary Wing. But then," said +he, reconsidering, "Donald's out of the city half the time, and does +nothing but work when he's here." + +"Oh! Cousin Mary said she was going to bring him to see us some +time--but--" + +He enlarged upon the young engineer's industry (trained into him by Miss +Wing); explained how he was busier than usual just now in view of his +coming trip to Wyoming; mentioned the great Mora dam and cut-off +project, on which he expected a commission under Gebhardt himself. + +"And your cousin Mary, too," he concluded, in the justest way, "is an +awfully busy person, you see." + +"Yes, of course, I know! She does work _terribly_ hard, doesn't she?" + +After the slightest pause, the girl added: "It's such a pity she has to, +don't you think so?" + +On which Donald Manford dropped cleanly from Charles's mind, and he +inquired with authoritative interest, artfully concealed: "How do you +mean, exactly?" + +"Well--I don't know--" + +She looked at him, laughing a little, as if not certain how far she +could say what she meant; but finding his gaze so extremely encouraging, +she went on seriously:-- + +"Don't you think when a woman gets really wrapped up in business--and +all that--she's apt to miss some of the best things of life?" + +He might have laughed at the quaint deliciousness of that, to him, +Charles Garrott. But he didn't. + +"That's the great question your sex is working out, isn't it?" he said, +carefully. "I don't suppose work--just moderate, useful occupation--ever +hurt anybody much, do you?" + +"Oh, no!--of course not. That's just what I believe, too. I believe +everybody ought to have work to do. But--all the work isn't teaching or +going to an office--or being a public speaker--do you think so?" + +"Oh, never. No, indeed." + +She hesitated and said, laughing: "I know _I_ find it work enough just +keeping a house and doing the housework--and being a daughter and +sister!" + +It was at that point that Charles's purely conventional look altered, +his inmost self pricking up its ears, as it were. And a moment later the +simple girl said, in the naivest way imaginable, what seemed immediately +to stick in his scientific Woman lore like a burr:-- + +"Of course I haven't studied and read like Cousin Mary, but truly it +seems to me that--just making a home is sometimes all the business a +woman could possibly attend to...." + +He stood looking down at her in the strangest way, engrossed with novel +reflections. She would have been astonished had she guessed how her +chance phrase had set this man's mind to working, behind the pleasant +mask. In her innocence she clearly did not understand, even after all +the speeches, how at the Redmantle Club we talked of all businesses, and +everybody's business, but never the business of making a home. + +The reactionary talk proceeded for a space. But shortly, there were +signs that the meeting was about to adjourn. And it was clear to +Charles, as a true writer of a philosophical tendency, that he should be +glad to be alone for a space now, and to think. + +He said suddenly:-- + +"Miss Flower, I want very much to introduce Donald Manford to you, +before I go. May I do it now? Won't you promise to hold fast to this +bookcase, and not budge till I come back?" + +The girl promised. She seemed pleased by his thought of her, but sorry +over his own impending departure. "Oh, do _you_ have to go now?" she +said, and her woman's eyes seemed to add quite plainly: "I'd lots rather +talk to you than meet Mr. Manford." + +The young authority smiled at her, and disappeared into the company. +Directly, he was back again, the engineer in tow. + +Donald, found conversing in a nook with another handsome guest, a Miss +Helen Carson, had rather resisted removal and been hauled off, truth to +tell, in some ill-humor. But Charles, for his part, felt warmly pleased +with himself, bringing together these two nice, normal cousins of Mary +Wing's. The girl too, looked pleased; her eyes were shining, a pretty +color tinged her young cheek. + +"I'm so glad to meet you, Mr. Manford, at last. We're really sort of +connections, aren't we--once removed!" + +"Yes, I believe so!--that's fine. Delighted to know you," said Mr. +Manford. "I hope you enjoyed the speeches this evening?" + +"Well--that's hardly a fair question!" laughed Miss Angela, looking from +one man to the other. "Are you a--regular member?" + +The query brought applauding laughter from Mr. Garrott and a weak groan +from Mr. Manford. "You mean I look like one? Oh, that's a blow! No, +honor bright," he added, "I leave all the advanced stuff to Mary." + +Then Charles took his leave, in the friendliest manner. He felt, in an +odd sort of way, that there had sprung a kind of bond between this girl +and him, all the realer in that she, of course, was so unconscious of +it. So kindly did he feel toward Mary Wing's cousin, indeed, that when +she hoped, in her charming natural way, that he would come to see them +some time soon, he, though anything but a caller, actually came very +near promising to do so. + +Miss Flower's eyes regretted his going; they were feminine eyes. Charles +smiled into them again, pressed her hand, and turned away toward the +Studio, to think. + +By the door, he ran again into Mary Wing. The educator had changed her +position, but was still eating sandwiches. She beckoned Charles nearer, +in her confident way, and said:-- + +"Do you remember my telling you how much I wanted to see Donald settled +before he went off, and sketching a few of the qualifications the girl +must have? And your saying that what I wanted was a syndicate?" + +He remembered, he said. + +"See how I treasure up your _bon mots_. Well, there she is." + +And she nodded down the room, not even in the direction of her cousin +from the country, but to none other than Miss Carson, now found +conversing with the heated Pollock. + +"Oh," said Garrott. + +"Why," exclaimed Mary, the moment her eyes had followed her nod, "I +wonder where Donald is!" + +He decided to pretend not to hear. Gazing at Miss Carson in the light of +this information, he was ready to concede that she seemed a sound enough +modern choice. Well-connected, well-to-do, and completely educated, the +young lady in question, while now taking "two years out" to please her +mother, was next year going to work, to please herself--of course, in +Social Service. Young and alluring Miss Carson looked, indeed. But +something in the mould of her smooth chin, confronting the young man who +had none, seemed to serve notice that, though she was beautiful, she +knew that Women's Egos must be free. + +"Don't you think she may be a little firm? I mean, for Donald?" + +"Firm? Not a bit!--she's human and competent. Heavens!--you don't want +Donald to marry a helpless little silly, do you? But what on earth +became of him, did you notice? I made him come here after me specially +to meet her, and I had them talking so nicely--" + +Then Charles said firmly: "I just introduced him to Miss Flower. It +seemed you'd neglected to do so. By the way, your cousin's charming." + +"Oh," said Mary, rather drawn-out. + +And, after a rebuking pause, she added in pedagogic tones: "Well, I'm +sorry you took him away from Helen. I'm serious about this match, you +see. It would almost reconcile me to giving Donald up." + +The young man's look at his old friend was certainly critical now. And +he refused to feel in the least sorry for his interference with her cool +eu-marital scheme. For, taking even the most liberal view, Modernity was +for Moderns; probably always would be. What under the sun did a fellow +like Donald want with a wife who would prove him wrong about a cosine, +and keep him up jawing about Mrs. Gilman till two o'clock in the +morning? + + * * * * * + +From the Turkish air of the Redmantle, Charles Garrott passed out into +the bracing November night. Two blocks farther along, he passed the door +of another club, a completely male one. And down the wide steps, between +the columnar lights, there came shambling a large, loose-jointed, +round-faced man in a brown felt hat, and joined him. + +"Well, Charlie." + +"Good evening, Mr. Wing." + +Having caught stride, the two men walked on in silence. This Mr. Wing +was Mary's Uncle Oliver, an interesting individual in his way, member of +the City School Board, and in the business world known sometimes as a +"capitalist," sometimes again as a loan-shark. When in the vein, Mr. +Wing could be conversational enough, and his morose air at present +indicated that he had lost not less than three dollars at the Bellevue +Club card-tables this evening. + +When they had proceeded some three blocks in total silence, Charles, +emerging from his brown study, said idly:-- + +"Mr. Wing, do you believe in the Woman's Movement?" + +Hearing no reply to his query, he glanced around, and found Mr. Wing +slowly shaking his head. It seemed to be a time-gaining sort of shake; +it undertook to hold the floor temporarily, promising good sound +argument to follow. Charles waited. But Uncle Oliver did not speak; he +only continued to shake his head, slowly and profoundly. And when the +two had traversed half a block in this provisional sort of way, the +money-lender suddenly turned up the steps of the house where he lived, +still shaking his head. + +Halfway up the steps, he looked back over his shoulder, and said:-- + +"Well, good-night, Charlie." + +"Good-night, Mr. Wing." + + + + +III + + +The first thing the author did, on opening the door of the Studio, was +to look at the clock. Big Bill pointed to but five minutes of eleven. +Good! There remained a clean hour and a half before he would have to +cease work and go to bed, to wake up a private tutor. + +All the lethargy of the earlier evening seemed to have vanished now, +under the strong reverse stimulus of the Redmantle Club. Having turned +up the light in his gas-lamp, the young man stood a moment, thinking +intently, and then sat down at his writing-table. The table was twelve +years old, and had been to college and law-school. It was worn and +stained, but still strong, and bore up, besides the lamp and clock, not +only a large array of writer's paraphernalia, but a considerable +floating miscellany, too, including a clipping or so, several unanswered +letters, a stray tobacco-pouch, a thick exercise-book, and the +particular volume on Women he happened to be reading at the moment. +Ignoring these, the proprietor drew from the back of his table drawer a +capacious brown-paper folder, and from the folder plucked three +typewritten sheets, held together with a clip. + +It was seen that the topmost of these sheets bore a heading: MARY WING. +And for some moments the author of them sat in stillness, conning over +the lines that followed: the magnanimous lines he had prepared with such +pains long ago, and then tamely put to sleep in a drawer. + +He had composed this eulogy last winter, to help Miss Wing in her +campaign for the assistant principalship of the High School. His plan, +of which she knew nothing to this day, had been cunning and complete. +First he would get this "write-up" into the "Persons in the Foreground" +department of "Willcox's," the famous and enormously circulated weekly; +then he would have the "Post" reprint it; finally he would induce all +the local papers to print glowing editorials demanding, "Is this +prophetess to be without honor in her own country?" Unquestionably a +most helpful plan; but characteristically, Mary had not waited for it. +By some "pull" she had, she had put her little matter through months +ahead of schedule, and Judge Blenso had just finished typing the +"write-up," late one winter's afternoon, when Charles was summoned to +the telephone to be greeted by the first woman assistant principal in +history. He, of course, had been delighted with her success. And +yet--had he not felt even then that the episode was typical of a +positively manly independence? + +Now he read over his forgotten words with cool judiciality:-- + + Her name was in newspaper headlines before she was out of her + teens; and many and many a time since. She wished to be a + doctor, and the Medical School would not take her in. And + shortly this slim girl, with her sweetly-cut chin and ethereal + eyes, had raised the whole State on the issue of principle thus + thrown down: Did a woman have the right to study, or not? She + stormed the courts for an injunction, she set the legislature + by the ears for a special act. The story of her personal + interview with the Governor, at the height of the disturbance, + is often told to this day; but never by any friend of the + Governor's. And then, when she was within a step of winning the + long fight, her father died suddenly and she faced the + immediate necessity of earning a living. + +Farther along, the author's eye found the particular passage that had +been in his mind from the start, the part about the National League for +Education Reform. Having recounted how the bequest of Rufus B. Zecker's +millions had "assured the permanence and ultimate triumph of the +League's programme," the generous "puff" went on:-- + + What the National League contemplates is nothing less than the + remaking of our entire educational system, on the basis of a + new perception of truth, namely: that education is, not + learning at all, but purely the process of fitting the + individual for effectual relations with his (or her) + environment. With the League's propaganda to that end, under + the brilliant leadership of Horace Gurney Ames, Miss Wing has + been closely associated for the past seven years. Her work here + has been, indeed, the dominant part of her career.... + +The dominant part of her life, he would better have written. And that +was precisely the trouble. + +The sheets dropped from the young man's hands, and he gazed unwinking at +the green translucence of his lamp. His mind skipped back to a day in +early September, when Mary and her mother had come home from their two +weeks in the metropolis--Mrs. Wing still looking rather crushed from the +overwhelming rush of New York, Mary radiant with the hope that before +long she might go back to New York, to stay there the rest of her life. +For on that journey she had abruptly learned that the League directors +had their eyes upon her with reference to their General Secretaryship, +which was to become vacant next March. Undoubtedly, the brilliant Dr. +Ames had sounded her pretty directly on this point. Undoubtedly, too, it +would be another long step up for Mary, making her, in the educational +world at least, a figure of national consequence. Once again, of course, +Charles Garrott had been delighted. And yet it was clear to him now that +his Modernity had first felt conservative reactions on that very day. + +Through the shut door of the bedroom there came a gentle snoring. After +the day's secretarial labor, Judge Blenso slept well. Charles rose and +walked his carpet, much worn with a writer's meditative pacing. + +The wisest of us generalize from the instances that lie nearest us. How +far this young man's views on Woman had been moulded by contrasting the +maturing uselessness of his pupil Grace Chorister, say, with the fine +efficience of Miss Wing, he himself could not have said. But at least he +knew that Mary Wing had long embodied the best of the whole Movement for +him. He had held her up, in season and out, as a perfect example of the +New Woman at her best. And Mary Wing was that, he declared it now; the +real thing, as different as possible from the hollow shams of the +Redmantle Club. Of course--of _course_--she had a right, just the same +right that a man had, to put away her mother, her family and friends, +and follow away the star of her work. But ... if only she showed a +little more appreciation of values apart from My Career; if only you +could imagine Mary sometimes speaking of Being a Daughter and Being a +Sister. + +Yes; those were the words that rose naturally in his mind. Beyond doubt, +Mary Wing's cousin from the backwoods had given a push to Charles +Garrott's thought; he would have been the first to admit that. Not +merely had Miss Angela happened to body forth, in the most pleasing, +unconscious way, that very type which all Redmantlers so derided; but +further, she had artlessly used a phrase which, to his authoritative +mind, had helped to scientize her case at a bound. For of course the +most scientific modern demand as to Miss Angela's class came simply down +to this, that all Temporary Spinsters should have some regular business +to occupy their hands and heads. Very well, then, laughed this little +girl: What about the _Business_ of Making Homes? + +The phrase, connoting so much more than mere "keeping house," was worthy +of a writer. And when had this other doctrine grown so strong and sure, +that the Business of Making a Career, of Developing My Ego, was +necessarily the biggest business in the world? + +In the silence of the large dim Studio, the young man stood stroking the +bridge of his nose, somewhat worriedly. It was a well-cut bridge, and +held three brown freckles. + +It occurred to him, not for the first time, that he himself was helping +to spread the egoistic doctrine referred to. He remembered his novel, in +short: his Old Novel, as he already called it, albeit it was his only +one, and he and Judge Blenso had completed it but two weeks ago, to a +day. This novel, in manuscript, was now in the hands of the great house +of Willcox Brothers Company, whom Charles, after due thought, had +selected as his publishers. Willcox's offer, and the contract, might +come by any mail now. + +To the writing, and infinite rewriting, of this first work had gone the +scant leisure of more than four years. Its title-page read: "BONDWOMEN: +A Novel of Modern Marriage." (The Judge had first typed the title +BANDWOMEN, as if it were a Novel of Female Bandsmen, which had annoyed +Charles very much.) Considering the cunning with which he had labored to +"keep the story moving," it could scarcely be doubted, that "Bondwomen" +was destined to have a large sale. And that, in fact, was just the +danger; that was precisely the reason that he, the author, felt this +sense of moral responsibility. Young married women, young impressionable +Temporary Spinsters everywhere, would soon be reading this book, and +moulding their characters upon it. He, of course, had never preached any +of the wilder, Trevenna Modernity. But all the same.... That passage +there, for instance, where _Lily Slender_, in the lonely vigil on the +terrace, reviews the status of Parasitic Woman and decides to leave her +husband, and grow her Soul: certainly the probability was that +intelligent women all over the world (he would have to grant British and +Colonial rights at once, no doubt) would shortly be devouring that keen, +advanced Thinking; and, it was to be feared, a general exodus from Homes +would follow. In his mind's eye, Charles saw armies of women rising and +packing Gladstone bags in the stilly night, and stealing forth, just as +the dawn whitened the east, to join _Lily Slender_ in lifting marriage +to the Higher Plane, by means of Commerce. + +He had put much of Mary Wing into _Lily_; he knew that. But then he +hadn't taken it in, in those days, how serious Mary was as to--what was +the word of that mad ass Hodger?--fiercely hacking away whatever impeded +her in her Self-Development. + +Had not the moment rather come when some one, some all-seeing and +completely modern authority, should resolutely sound the Note of +Warning? Was it so sure that careering Egoism had anything more valuable +to give the world than the old virtues which it flouted? Beauty, charm, +and cheer, tenderness, selfless sympathy, all that mothering meant: was +it not ridiculous to ignore these enormous contributions to the work of +the world, because, forsooth, they could not show an immediate cash +return? + +Now all the clocks of the city--all, that is, that were right, and had +bells--began to sound midnight. But the absorbed author and authority +paced on, aware of no sound. He was thinking, with something like +excitement, of his next novel, "Bondwomen's" greater successor, for +which he was now just struggling to fix his point of view, straighten +out his "moral plot," by means of notes in the old French +exercise-book. Long as he had sensed a certain spiritual starkness in +his first novel, long as he had looked forward to his second, the vital +questions concerning his new "line" had never yet been settled in his +mind.... Well, suppose that, with a frank, courageous change of front, +he employed the New Novel to sound the wholesome Note of Warning; +suppose that he boldly took a Home-Maker for his heroine, for example, +and justified her--justified her _scientifically_--as no modern thinker +had ever justified her before.... + +The striking idea was not a new one altogether; but its possibilities, +suddenly opening out, rapidly grew more and more interesting. +Unfortunately, before it could be developed in even the smallest degree, +it was abruptly interfered with by a most unwelcome intrusion of the +practical. + +Charles Garrott was a tutor. He had turned eagerly to his table, to +capture certain phrases at least, while they were yet hot in his mind. +But now, chillingly, his eye fell upon that other exercise-book, lying +there publicly atop the volume on Women. At a glance that book looked +exactly like its sister, kept hidden in a drawer; but in fact there was +a boundless distinction. No hand had overwritten the label of that book +there raising it to the peerage, as it were. That book was just a common +book: "French Composition." And it was known to contain uncorrected +exercises, forty sentences at least, which must be tutorially attended +to, before Charles Garrott slept this night. + +There followed a brief struggle; but it could end in only one way. +Charles, with no good grace, sat at his table and clutched up a fat blue +pencil. + +It was a galling occurrence. Yet a man, of course, must live, whether +cynical Frenchmen can see the necessity or not. And the tutoring, say +what you would against it, was the best net result of a gradual sifting +process, designed to find what would yield the largest amount of money +for the least amount of work. So had Charles Garrott bent his life, to +be a writer. Bred casually to the law, he had thrown over the +encouraging beginnings of a practice directly he found that clients +expected to take all a man's time, including nights even. Teaching he +did not love, and yet, as he had enjoyed an excellent education, it +"came easier" than anything else. His boast to friends, indeed, was that +he could teach anything, whether he had ever heard of it before or not; +and it was a fact that at a private school once--years ago, in the +interval between college and law-school--he had taught Spanish on three +days' notice, keeping, as he said, precisely one page and a half ahead +of his class the whole year through. But teaching Ancient Languages at +Blaines College was found, upon fair experiment, to involve too many +papers in the Studio, conferences with boys, annoying teachers' +meetings, and similar invasions of a writer's privacy. Besides, it was +not nearly lucrative enough, after the coming of the Judge, who drew +twenty-five dollars a month as Secretary, besides his keep. + +Thus had evolved the private tutor, with a waiting-list. Thus it was +that probably the only living compeer of the lady in Sweden must put +aside his Thinking to-night, to peruse and criticize such stuff as +this:-- + + 16. _Bon jour, Monsieur le Cure! Avez vous vu le grand cheval + de mon oncle, le medecin?_ + +Oh, detestable! + +The two French exercise-books--twins with what a difference!--had +started life equally as the property of a certain dear old lady, who had +been spurred into studious endeavor by reading in a magazine that Roman +Cato learned Greek at eighty. She had pointed out to her daughter, +quite excitedly, that she herself was but seventy-one, and French was +easier, besides; and that evening she had telephoned to Charles. The old +lady wrote a very neat but virtually illegible hand, employing the +finest Spencerian pen ever seen:-- + + 23. _Non, petit Henri, non; votre soeur Marie n'est pas + jamais aussi mechante que vous fumes hier soir._ + +The author's golden moments fled. + +Nevertheless, before he went to bed, Charles Garrott did produce from +his drawer that other private book of his (the front part of which, +also, was stuffed with observations about the Cure and naughty little +Henry). Here, for what time he had, the young modern set down, on a +fresh page, preliminary Notes, such as, indeed, contrasted oddly with +those inscribed in the earlier evening. And when he shut up his book to +go to bed, he did it with an air, and spoke aloud:-- + +"Let 'em bite on that!" + +From his tone, you might have supposed that all the Redmantlers of the +world would come to-morrow and look at these novel words of his. That, +of course, was far from being the case: these were his inviolable +secrets. Yet so real were his imaginings to the young man, so +reactionary seemed even the thought of a Novel of Warning, that an +unmistakable defiance had tinged his voice as he spoke. And particularly +did this defiant air seem to extend to his excellent friend, Mary Wing. + +Charles Garrott went to bed that night thinking defiantly of Mary (and +almost tenderly of Mary's so different cousin); and on succeeding +afternoons, when he took his walks abroad, he did not turn his steps, as +was frequently his habit, toward streets where the advanced assistant +principal was likely to be met. + +None the less, he did meet Mary on the street, before the week was out; +and then the case was such that the secret sense of disloyalty faded, +and Charles saw that he had been right all along. Mary, in short, was +found parading Washington Street, where the largest possible number of +people would be certain to see her, in the company of the too celebrated +Miss Trevenna. And then the authority thought of the Home-Making cousin +more sympathetically than ever; though he did not guess that the cousin, +chancing to see him and his ladies from an upstairs window, was also +thinking, not unsympathetically, of him. + + + + +IV + + +It was not Charles's fault that he did not see Miss Angela, to-day, as +she saw him; the sight of her would have been agreeable to him, at that +moment particularly. But the window from which the pretty cousin looked +out happened to be a considerable distance away; and she gathered +nothing of his sentiments. + +Dr. Flower's house, indeed, was not on Washington Street at all, but on +Center, a very different street. Center, however, had this merit, that +it stood back to back with Washington, and as the Washington Street +residences were mostly "detached" at this point, the rear of the Flower +house commanded a certain view of that handsome thoroughfare; not much +of it, of course,--an oblique slice cut in between houses. The distance, +as has been said, was rather great for eyes less keen than the lynx's. +But a pair of opera-glasses at the parted curtain discreetly bridged the +space, and brought a few feet of the Street of the Rich under the +legitimate observation of the less materially successful. + +Now, when she had leveled her glasses upon the three figures--for +Charles, at this trying moment, was escorting _two_ ladies down the +promenade--Miss Angela felt, to say truth, a little lonely and out of +things. Not only was Mr. Garrott the first man she had met in the new +city, but she had met him only, as it must now have seemed to her, like +ships passing in the night. Not dreaming how she had been figuring in +his thought, the girl felt, humanly and femininely, a little depressed. +And when she presently reflected, "I suppose this is the time he goes +down to lunch every day!"--the small thought was actually a cheering one +to her, presenting, as it were, some point of contact with Washington +Street and the pleasant happenings that seemed to go on over there. + +Such, in fine, was the sheer enchantment of distance. To Mr. Garrott +himself, this public promenade was as far from a pleasant happening as +could well have been conceived. + +When he had looked over the street just now, and seen who his old +friend's companion was, Charles had, indeed, experienced a decided +shock. On the heels of that, he had had a moment of distinct +uncertainty. Ought he to cross and join this remarkable pair, or should +he avert his eyes? The etiquette here was unknown to him, the business +without precedent in his experience. + +There was more than etiquette involved, of course. While this particular +city was alive to contemporary currents, and even had its little +Redmantle Club, it still considered the Church of England marriage +service a sound start for a union, and associated contrary theories +exclusively with inferior morals. To walk Washington Street with Miss +Trevenna was, as it were, to wound and rebuke the city's old-fashioned +prejudices. But that, without doubt, was the very reason Mary Wing was +doing it. + +Charles had crossed the street. Mary Wing saw him, half-way over. Not +suspecting how his unfavorable scrutiny had been upon her for some time +past, she smiled a bright welcome. + +He was presented to Miss Trevenna. She acknowledged his greeting in an +absent, fluty voice, and turned on him briefly a face of almost nun-like +serenity, palely lit by a pair of starry eyes. He found her altogether a +mystic-looking creature, not easily associated with things wild and +gay. + +"I was just telling Flora about the Education Reform League," continued +Mary, in her calm tones. + +But Charles, after all, had no great chance that day to show his +fearlessness of mere public opinion. Hardly had he passed out of Miss +Angela Flower's range of vision, when the walk of three ended, if the +episode did not. It was Miss Trevenna's corner, it seemed; she could not +be persuaded to go farther. + +[Illustration: CHARLES HAD NO GREAT CHANCE TO SHOW HIS FEARLESSNESS OF +PUBLIC OPINION] + +"I'd turn with you, but I have a class," said Mary, disappointed, and a +little surprised, it seemed. "I wish you'd stroll on with me!" + +"I've something to do at my room--some business to attend to, really." + +"Then let's walk this afternoon, do! Shall I come for you?" + +"How nice of you! I'd like to so much." + +On which the girl was gone, stepping on light feet down the side street. +In the momentary lapse of talk, Charles's eye went after her. He saw +something mysteriously withdrawn in that gray figure, something set +forever apart. + +And then, while he and his friend walked on six steps in silence, the +young man wondered, with a sudden fierce annoyance, what Mary thought +she was doing exactly. + +Of Miss Trevenna he knew only what the world knew, which was little +enough. One of several daughters of a prosperous family, she had been +known as a reserved, and somewhat dreamy girl, indifferent to social +life, and much addicted to curling up at home with books of poetry; +Shelley's poetry or some such bewildering stuff; altogether a queer +person. She even wrote poetry herself, it was damagingly alleged after +the crash, and it was recalled that in women's meetings she had +sometimes risen and expressed, in the quietest sort of way, ideas which +disconcerted even the Hodgers of her day. Duly there had come to town +the entirely typical dashing stranger: Robert McKittrick, this one was, +an architect in government employ, who came with excellent letters. Mr. +McKittrick was seen in public, a time or two, with Mr. Trevenna's +quietly peculiar daughter; it was known that a sane and sound Mrs. +McKittrick existed in Philadelphia, or some such place; there may have +been a little mild talk, but it was very little and very mild. And then +one fine day, the town was startled with the news that these two had +taken the great jump together, by the last night mail train north. + +It was the sort of thing you read about in every novel nowadays, +especially if written by an Englishman. But this time, unluckily, it had +really happened, and in a community not too large for a homogeneous +public opinion. Moreover, life does differ just a little from the +novels, in that it possesses no invisible author to shut the book +splendidly, the moment the case is proved. Life did not leave Mr. +McKittrick and Miss Trevenna forever singing in the honeymoon heyday. It +merely kept them in the back of the town's mind for two years, a tidbit +or a terrible warning, according as you looked at it, and then it +brought Miss Trevenna back to us again, alone. + +It might have seemed the oldest and the vulgarest story in the world. +The weak, trusting maiden, the handsome, promissory villain, the flight, +the rude awakening and Conviction of Sin, and then the piteous Return +(Act III, Curtain) to Forgiveness, a black shawl, Quick Decline, and +Death: these things have wrung the gallery's scalding tears from farther +back than we can remember. But well Charles Garrott understood that Miss +Trevenna's "case" had nothing to do with this cheap business. He thought +it right enough, of course (theoretically speaking), that Mary Wing +should sympathize with a sister in distress. And yet.... Well, no one, +certainly, had "deceived" or "betrayed" Miss Trevenna. Quite probably +she had proposed the excursion herself, like one of the glorious +heroines at the moment educating British maidenhood. Miss Trevenna had +gone with her lover because she had a Right to Her Happiness; she had +gone to fulfil the Unwritten Law of Her Being; she had gone to Strike a +Blow for Freedom. It was absurd to look for remorse in a black shawl +here. + +And still, glancing after that oddly cloistral figure, the young man +felt that the net effect was not so different from the sorry old +melodrama, after all. + +He spoke suddenly, with a manner proving that he did not pride himself +on wearing a mask for nothing:-- + +"Did you know that a woman's occipital condyles are less voluminous than +a man's,--yes, considerably so,--while her zygomatic arches are more +regular? Well, then, take my word for it, for they are." + +Miss Wing rewarded him by coming out of her abstraction with a laugh. +She asked him in what great tome he had learned that fascinating fact. + +"Ah, that's my secret. By the way," said Charles, "how's that charming +little cousin of yours, Miss Angela?" + +He spoke in his most natural voice, as if no thought of conflict had +ever risen between him and the best of New Women. All the same, the +cousin's name fell rather oddly on the advanced air. + +Mary Wing said that she hadn't seen Angela since the Redmantle Club; she +said she must try to go there this afternoon. He remarked that being +pulled up by the roots, and transplanted, was hard on the young, but +that Miss Angela would make friends fast enough. Having a passion for +biography, especially the biographies of women, he wanted particularly +to learn something about this girl, who had given him, Charles Garrott, +a phrase. But the talk now took another turn; it wasn't a day for +discussing Home-Making clearly. Miss Hodger and Professor Clarence +Pollock went walking by, across the sunny street, and Mary, having +greeted them much too pleasantly to suit his taste, said:-- + +"Do you know this is the third time I've seen those two together lately? +It begins to look like an affair." + +"What!" he cried, disgusted. "Why!--why, she'd bite his head off in a +week!" + +And then, while she protested argumentatively, he was silent for a +space, struck with the thought that here was an opening not unsuited to +his need. + +While the plan for his new work was by no means settled yet, beyond +doubt this matter of Miss Trevenna had given strong impetus to the +conservative wave. And meanwhile, there was the personal side. To +lecture Mary Wing openly was a thing scarcely to be thought of. Yet, +having felt the unmistakable reactions himself, the young man found +himself itching, literally itching, to get his hands on Mary and make +her react a little, too. + +He said in his pleasantest way:--"Did it ever strike you, by the way, +that she's got the propaganda in the purely archaic form?" + +"Archaic?--Hodger!" + +"She still imagines that the object of this Movement is to make women +more like men. Of course, the object of the Movement is to make women +more like themselves." + +Her silence seemed to applaud his epigram. Charles felt that it was +generous of him to add: "I bagged that somewhere. Sounds like Havelock +Ellis to me. But," he added, frankly, "I've improved the wording. Why do +you say I'm unjust to her? On the contrary, I'd be delighted to fork +over all those rights of hers she was demanding the other night. By the +by, what are Hodger's rights exactly?" + +"I suppose she's entitled to human rights, even if you, as a man, don't +find her especially attractive." + +Charles winced, and then smiled faintly. + +"Human rights--security and protection, life, liberty, and the pursuit +of happiness? She's got them, hasn't she? I thought what Hodger was +yelling for was special privileges, rather exceptional privileges in the +way of freeing her Ego from--" + +"As a woman, she hasn't even all the human rights, you know very well. +As a human being, she would feel that she's entitled to exceptional +rights, because she's an exceptional being. She would take the ground +that her public work--" + +"She would take that ground, of course. But," said Charles, amiably, +"possibly others would not agree with her. That is just the trouble, +isn't it? The doctrine that the world belongs to Exceptional People has +that fatal weakness." + +"In your opinion," she qualified him--"what?" + +"We'd need a great board, a sort of Super-Supreme Court of really +godlike understanding, to tell us which are the Exceptional People." + +Seeing that he had her temporarily at a loss, Charles continued his +agreeable prattle:-- + +"And hand them out their little certificates, you know. I remember, this +chap Chesterton said a fairly bright thing once--a little piece I read +somewhere. He said he'd always wanted to hear somebody--anybody--preach +'personal liberty' with one small qualification. Said he'd waited and +waited to hear one person state the creed something like this: 'Men and +women of genius must not be bound by ordinary laws. But I am NOT a man +of genius, and therefore I will keep the law.' Chesterton said he'd been +waiting for years." + +He was aware that Miss Wing was regarding him in a curious sort of way, +and now she said, directly:-- + +"Do you know, this doesn't sound like you at all?" + +"Doesn't it?--why not? I've always believed in taking a good look +around, every now and then. Constant discussion," said Charles, +"constant canvassing of rival theories--" + +"Well, those theories are only good for people who think that the way to +advance is by standing still." + +As she spoke these positive words, the two were overtaken and passed by +Henry Mysinger, of all people. Mr. Mysinger was at once Mary's principal +at the High School and her special adversary in the Schools, against +whom in years past she and her friend Garrott had how often schemed and +plotted. His salute now was pleasant, with reference to Charles, but the +eye he cast upon his assistant was distinctly not approbatory. + +As for Mary, it did not appear that she bowed at all. + +"But the way to advance is by advancing," she continued, declining to +lower her voice at all, "and it's only the exceptional people who are +capable of superintending these advances. That, by the way," said the +school teacher, "is probably the very definition you are looking for." + +He flatly rejected her definition; disputation followed. With increasing +pointedness, Mary Wing pressed the case for "exceptional people," +Self-Developing People who recked not of Homes and being Sisters and +Daughters. And presently she said, with only a small air of +hesitation:-- + +"And please remember that enlightened people cannot possibly point the +way without courage, and--a certain amount of pioneering experiment." + +Mr. Mysinger had mercifully withdrawn himself around the corner of Third +Street. There his assistant would turn, too, parting from her friend; +and really, that appeared to be just as well. Forgetting his mask, the +young man was beginning to betray signs of exasperation. No more than +Mysinger, of course, had he ever been deceived by the delicate +girlishness of Mary's face; but the positions she seemed to be taking +now passed anything he had ever thought of her addiction to the New. Was +this mere argument for argument's sake?--or did she seriously imagine +that the regeneration of society was to be accomplished by the antics of +a few wild female Egoists--lawless Egoettes? + +"That's true, to a point, of course," he said, with control. "Yet don't +you suspect people who talk about their Duty to the Race, while +overlooking entirely their duty to that part of the race which should be +nearest and dearest to them?" + +"I'd suspect even more people who daren't call their souls their own, +for fear they might be criticized by somebody who knows nothing about +the facts." + +And then she exclaimed suddenly. "Oh, why don't you say at once that +you've been talking at poor Flora Trevenna for three blocks!" + +He was considerably taken aback, but spoke calmly: "Not at all--or at +least only in a general way. One of the problems of the day, as we say +at the Redmantle Club." + +It was on the tip of his tongue to say then, man to man, as it were: +"Miss Mary, you have a great work ahead of you, in a special field. +Isn't it a pity to confuse your good cause with one that perhaps is not +so good?" But, of course, you hardly gave advice of that sort to Mary +Wing. + +"But since you seem to invite my opinion," he continued, "I will say +that I do think there is a logical connection between Hodger's kind of +talk and Miss Trevenna's--ah--pioneering experiment." + +"Of course there is! Who denied it?" said she, with a forthrightness +that increased his wonder at her. + +And then, as they came to a standstill at the corner, she added, after a +grave speculative stare:-- + +"If it'll do you the slightest good, Mr. Garrott, I'll tell you exactly +what finally decided Flora to forget her duty to her sisters, aunts, +uncles, and so on, as you consider. Prepare yourself. It was a sentence +in a book." + +"_A sentence in a book!_" + +Miss Wing nodded, several times. "As she's a reserved girl, and I appear +to be her only friend now, of course this is a confidence." + +"I can name the book!" cried Charles; and he did. + +"However," he resumed, with bitter urbanity, "if she'd happened to read +a few pages further, she might have noticed that the Lady in Sweden took +every bit of it back." + +To his surprise, Mary Wing laughed. + +"Do you know, that's just what I told her, in almost those very words? +And what do you suppose she said? 'Well, I'm glad I didn't read as far +as that.'" + +Continuing to look at him and continuing to laugh, the annoying young +woman added: "I'm afraid you don't begin to understand women as yet, Mr. +Garrott! No, you don't begin to. _Au revoir!_" + +It was noted that Charles's bow was characterized by a certain +stiffness. + +He went on his way alone, to Berringer's, and the good solid man-talk. +The strongest thought in his mind now was that the end of these things +was not yet. And here, at least, he was by no means deceived. + +The next day was Saturday. At two o'clock on that day, each week, +Charles took train and went down to his mother's place in the country, +there to remain till early Monday morning. This was an invasion of his +writer's time, with which he let nothing interfere. Returning to town, +and finding "Bondwomen" not yet heard from, he became absorbed in a +short story--for the "line" of his new novel could not be laid in a day +or a week, of course--and went suddenly upon his emergency schedule, as +Judge Blenso had named it. This schedule called for the omission of all +exercise, other than as tutoring necessitated, and a general withdrawal +from the world of living women. But he couldn't get away from their +Unrest, even so. + +Late Thursday afternoon, as he was working out the last pages of the +time-killing fiction, the door of the Studio opened without a knock, and +Donald Manford walked in. Donald certainly continued to make himself +very much at home here. + +"Get out," said Charles, tired and cross. "What do you think this is, a +Wheelman's Rest?" + +The tall engineer said that he was passing and thought he'd drop in. But +with the aid of an eyebrow he made known, over Judge Blenso's snowy +head, that he desired private converse in the bedroom. + +The public talk between the two young men, continuing, was that Donald +wanted to borrow a white waistcoat from Charles, which Charles was +rather reluctant to lend him. Thus, gradually, they faded from the +Studio, much to the annoyance of the Judge, who had ceased typing on +purpose to listen, while ostensibly merely engaged in picking lint from +his types with a brass pin. + +When the door of the bedroom was shut, Donald Manford said, in low +hurried tones:-- + +"Have you heard all this talk about Mary? I tell you the town's buzzing +with it!" + +Charles had heard no talk; he was disturbed, if scarcely surprised. But +when it became clear that the purpose of Donald's visit was to get him, +Charles, to "drop a hint to Mary," he refused at once, point-blank. + +The engineer was pained and astonished. + +"You don't understand the situation," said he, stewing. "I tell you +Mary's gone to work to make a heroine of that woman! Recommending her +for good jobs, with her morning, noon, and night, having people in to +meet her at _tea_! Now, of course, she just doesn't understand what +she's doing. She's too innocent; she's ignorant of the practical meaning +of this business. And it's my duty to protect her from her +ignorance...." + +Charles sat down on one of the parallel white beds--the Judge's. And +little as he sympathized with Miss Trevenna's Blow for Freedom, he +seemed to sympathize even less with his young friend's proprietary +absurdities. + +Whatever this stalwart youth was, Mary Wing had made him. An orphan and +poor, he had been taken to the bosom of the kindly Wings; and Mary, a +girl of twenty then, had been from the start his second mother. She had +fed and clothed Donald, helped pay his bills at college; she had trained +him, taught him, filled him with her own ambition. She had got him his +first opening, pulled wires for him, hewed out his ascending steps. Fine +and confident as Donald stood there, Mary Wing had made him. And now to +see him, as to her, clutching on the toga of the primitive male, to hear +him, the ignorant, ridiculously claiming overlordship in a field which +should have been supremely woman's. + +"Go ahead," said Charles dryly. "Protect her all you want." + +But Donald angrily told him not to be an ass. It was a delicate +matter--for him--he declared; besides, Mary wouldn't listen to him. He +wasn't _advanced_. + +"But you're another matter. You've got some influence with Mary, and--" + +"Stop right there! I've got more influence with the Weather Department +than I have with Mary Wing." + +Glowering at him over the foot of the bed, the engineer demanded reasons +for his strange unpractical behavior. Charles offered a few simple +selections from his complex feelings. + +"First, your cousin's personal behavior is none of my business. Second, +I'd have no respect for her if she gave up her principles because you +asked me to ask her to. Third, I despise a person who's scared out of +his wits by fear of what the neighbors'll think." + +Donald appeared momentarily speechless. Perceiving this, the author +fitted a cigarette into a holder Mary Wing had given him on his +birthday, and resumed his few remarks:-- + +"Of course your mistake is in supposing that Miss Mary is acting through +ignorance. She's acting from principle, as I say, and doing a plucky +thing, too. For she doesn't think that because a poor silly girl has +once made a mistake, the thing to do--" + +But Manford recovered his voice with a bound. + +"_Mistake!_ I'm surprised at you, Garrott! I did you the justice to +think that all this advanced rot of yours was just talk. Come!--say +right out you think it's a mighty plucky thing for a girl to go off and +live with a married man!" + +Charles smiled, and then hesitated. It was odd how instantly Donald +Manford modernized him, killing all reactions: But what was the use of +arguing with a fellow who honestly believed that a woman had but one +"virtue," who spoke of her frankly as "the sex," allowed her no honor +but "woman's honor," had but one question to ask about her "character"? +This youth had not budged since the fifth century. + +"The only way to punish this is by the disgrace of it, I tell you!" he +was arguing. "There's no punishment at all when you make a heroine of +the woman." + +"There'll be enough to punish, don't fret, without Mary Wing's taking a +hand." + +"Now look here, Charlie," said Donald, encouraged. "Just look at the +matter in a sensible way. You can feel sorry for her and all that. But +it isn't right, by George, it isn't decent and moral, to stand up and +practically say you admire a notorious bad woman! Just think of the +effect on other women! They'll argue, 'Well, if that's the way people +feel about it, there's no use being good any more.' And think, +Charlie!--what'll become of Society if all the girls get to skipping off +and living with married men!" + +Charles laughed and rose. "Of course I'd not dream of speaking to Miss +Mary about this." + +The young engineer exploded. But presently he gave it up. + +"Then I'll have to speak to her myself," he declared, and looked as if +he expected the hazardous audacity of such an enterprise to touch his +friend's heart, even then. "And you remember this," he added, angrily, +"when Mary's friends are all dropping her!" + +"Nobody who drops her for this was ever her friend." + +"More New Thought! And what about Mysinger? Suppose your idea is that +this plucky business will boost Mary's standing in the schools like the +devil?" + +"My dear fellow, you're seeing things! You never heard of politics, I +suppose? Nothing can shake us in the schools. 'Cause why? We own the +Board by two votes." + +Donald regarded him with the strongest disapproval. "Do you know you +make me sick?" + +"By the way," said Charles, pleasantly, "didn't I see you go by here +with Miss Flower the other day? Where did you--" + +"Absolutely sick, and I've--" + +"Meet up with her, old fellow? Isn't she a--" + +"Sick!" roared Donald, and banged the door. + +He was a hopeless ignoramus, and Charles was the peer of the greatest +authorities, living or dead. But the subject, beyond doubt, was the most +complex and baffling in the whole field of Womanology. And Charles, +standing and staring at that shut door, was possessed with the odd +feeling that Donald had got the best of the argument, after all. + +Why must Mary _always_ be as independent as the Declaration, and more +militant than a Prussian? + + + + +V + + +The emergency schedule withdrew Charles from the streets; he lunched in +twenty minutes at Mrs. Herman's and spent the hour gained at his +writing-table. With the completion of the short fiction, he resumed his +walks to Berringer's. And now on Washington Street, the principal scene +of his social life since he became a regular author, he saw again Miss +Angela Flower. In five days, suddenly, he saw Miss Angela three times. + +Twice, as it happened, the two passed on opposite sides of the street, +moving in contrary directions. But the third time he fairly overtook +her, not a dozen steps from the door of the rich little Deming boys, to +whom he taught the Elements all morning. + +He was pleased with the agreeable coincidence. He greeted Mary's so +different cousin with a genuine warmth, springing spontaneously from his +personal sense of a bond between them. And Miss Angela, it seemed, was +not less glad to see him. + +"You don't know how nice it is," she laughed, a tinge of color in her +smooth cheeks, "to see a familiar face, after blocks and blocks of +strangers. And you're almost the only person I know, too!" + +Suiting his long stride to hers, he assured her that this state of +affairs would pass quickly. + +"I got only a glimpse of you yesterday," he pursued. "Do you take your +constitutionals at this time, too?" + +But she said, elusively, that she took them at all sorts of times. + +"It's my chief form of recreation at present, you see! But--I thought I +might meet father up here--it's his time for coming home to lunch from +the college. Only I seem just to miss him every day." + +He and the Womanly Woman walked a good half-mile together that day, and +the authority enjoyed himself thoroughly. It was in the course of this +walk that he evolved another phrase of scientific justification, viz.: +"The Business of Supplying Beauty and Supplying Charm." + +The talk turned naturally upon the girl herself. Having failed to get +any biography from the embattled Miss Wing, Charles proceeded to the +source. Under his agreeable, yet artful promptings, Miss Angela sketched +with a charming simplicity the story of a commonplace family life: how +she and her brothers had grown up at Hunter's Run, a crossroads +post-office four miles from Mitchellton; how they had moved into +Mitchellton, which had seemed like heaven at first, but had palled after +seven years; how all the boys of Mitchellton grew up and went away, one +by one, to make their marks in the world (though there was one +exception, it seemed, a Mr. Dan Jenney, who was still in +Mitchellton--Aha! thought Charles); how lonely she was after Tommy, her +older brother, had thus gone away; how her father had had quite a large +practice in Mitchellton, but didn't seem much interested in getting +patients here; and so on. Tommy, it was learned, had married money in +Pittsburg, but appeared to be happy all the same. As for the younger +brother, Wallie, his ambition was to go to college and be an +electro-chemist, and he was now at work downtown, gathering funds for +that purpose. Mary Wing had got him a position, it seemed. + +Miss Angela's conversation, as has been noted, was not remarkable as +conversation. But what mattered that? Into an atmosphere too heated by +the Trevennas of this Unrestful world, her girlish unsophistications +blew like a primrose zephyr. Moreover, she had her moments, you may be +sure; her vivacities as honest as wit. She said that Mitchellton was +like a town in war-time. + +"That's the way a man described it to me once, a surveyor from the +North, when he'd only been there three hours! He declared he hadn't seen +a male between the ages of fifteen and sixty-five. They'd all gone off, +you see--" + +"And then the surveyor went off, too?" + +"He did!--exactly! Hopped on a funny little calico pony he had, the +minute he said that, and trotted off down Main Street. We never saw him +again." + +Charles, laughing, looked down at her. She wore a plain blue suit and a +simple hat with a yellow quill, obviously inexpensive both, and not new. +She was characterized, sartorially, only by that unobtrusive yet +exquisite neatness whose practice some women bring to a fine art. Pretty +and sweet she looked, none the less; feminine, too, without a doubt. + +And, quite unconsciously, she was giving by piecemeal an answer to that +fundamental question of her Modern critics, How do you spend your time? +A considerable part of Miss Angela's time went, it seemed, to the actual +care of the house. With her leisure she really had little to do as yet, +because of her lack of acquaintance. Even the table of bridge with +Cousin Mary had not developed so far. She walked a great deal, usually +alone, but mentioned having met Mr. Manford the other day; the +impression was left that she and Donald hadn't specially taken to each +other. She kept her mother company; she often went into the shops, "just +looking"; once or twice she and Wallie had been to the moving-picture +shows. She read also, it seemed, for she had just finished "Marna"--a +gift to her, this was--a certain late New Woman novel which Charles +himself meant to give an hour to some day. Her account of her domestic +business the old-fashioned girl concluded thus:-- + +"I don't know very much about housekeeping yet, but I do the best I can. +I think mother enjoys the rest." + +And whatever criticism narrow utilitarians might have brought against +her management of her fifteen hours a day seemed to be morally destroyed +by that unconscious stroke. _Mother enjoys the rest._ Imagine Miss +Hodger, for instance,--to come no nearer home,--casually mentioning: "I +don't want to do this, but I will. I want to go there, but I won't." +"Why, Miss Hodger?" you would ask her. "Why must you mutilate your Ego +thus?" "Well,"--you are to fancy Miss Hodger saying,--"you see, I think +mother'd enjoy the rest!" + +But the girl herself remained delightfully unconscious of the reactions +she set in motion. + +"Mr. Garrott," she said suddenly,--"I hope you don't mind my asking, +but--when are you going to have some stories coming out? I'm crazy to +read one of them!" + +"Oh!" laughed Mr. Garrott. "Well!--I can't say definitely, at the +moment. I'm trying," he said, modestly, "to write books, you know, and +it's a slow business, with the little free time I have. My first one, +that I've just finished, took me four years." + +"Four years! How wonderful! But isn't it going to come out soon?" + +"I'm--ah--negotiating with a publisher now." + +"It must be fascinating! I--I never knew an author before." + +He warmed, expanding. + +At the parting of their ways, these two paused, talking like old +friends; and no parting took place here, after all. Angela said, with a +charming hesitancy: "Mr. Garrott, if you really want to read that +book,--'Marna', I mean,--I wish you'd let me lend it to you. We've +finished with it--for good!--and if you have time to stop a minute--" +And he, who never called, who had a special rule against borrowing +things from ladies, restored his hat to his head at once, accepting with +pleasure. + +So they turned out of Washington Street toward Center, and she +continued, with a laughing, sidelong glance:-- + +"Do you know who _Marna_ reminded me of? Quite a friend of +yours!--somebody you admire a great deal!" + +Knowing the nature of the book well from the reviews he was incessantly +reading, the young man smiled: "I wonder if you can possibly be alluding +to one of your most distinguished cousins." + +"It did, just a little! At first, I mean--where Marna goes away to lead +her own life, and everything.... Mr. Garrott, do you think she's really +going to take the position in New York, Cousin Mary, I mean?" + +"Take it! Why, of course she will, provided she can get it! It would be +a remarkable thing for such a young woman, and a great opportunity +besides." + +This the girl seemed to understand. She remarked, however, that Cousin +Mary and Mrs. Wing seemed so wrapped up in each other. Her extreme +domesticity was peculiarly refreshing to Charles just now; nevertheless, +he now took up the cudgels for Modernity, though in the gentlest way: +Why should not daughters have the same right to leave home for work that +the sons of Mitchellton had, for example? Daughters had always left +homes for another reason. Suppose _Marna_ had married the first +whippersnapper that came along, and he had carried her off to Australia, +etc. + +But Miss Angela seemed to feel that, for her part, she would look long +at any lover who wished to separate her from her mother. + +Center Street, at this point, was a place of car-tracks, cobblestones, +and threatening small establishments of those personal sorts which are +always first to appear in a waning "residence district." At the corner +stood a Human Hair Goods Works. The Flower house was not intrinsically +pretty. It was one of a block of six, all just alike and evidently built +some time ago; rather dingy little brick houses, with weather-beaten +small verandahs set only a step or two above the sidewalk, and scantily +separated from it by grassless "lawns." However, Charles was not +repelled by poverty, to which he had been well used. + +Within, he had the pleasure of meeting Miss Angela's father, who was +encountered in the hall, in the act of removing his overcoat. Angela +left the two men together, while she tripped upstairs to get "Marna." + +Charles found the medical father a decidedly queer individual. A very +tall, thin, seedy man he was, with a neglected sandy mustache, and a +long neck punctuated with a very large Adam's apple, which he jerked +with a sort of nervous twitch as he talked. With his lusterless eye and +spare, remote manner, he looked like a man who had let himself dry up +from within. Yet, if Charles remembered aright, the Medical School had +counted this gentleman a distinct acquisition. + +He assured Dr. Flower that he had long desired this pleasure, and +explained:-- + +"Your cousin, Miss Wing, is an old friend of mine." + +"My wife's cousin," said the Doctor, seeming to make a distinction. +"Quite so! Certainly!" + +"I believe it was she who first brought the Medical School to your +attention?" + +"Ah, yes! I fancy it was. Quite so. Have a cigar, will you? However," +continued the father, jerking his long neck, "you don't offer that as +something to be urged against her, I assume?" + +The young man, though surprised, smiled politely. + +"Possibly you're no more enthusiastic about teaching than I am, say?" + +"Ah, well!... It wants excitement, you maintain?--lacks the spice of +brilliant variety? You find no romance in it, you suggest? Well--" + +Dr. Flower fell silent, brushing his hat with the sleeve of his worn +coat, while he stared cheerlessly at nothing. Charles wondered at him, +with a certain sense of mild mystery. If he felt that way about +teaching, why had he thrown over his practice and left Mitchellton? + +"I believe," said he, with discretion, "your--that is, Mrs. Flower's +cousin, Mary Wing, is the only teacher I ever knew who could really be +called a 'fan.'" + +"Quite so. You won't have a cigar, you said? But even in that case, it +doesn't amount to a complete exhaustion of the energies, you would feel? +You'd contend there's an unused store for other enterprises, even +there?" + +"Quite so," said Charles, considerably puzzled. + +But then Miss Angela came skipping and smiling down the narrow stairs, +book in hand, and slipped her arm through her father's. She said that +Mr. Garrott could keep "Marna" as long as he liked, but that she would +be _so_ interested to hear what he thought of it. The trio stood +chatting a moment together. + +Angela's last word, in her soft and pretty voice, was, "Don't forget, +we're going to have that bridge game some night soon!" + +So he took leave of her, not only with the book, but with the promise of +a party shortly to come. And, curiously, that was the first thing this +simple Nice Girl had ever said that the authority felt inclined to +criticize somewhat: the use of the word "that," now. Skilled and wary he +had grown since he became a regular writer, and he could not recall +having agreed to give a valuable evening to playing bridge soon. The +engagement had just developed along, it seemed. + +But that was a trivial matter, early lost sight of. Continuing his walk +to Berringer's and the good man-talk, Charles pondered upon the nature +of a Home. + +La Femme, as we know, was all over for this young man; through too much +knowledge he had analyzed the charm away. He did not (of course) +exaggerate Miss Angela's values, magnify anything about her whatever. Of +course she was but a Type, and a familiar one. Only, for him she had +happened to personify, with unexpected freshness, that aspect of the +Question which, he was more and more convinced, scientific thinkers +fallaciously slurred over: the business aspect of Home-Making, to wit. +Though few of the sounder authorities openly advocated the suppression +of Homes, was it not true that they--and he once among them--practically +did so by denying any value in their schemes to those emotional and +spiritual contributions which alone turned a house into a Home? There +lay the heart of the whole great problem. "Four walls," mused Charles, +as he swung rapidly down Center Street, "and three meals a day, and even +the banisters dusted, to boot--these mere utilities can never make a +Home." + +And he made a mental note of the sentence for his conservative Notes in +the exercise-book of the old lady. + +But this day, as it fell out, was memorable in the Studio for more than +meditation. + +When he left Miss Chorister's at four-thirty, which was when the +tutorial day ended, the author did not make straight for the Studio, +according to habit, but turned downtown again, instead. He had personal +affairs to attend to to-day, an accumulation of small shopping and +sundry errands that could not be longer procrastinated. They took much +valued time. It was after six, in the winter night, when he got home. + +At the foot of his own steps he encountered his and his relative's new +fellow-lodger, and their only one. Possibly he was still thinking +scientifically of Miss Angela, for it instantly occurred to him that +here was Miss Angela's full opposite. + +"Oh, good-evening, Miss McGee!" + +He spoke as pleasantly as possible, but the lodger only answered +"Evening," and turned her back at once. + +"How do you do to-night?" + +"Tired as a dog." + +"And no wonder, working such long hours!" + +No answer from the lodger. + +"You _are_ later than usual this evening, aren't you?" + +"Keep me on purpose," muttered Miss McGee angrily (or something like +that), climbing the tall stairs. + +She was a dark young woman, darkly dressed and darkly scowling, it had +seemed, at the mere sight of Charles. As he knew from a rare letter on +the hall table, her official name was Mary Maude McGee, but to him she +was always and simply Two-Book McGee, on account of her apparent habit +of reading two novels a night, every night in the year. She had them +under her arm now, with the labels of the circulating library showing. + +Charles also had a book under his arm, "Marna": here was a topic! + +"Do you," he inquired, continuing the social chat, "find many good +novels these days?" + +"No, I don't!" said she, so sharply that you would have supposed he was +to blame for it. Imagine! + +"You must really look over my stock some day, Miss McGee. I'm sure I +have _something_ you could read." + +But the invitation brought only a mutter from Miss McGee, and the door +of the Second Hall Back banged shut behind her. + +"Help! help!" mused Charles, and straightway was struck with an +interesting thought: How about taking over Two-Book McGee as a minor +character in the new novel? + +He considered the idea, mounting to his Studio. The lodger was known as +a self-supporting female, allied with a tintype and "art photography" +establishment. Certainly she seemed an odd sort of person to say "Look +pleasant" to anybody. Friends, engagements, pleasures, she had none, on +the word of Mrs. Herman. All day she helped to photograph the General +Public; all night, till sleep overcame her, she sat alone in her very +small room, reading novel after novel which she did not like. A dull +life, it might have seemed; but then, you see, she had, to bless her, +the priceless knowledge that she was a self-respecting and independent +being, a person and not a parasite. The authorities could not doubt that +Two-Book McGee was happy in her way. + +Charles, however, seemed to be doing just that, at the moment. He +conceived Miss McGee as one not joyful in her economic freedom; hence as +an "illustrative character" for conservatism, sowing doubts in the minds +of readers as to whether Leading My Own Life was, in fact, necessarily +the other name for happiness. Climbing the stairs now, he invented +words for Two-Book's mouth: imagining her as saying, "Oh, I'd marry +anybody to get out of this!"--and again, with sobs, crying out to some +modern arguer, "Oh, just to be a parasite again!--just to be a snug, +comfortable little parasite!..." + +So making fiction, Charles Garrott opened the door of his Studio. And +full upon the threshold, he encountered the great surprise of his life. + +The large room looked familiar and inviting. The lamp burned on the +writing-table; the drop-light shone over the Judge's typewriter; the +author's office-coat hung on his chair-back. By the typewriter stood the +Judge, pink and shining from his evening bath. Wrapped in a beautiful +lavender robe, he turned, smiling. + +But on the writing-table, beyond the lamp, there lay a strange package. +The author's eye had fallen on it even as he opened the door. Some +instinct in him seemed to divine the incredible truth instantly, but +something else within spoke loud and sharp:-- + +"_What's that?_" + +Judge Blenso laughed agreeably, and lowered the bath-towel with which he +was rubbing his fine white head. To the secretary, the literary business +was still a sealed book indeed; so far as he was advised, a package of +manuscript back by express was doubtless a very pleasant little +occurrence. + +"Why, it's Entry 2, Charles!" he chuckled. "Your novel--just come in! +Must be! And gad, my dear fellow! Willcox wrote you a letter, too!" + +The young man bounded for the table. + +Long as he had deemed himself a writer, Charles King Garrott had as yet +sent out little manuscript, "Bondwomen" having absorbed all his creative +energies for years. Accordingly, the prevalent stupidity of editors and +publishers, amounting ofttimes to mere madhouse imbecility, as every +young writer can testify, was yet as a sealed book to him. With the +ultra-modern message of the Old Novel, he, personally, might have become +authoritatively dissatisfied; but that any publisher in his senses could +fail to jump at it had, of course, scarcely entered his mind. + +Hence, in the two seconds required to pounce upon and open Willcoxes' +letter, his mind was tossing out other explanations of that package with +the utmost lucidity and vigor. Willcoxes had been so pleased with the +Old Novel that they had put it in type at once: this package was the +proof. The package was the manuscript; but it had been sent back by an +office-boy by mistake, and the letter rushed after it to implore pardon. +Willcoxes, while delighted with the novel, had thought that possibly +some of the ultra-modernism had better be toned down a little, in the +interest of Homes; therefore.... + +In short, Charles Garrott's mind executed exactly the processes that all +young writers' minds execute at these moments, in instinctive recoil +from the stupefying fact of Rejection. But when he got the letter open, +all this activity was quickly stilled. + + DEAR SIR [it ran]: + + We have given careful consideration to the manuscript of the + novel, BANDWOMEN, which you were good enough to submit, but + regret to report that the decision has been adverse. We fear + that the publication of the story would not prove a financial + success. + + The manuscript is returned to you to-day by express. Thanking + you for giving us the opportunity of examining it, we are + + Yours very truly, + + WILLCOX BROTHERS COMPANY. + +In this stunning letter the stenographer's error seemed the crowning +insult. _Bandwomen!_ Charles, for once in his life, blew up. + +The proceedings ensuing came as a complete surprise to the secretary, +exciting in their way: he had really never thought that Charles had it +in him. That commonly sedentary and controlled young man had abruptly +become dynamic and vocal. Some of his remarks eluded the listener, as, +for instance, the menacing cry: "I'll rent the Academy of Music some day +to tell about this!" But on the whole Judge Blenso, who himself, in his +prime, had been counted an accomplished commentator on the world's +devilish ways, gladly gave tribute to Charles for verbal ingenuity and +somewhat arresting vividness of metaphor. + +But it was clear now to the secretary that this was no pleasant +happening after all. When the storm began to abate, he spoke in +mollifying tones:-- + +"Now, my dear fellow,--this unfortunate occurrence. Unfortunate! But as +to that plan of mine--we might consider it now, Charles? What do you +think?" + +"What plan?" Charles said, in a let-down voice. + +"I regret this, about Entry 2," said the Judge, with his brilliant black +gaze. "'Bandwomen' is a fine novel, my dear fellow,--fine! But as to +that little plan of mine--giving our undivided time and abilities +henceforth to some more remunerative kind of work? Gad, +Charles!--wouldn't it be wise?" + +And then Charles, after staring blankly at his relative's odd handsome +figure, suddenly burst out laughing.... + +But later he stood at his window, staring silently down into the lamplit +street. A rare depression had suddenly closed over him. Oddly enough, it +seemed to have little to do with his great repulse as a writer. After +all, "Bondwomen," good though he felt it to be, did not represent his +best thought now; moreover, that the next publisher would jump at it +still seemed to him as certain as Judgment Day. The young man's deep +dissatisfactions were with all the terms and conditions of his writer's +life. + +Long ago he had said to a friend once, "I can't afford to give my time +to making money," and the remark, being repeated, had gained him the +reputation of a fool's wit, none recognizing that he had practically +bagged it outright from a fellow of the name of Agassiz. And there (he +was thinking) was the measure of the degree to which he had withdrawn +from the accepted ways of men, from all the currents of stimulating +life. Making money, after all, was the "battle of life," and he--he had +thought it often before now--had placed himself with the noncombatants. +All day, downtown there, vigorous beings met and fought, crossed wills, +locked minds, pitted strength against strength; while he, Charles, spent +his days with women and children and his nights alone in this room, +palely pondering over ethical subtleties. He remembered something Mary +Wing had said to him one day last winter: "You're a great deal more like +a woman than a man; don't you know it?" On the whole, Mary had meant +that as a compliment, but the word had stuck in him like a knife. + +He had bent his life to be a writer--and for what? Merely that those who +knew him best might view him, tolerantly, as a member of the Third Sex. + +"A writer ought to go out once a month and do something cruel," he +thought moodily. "Assault and battery.... Blood in rivers...." + +He was disgusted with tutoring and writing, with Woman and all womanish +ways. + +Nevertheless, the instant supper was over, he was found seated at his +writing-table, "Notes on Women" open before him. In fact, the bee had +stung this young man deep, whether he liked it or not. In sum, the +unimagined rebuff to his principal _opus_ did not diminish, but +intensified the literary passion. Now he embarked upon his first attempt +to plot out a definite scenario for his new novel, "Bondwomen's" subtle +and superior successor. And it must have been that the novel thoughts +generated at the Redmantle Club had rapidly crystallized through the +days succeeding. For now it seemed to be quite clear in the author's +mind that he would take, as the central figure in his greater work, an +extreme specimen of lawless Egoette, against whom he would set, in +subtle but most telling contrast, the best type of Home-Maker. + + + + +VI + + +It was one of those slack hours in the domestic day when even the most +tireless hands can find no task to do. Miss Angela Flower sat by the +single window of her bedroom, the window that gave, over two sets of +back-yards, a sectional view of Washington Street. On the ledge beside +her stood the opera-glasses, employed sometimes for long-distance +vision. They were old glasses, somewhat shabby now, and the case to them +was long since lost. + +To be transplanted is hard on the young, as Charles Garrott had once +said, and to be a normal girl is to desire that pleasant happenings +shall occur. This was Angela's favorite seat in the house, because it +brought her nearest to the happenings of the Street of the Blessed: +nearest to them, while she was yet farthest away. Often in the early +weeks she had, indeed, felt quite forlorn as she sat here; she was a +stranger and friendless, of a poor family and with small opportunity. +Since the Redmantle Club meeting, however, the view from the window had +become more personally interesting, more touched with the sense of +participation. Here Angela had seen Mr. Garrott on his way to lunch; +here she had twice glimpsed Mr. Manford, striding along from his office +just at dark; here she had even made out Mr. Tilletts, whom once she had +mistaken for somebody's uncle, whirling by in a great automobile. + +And this afternoon, in her leisure hour, Angela did not feel forlorn or +out of things at all, nor did she so much as glance out of the window, +with a naked eye. She had sheets of note-paper upon a magazine in her +lap, and on one of the sheets she was writing blithely:-- + + Miss Angela Flower entertained at bridge Thursday evening. + +As the Redmantle Club had been her first party in the city, so the young +girl, with real pleasure, now planned for a second, this one to be her +very own. It had occurred to her, more for fun than anything else, to +write out a little notice of her party for the social columns of the +"Post." Not being as experienced at writing as Mr. Garrott, she took +some time to get the wording of the notice just to her liking; but it +was a very happy sort of time. + +That finished, Angela turned again to the more practical aspects of the +party. Who were to be the guests at it, in fine? As yet she had only +herself and Mr. Garrott. + +Now, calling out suddenly to her mother in the front room, she learned +to her surprise that it was almost half-past four o'clock; whereon she +sprang up at once, and began to dress quickly for the street. About +quarter of five, after talking a little with her mother in the front +room, Angela set out to call on her cousin, Mary Wing. + +Now Angela knew that something rather unpleasant was going on in +connection with her Cousin Mary at this time. Being a well-brought-up +young girl, she was, of course, not allowed to hear bold, improper talk, +but still she knew that there was _something_. Mrs. Flower, though very +fond of Mrs. Wing, who was her double first-cousin, had, indeed, felt +obliged to forbid Angela to cultivate any undue intimacy with Mary; +which Angela, considering the differences between the two girls, was +hardly likely to do in any case. Nevertheless, relations were still +pleasant, and Mrs. Flower had agreed that, under the circumstances, +Cousin Mary and Mr. Manford should be invited to the bridge-party. It +was the cousinly thing to do, and besides, as Mrs. Flower had pointed +out, she could not very well invite Mr. Manford without inviting Cousin +Mary, too. + +The Wings lived in a pleasant house on Olive Street, four doors from +Washington and overlooking the Green Park. The house was bigger than it +looked, because of a two-story extension that ran out behind, converting +an ordinary dwelling into two quite nice flats. Building that extension +was the very first thing that Mary had done when she took charge of the +family. In the upper flat dwelt Mr. and Mrs. Crowther, who could +sometimes be heard recriminating each other in embittered tones. In the +lower flat Mrs. and Miss Wing were very comfortable, with four rooms, +bath, kitchenette, tiny back yard and patent clothes-dryer. The fourth +room, which had been Donald Manford's till he outgrew apron-strings, was +a convertible affair, now a dining-room, now a bedroom, according as the +Wings dined at home, on the one hand, or were receiving a visit from +Fanny Warder--Mary's younger but married sister--on the other. At +present the latter condition prevailed, and Fanny's two babies possessed +the room, the flat, and the world besides. + +Angela entered upon three generations, scattered widely over the +sitting-room floor. Fanny was out, but her place in the line was ably +taken by Aunt Mary, whose modernity did not stick out so much in these +purely domestic moments. Angela, watching her cousin explain to Paulie +Warder why the best little boys never, _never_ ate green paint, thought +with a kind of surprise: "She really looks very nice." She was duly +presented to Paulie and Neddy-Weddy, who were coaxed to show off their +store of tricks for the Pretty Lady, and she did her best to shower +those eulogies which the relatives in the case invariably expect. But +Neddy-Weddy, for his part, appeared altogether too sleepy to care what +strangers might think of him, and it may be that to a coolly impartial +eye Paulie appeared more soiled than cute at this particular moment. +Angela really wasn't sorry when the babies' grandmother gathered them +and their belongings to her bosom and withdrew to an inner chamber. + +But when she broached the matter of the bridge-party on Thursday, Cousin +Mary said at once:-- + +"My dear, it's very sweet of you, but I couldn't--possibly. I can't +dream of taking an evening off--oh, this side of Christmas!" + +Cousin Mary had a great stack of examination papers to mark, it seemed; +she pointed to them on her open desk in the corner. She also had ten +thousand leaflets to distribute for that Education League of hers; they +lay in bales in another corner, behind the sofa. Further, she had three +articles to write at once for the League's magazine: for it had a +special magazine all its own, it seemed. As for Donald Manford, she said +she could not speak. But Cousin Mary did mention, in a discouraging way, +that Donald also was doing a good deal of rush-work just now, clearing +his desk for his trip to Wyoming. + +"And besides, my dear," she concluded, "to the best of my knowledge, +Donald can't play bridge at all." + +"I could teach him, Cousin Mary--it's awfully easy! I remember, I taught +a man in Mitchellton to play once, in twenty minutes! Besides--why, of +course, it wouldn't make any difference!" + +Mary Wing, no doubt, desired to play fair. She could not say now, as of +old, that Donald never went out; for she knew that Donald was going out +that very evening, escorting Miss Helen Carson to the theater, in short. +Mary knew this, because she had arranged the matter herself, and +personally bought the tickets for Donald's account. + +So she said: "You must ask him, Angela--do! Use my telephone there, why +don't you, and catch him now before he leaves the office?" + +But no, that was just what Angela felt she could not do, for, while she +had enjoyed two short walks with Mr. Manford, the truth was that he had +never called. Mr. Garrott, on the other hand, besides everything else, +had called, the day she lent him the book. + +"I thought _you_ might ask him, Cousin Mary. I thought you might just +bring him with you, informally. It's going to be very informal," said +Angela. + +"But as I can't go myself, Angela, you see ..." + +Angela concealed her disappointment as best she could. She was a +sweet-natured girl; moreover, Cousin Mary, after all, was the only +person who had tried to do anything for her. Nevertheless, her +disappointment was keen, and touched with a little irritation at Cousin +Mary's attitude. Her cousin, Mr. Garrott, Mr. Manford, and herself--they +made a natural table of bridge, a little coterie of friends and +relatives who instinctively met together now and then for congenial +diversion. It did seem rather hard that Cousin Mary should spoil it all, +with this firm stand against all social enjoyment. Only she and Mr. +Garrott, it seemed, cared for a little wholesome pleasure. + +And undoubtedly this attitude of Cousin Mary's did reduce the +bridge-party to a rather precarious position. Of course Jennie Finchman +could be secured for the other girl, or even Fanny Warder; but as for +the man to fill Mr. Manford's place, that was a more difficult matter. + +"I'm awfully sorry _you_ can't come, Cousin Mary," she was saying in her +soft voice. "Mr. Garrott'll be _so_ disappointed. He admires you so +much--indeed, he does! He told me so only yesterday." + +"Oh!" said Mary Wing; and added, as if it were a part of the same +sentence--"yesterday! You're seeing a good deal of him now?" + +"Oh, yes! We have a walk or something nearly every day." + +"He's quite attractive, don't you think?" + +The girl answered without self-consciousness: "Oh, I do--he's the nicest +thing! And so cunning-looking, too!--isn't he?" + +"I've always been intrigued, I admit," said the school-teacher, "by the +three brown freckles on his nose." + +She was looking with admiration at her cousin's fresh youthfulness, so +unmarked by experience, so innocent of knowledge of fierce conflicting +ideas. And Mary looked with a kind of compunction, too. She had honestly +wished and tried to "do something" for Angela; but, alas, she herself +had been so long and completely out of things that few connections +remained to her now, such as would assist to launch a somewhat belated +debut. She had her hands full enough trying to do something of that sort +with Donald, an eligible man. Still-- + +"Oh, Angela, here's a thought!" she said, suddenly. "If you'll only make +a decently long visit, you'll be almost certain to see Donald here! He +drops in nearly every afternoon to see the babies, you know--" + +"Oh!--does he?" + +"You never imagined such a goose as he is over them. And then you could +ask him to the party, in--in a casual way." + +Angela cheered up at once. Of course, if she could meet and ask Mr. +Manford in a casual way, it would be different. And it must be admitted +that Mr. Tilletts, who had hovered in the background of her mind, did +seem a rather remote possibility. + +So the talk passed easily from the bridge-party to Fanny Warder, and +other lesser matters. + +Mary Wing moved about as she talked. She was picking up fire-engines and +pieces of cake, overlooked by the grandmother in the suddenness of +departure. Angela's eyes followed her over the room, and she felt a +touch of envy. It was really a pretty room, much prettier than anything +in the Flowers' little house, large, light, attractively furnished, most +comfortable and livable. But, of course, it was a simple matter to have +pretty things if you had the money to buy them; which, in brief, was +just what the Flowers didn't have. It suddenly came over Angela that her +advanced cousin was, comparatively speaking, a _rich_ woman. + +She said something of the sort aloud presently. Mary Wing replied that +she worked pretty hard for all she had. + +"Our furniture is so old and awful I can't do a thing with it," +continued Angela. "I rub and scrub and polish, but it just seems to get +worse. And then the parlor is that long, narrow shape, like a +sleeping-car, and needs papering so dreadfully! You know, Cousin Mary," +said the girl, with a rueful laugh, "we were never so poor in all our +lives! You don't know how hard it is to accomplish _anything_, when you +literally haven't a cent to spend." + +Cousin Mary, who could be very nice when she wanted to, expressed +herself very sympathetically. "And I do know something about it, my +dear, you see, for I've been that way myself." + +"If father'd only get some patients!" said Angela. "But he's so funny, +he just seems to think a family gets along somehow, and never even put +up his sign till I begged him to! And, of course, Wallie doesn't +contribute anything; he just puts away everything he makes for his +education--" + +"It _is_ hard on you, poor dear--" + +"He has to, of course. But I _have_ wished we had Tommy back, these +weeks since we've been here! He was the sweetest, most generous thing, +till he married...." + +But soon Cousin Mary gave the conversation a characteristic twist, with +the very suggestion that Mr. Garrott had once promised to make to +Angela, and then permanently backed down. + +"Angela," she said, suddenly thoughtful, "did you ever think at all of +going to work--regularly, for yourself?" + +The girl looked up, in surprise. "Going to work? You mean in an office?" + +"Yes--something of that sort. You--" + +"Why, no, Cousin Mary! I've never _had_ to think of that. Of course, +father can still support me. I didn't mean you to think--" + +"Oh, of _course_! I understand that perfectly! I meant only on your own +account, my dear, so that you could have your own money, all you want of +it. It makes a difference, as I can testify! And then, too, I know a +good many girls with plenty of money already, who go to work--well, just +for the fun of it!--Helen Carson, for instance." + +Angela looked as if she hardly knew how to explain herself to one +holding her cousin's known ideas of fun. However, she endeavored, +sweetly. + +"Yes, I know. But in the first place, you see, I couldn't very well be +spared from the house. I do every bit of the work, except cooking and +washing, and mother doesn't expect ever to touch the housekeeping any +more. It takes so much time, and worry, and our cook is _awful_, because +we can't afford to pay but twelve dollars a month, and, of course, a +good servant won't work for that! And besides, father wouldn't dream of +allowing such a thing, Cousin Mary. He'd think it was--was just +charging him with being a failure, and not able to take care of his +family!" + +It was a sufficiently conclusive statement, as Cousin Mary seemed to +feel; she did not argue back, but replied understandingly, and mentioned +that Harold Warder felt the same way about women's working. So Angela +felt the moment to be favorable for explaining her deeper points of +view. + +"And, Cousin Mary, even if I made mother take back the housework, and +father'd let me do it," she said, with a girlish hesitancy that became +her well, "I wouldn't _want_ to go into an office--or have a business +career. I--just feel differently about all those things. I have no +ambitions that way--at _all_!" + +Cousin Mary, who chanced to be standing near, surprised her by stooping +suddenly and pinching her cheek. + +"Tell me what your ambitions are, Angela, dear." + +"Well--you probably--I don't believe you'd understand exactly what I--" + +"On the contrary, for two cents I'll tell you what they are myself." + +"Well, what?" said Angela, gazing up with unfeigned interest. "Tell me +what you think?" + +"They really can be stated as one, my guess is," said Mary, smiling in +the nicest way: "To be a good wife to the man you will love some day." + +Color flowed suddenly into the girl's upturned face. By a strange +coincidence, Cousin Mary had stated the ambition in the very words +Angela herself would have used. But, though maidenly embarrassed, she +would not lower her gaze as if she were ashamed of her ambition, or +overborne by her cousin's hard masculinity. + +"I know," she said, pink and sweet, "you think that's just a--weak +womanly ambition! I know you aren't much interested in my kind of +things, Cousin Mary." + +"Indeed, you wrong me," said Mary, her smile dying. "I don't feel that +way at all." + +And through her shot the irrelevant thought: "Why does she call me +Cousin Mary, all the time? I'm only four years older than she." + +But, as the two girls thus gazed at each other, the interval in their +ages seemed, indeed, indefinite and immense. Angela's eyes could afford +that subtle expression of known womanly advantage. The light of +afternoon, flowing freely over the park and into the long windows, fell +full upon Mary Wing's delicate face. It was a face, to be just, not +devoid of a feminine attractiveness at times. But now the bright day +showed it colorless and tired; the marks of many "fights" lingered +indefinably about the mouth; tiny crow's-feet netted the corners of the +fine blue eyes. Yes, this school-teacher's first youth was gone. Full of +strange isms, she had lost sight of the real things of life, and now her +Woman's Opportunity had slipped away from her forever. + +It may be that Mary Wing would have given something of her honors to be +prettier than Angela just for that moment. + +"I think it would be hard to name a finer ambition. To be a good wife +to ..." And, breaking off, she added, with another smile, sudden and +merry: "To Dan Jenney, didn't you tell me?" + +Her young cousin lost her dreamy look rather abruptly. + +"Why, _no_, Cousin Mary! Please don't say that! I only told you that--" + +But Cousin Mary, having turned her eyes toward the window, interrupted +the womanly talk with a smashing announcement. + +"Here's Flora Trevenna coming in--good!" she said in her most +matter-of-fact way. "Excuse me a minute, Angela,--I'm bell-hop, you +know!" + +Angela, who at least knew the ill-omened name, gave one startled gaze, +and sprang up. The prospect of casually meeting Mr. Manford was +forgotten in her sudden panic alarm. + +"I must _go_!" she said, looking about her a little wildly. "I--should +have gone some time ago--really! I just stopped in to--" + +Mary's colorless face seemed to stiffen a little. So, perhaps, Mr. +Mysinger was wont to see it. + +"Well, wait just a minute," she ordered, rather than requested. "I'd +especially like you to meet Flora." + +Nice reward this for being cousinly and inviting Cousin Mary to the +bridge-party: _to meet that woman_! + +"I--really, I _can't_, Cousin Mary! I'll just run back and see your +mother a minute--and then--" + +"You can't well be so rude as that, can you?" said Mary. And then she +added, as if something within her threw out the words beyond her will: +"Why do you call me Cousin Mary all the time? I'm only four years older +than you." + +The question, of course, expected no notice. Mary was gone into the +hall. Yet Angela, left unpoliced, did not immediately fly toward the +bedroom region, or run and hide with the leaflets behind the sofa. It +may be she feared her hard cousin a little; but besides that, in the +strangest and most contradictory sort of way, it appeared that she did +not altogether want to fly. She was conscious of an excitement, of a +sort of unworthy curiosity. + +The front door opened; there were voices. And then Mary Wing returned, +her arm slipped brazenly through that of her astounding friend. + +And Angela, despite all of the injunctions of propriety, looked; looked, +with a sort of fearful fascination. Never in her life before, to her +knowledge, had her girlish eyes rested upon a Badwoman. Though virtue +went out of her, she _must_ look this once.... + +"Flora, this is my cousin, Angela Flower, whom you know of, I believe. +My friend, Miss Trevenna, Angela." + +A look of greeting came upon the Badwoman's not displeasing face, a +little smile upon the pretty, sinful lips. + +"Oh, how do you do, Miss Flower?" + +But Angela, with her upbringing, found it impossible to reciprocate +these friendly overtures. Take one shameful peep, she might. But that +itself brought a reaction, perhaps; and as well as Donald Manford, as +well as Judge Blenso himself, Angela knew, if only by intuition, that +good people must stand up for morals. Donald certainly would have +applauded her, as she inclined her graceful head about an inch and spoke +two cold words:-- + +"Miss Trevenna." + +And then, her alarm mysteriously gone, she turned to her cousin and +said, formally: "Good-bye, then, Cousin Mary. Do come to see us when you +find time." + +Indeed, the two cousins viewed everything too differently to make much +intimacy between them probable. When the door had shut on Angela, Cousin +Mary put her arm about the shoulder of the Badwoman and said the +strangest, the most advanced thing possible:-- + +"Dear Flora! You must let me say--I'm sorry." + +Miss Trevenna, with her deceptively cloistral countenance, seemed to +flinch a little. Her gaze looked rather bright; it fell away from +Mary's. But she produced a fair effect of uncomprehension and surprise. + +"Sorry? Why, what for?" + +"Well--I can't feel my little cousin showed to very good advantage." + +"Oh, didn't she? But it makes no difference. I--hardly ever notice what +people do--really! Are you too busy, or shall we walk?" + +"Let me get my hat," said Mary. + +Having put on hat and coat in her own bedroom, the fighting educator +looked into the room beyond, where the babies and their grandmother were +considerably spread over creation. + +"Angela gone?" asked Mrs. Wing presently, in the midst of cooing. + +"Yes," said Mary; and let it stand at that. + +"Look how he cuddles in his granny's arm. I had to change his little +socks again. She was very strange with them, Mary, didn't you think so?" + +"Strange?--how do you mean?" + +"Why, she just didn't seem to care anything about them! Didn't you +notice, she hardly looked at Paulie once! How could she help loving such +little darlings? And she seems such a nice, womanly girl, too." + +"Well, _all_ women aren't maternal, mother, don't you know that?" + +"In my day," said Mrs. Wing imperturbably, "all good women loved +babies." + +But when Mary said where she was off to now, a shadow fell on her +mother's calm face, and Mary saw it. However, Mrs. Wing said nothing, +this time. + +Though Donald had never carried out that hare-brained threat of his, as +to "dropping a hint" to Mary, his voice could scarcely have been missed +amid the general feminine chorus. Indeed, everybody who possessed so +much as a hint to her name, in those days, seemed to be dropping it to +Mary. How far she minded her public unpopularity Mary did not say, but +her mother's unwavering disapprobation she unquestionably took to heart. +"Good women don't make mistakes of that sort," said Mrs. Wing, and was +shaken by no argument. And now, as Mary bent to kiss this wrinkled and +well-loved cheek, she was thinking that never in the world before had +there opened such a gulf between two generations; and she wondered why +life must be so hard. + +Later, Mrs. Wing sat for some time quite still, by her window, and her +brooding look was not grandmotherly now, but motherly, which is +different. For, of course, there was one person on earth to whom Mary +could never seem truly the mature, advanced and dangerous young woman of +Fights, Reforms and Careers. Through all her newnesses and strength, the +mother's eyes yet held her as the tiny, helpless, clinging little scrap +which she, a young girl then, had gone down to the gates of the world to +bring in. + + + + +VII + + +The "line" of the new novel refused to come straight on the first +attempt, or the second, and Charles had been compelled to leave his +preliminary scenarios to ripen gradually in his head. In the intervals +of intense plotting, he was tossing off short fictions; four such he had +now tossed since the completion of "Bondwomen" had set him free. +"Bondwomen" itself was in the hands of that discriminating house, +Messrs. Blank and Finney, Judge Blenso having risen up early on the +morning after the rejection to take it to the express office. Experience +was now coming with a leap; but yesterday the first of Charles's new +stories had been sent back by "Willcox's Monthly," with a mere printed +form of refusal. This was the fiction about Dionysius, who, it may be +remembered, had freed his eyes from the magic of sex and consequently +cracked walnuts with a sort of splendid sadness. + +Such episodes staggered belief; but, in a strange way, they seemed to +fan the fires of genius unrecognized. Hence it was without joy that +Charles confronted after supper this evening a memorandum he had lately +left for himself in the place where he left memoranda. It was brief, +containing but a single word,--_Bridge_; and, coming on it unexpectedly, +the author spoke but a single word, though a different one. No more than +Mary Wing, of course, did he have evenings to fling this way and that, +in mere idle frivolity. Why did people have this mania for playing +cards, going to places, calling, all the time? Why the mad rage for +doing things? + +As to this engagement, it seemed just to have developed along; the +first he knew of it, you might say, the thing was settled and arranged. +Still, it was admitted that from the young Home-Maker's point of view, +it was all quite simple and natural and human. Charles, even in the +first flush of author's revolt, really felt no bitterness. + +Shutting his table drawer with a bang, he withdrew to the bedroom and +began to assume one of those garments which first brought renown to +Tuxedo Park. + +Charles's acquaintance with Miss Angela had developed smoothly, without +any unusual effort on his part. That they had a walk or something every +day was not mathematically accurate; but he had seen the girl several +times since the day of the call, when he got the book. The very next +day, as it fell out, he had met the pretty cousin again on the +promenade, at about the same time and place, and as she was out only for +exercise, and had done her stint, she said, she very charmingly turned +around with him. In no sense was it repellent to the authority thus to +see, by pleasing signs, that the old-fashioned girl liked him, in the +good old-fashioned way. At the same time, of course, he was, by +deliberate choice, a fiction-writer, not a dancing-man; and his position +about the bridge-party, as he saw it, was that he was doing a kindly +deed, to give pleasure to a rather lonely young girl. Moreover, it +should not occur again. + +And when he set out on the brisk walk to the Flowers', he was not +thinking of Angela at all, but of Angela's cousin, Mary. He understood +that Mary was to be at the bridge-party--indeed, he understood that the +party was being given principally in Mary's honor--and he was genuinely +concerned as to what his manner toward that young woman now should be. + +His perplexity dated from an episode two days earlier. On Tuesday +afternoon he had met Mary Wing over by the High School, not entirely by +chance, and had turned and walked with her. She was alone, for a wonder; +but she had begun at once to talk of the unhappy Miss Trevenna, fairly +bursting out as to the way she was being persecuted, and so forth. Miss +Trevenna had "lost" two places already, it seemed. And Charles, seeing +how much to heart Mary took the luckless girl's troubles, suddenly felt +sorry for her--yes, he ventured to feel sorry for Mary Wing!--and did +what he had positively resolved not to do. He, also, dropped a hint to +Mary. + +The memory of that unwisdom was with him yet, as an exasperation and a +hurt. + +It had profited him nothing that he approached the task, circumspectly, +in his light, humorous vein. "Did you ever hear what Susan B. Anthony +said when she had tried using bloomers for a year?" he had inquired, +positively jovial. "Said she was convinced that one reform at a time was +all that one person could manage!" But Mary Wing had said instantly, +"You apply this to me," and right there had the trouble begun. "Aren't +you crippling yourself needlessly?" he had amiably suggested. "Is it +wise to feed the popular delusion that any sort of reformer is all sorts +of an anarchist?" To which she replied, quite indignantly, "This isn't a +question of _reform_ at all with me!--if you must have it explained to +you." And when he asked her what she expected to accomplish exactly, she +declared that in point of fact a great deal had been accomplished +already; Miss Trevenna's father had seen her, for one thing, and it +seemed but a matter of time before she would be forgiven and taken back. +"But if nothing was accomplished in a thousand years," said Mary, "I'd +still do exactly what I am doing!" + +The worst of it was that one large disunited side of Charles stuck it +out that Mary was doing exactly right: he knew, indeed, whatever she +might say for argument, that all this was chiefly a matter of her +sympathies, and she no more believed in this sort of Freedom than he +did. Hence his counter-argument had not been up to his best standard, a +mere urging of timid prudences, it seemed. And very soon she had swooped +on his weakness, silencing him at a stroke:-- + +"I'll not drop an old friend just because it's _safer_! I'll not. Mr. +Garrott, you disappoint me." + +Now, no man on earth enjoys being told that he has disappointed a +friend, least of all a woman friend, in a matter involving courage. Mr. +Garrott held that word ungracious from Mary. And now, as he strode +silently toward his evening of pleasure, he seemed to feel that there +was, indeed, a kind of hardness in her, and, as to him, a certain air of +assured superiority such as could not be further tolerated. + +How, then, should he deport himself toward Mary now, seeing her again at +the bridge-party? Through long blocks, Charles pondered the question. +While leaning from the first toward a manner of brilliant tolerance, +slightly aloof, indeed, yet splendidly witty, he really had not settled +the point finally in his mind, when Miss Angela opened her front door +for him, and said, almost in the first breath:-- + +"Oh, Mr. Garrott, what do you think? Cousin Mary and Mr. Manford both +backed out! _I hope you don't mind playing three-hand!_" + +Taken completely by surprise, the young man hardly repressed a bitter +mirth. + +But that, after all, was for his wasted evening only. And in a moment he +was himself again, doing his deed of kindness, distributing pleasure +among the young and lonesome. + +He was not, indeed, he considered, one to think the less of a girl for +being poor but hospitable, for desiring to "entertain," when, the too +obvious fact was, she had nobody to entertain. The three-hand's party +rather touched than repelled Charles; he criticized not Angela, but Mary +Wing, who had stayed away. Moreover, the other guest turned out to be +Fanny Warder, which suited him unexpectedly well. Grieved though he was +by Fanny's broken beauty, she had become a Case to him now, one more +exhibit in the growing gallery of Woman's Unrest. + +And certainly, when it was all over, it never once occurred to Charles +to think of this evening as a waste, exactly. + +Into the mysteries of three-hand, as pursued in the Flower parlor that +evening, it will do well not to follow. The play really was not the +thing, as Angela had implied to her Cousin Mary, when speaking of +Donald. Fanny Warder played a poor game; everybody said that. Of course, +she had only come to help out, but still, one could not avoid observing +how treacherous were her bids, or crying out upon her when she was +discovered slumbering with the three highest hearts. A great deal of +jumping up and changing seats there was, a great deal of discussion each +time as to which one had better jump and change, constant demands of, +"Whose bid is it?" and, "Who dealt these cards?" But there was much +girlish laughter, too; merry prattle flowed unceasingly; "a good time +was had." + +And Angela's bridge-party had, as Charles viewed it, one sterling merit: +it ended early. It is a point which, as is well known, rests entirely in +the hands of the hostess, according to when she elects to bring on her +refreshments; and when Angela rose soon after ten o'clock and tripped +away alone to get "the party," as she called it, the author's whole +opinion of her went up at a bound. He had known women, thus having you +at their mercy, to keep you sitting around till midnight before ever +mentioning "the party," and then sometimes those horrible jolly girls +made you romp back to the pantry and help. + +And when, after a considerable interval, Miss Angela returned, bearing +her refreshments on a large tin tray, the young authority again took the +large view, sympathetically seeing the general behind the particular. +The refreshments consisted of lettuce and tomato salad, together with +crackers, a little cheese, ice-water, and a small box of candy. Charles +could not conceal from himself that the salad was poor, the dressing had +"run," the crackers were without crackle, the candy cheap, the ice-water +warm; but, in a subtle sort of way, all this made him feel not less, but +more, friendly toward his simple young hostess. Not knowing that she +could not make mayonnaise, or suspecting that her little brother had +reluctantly stood treat to the candy, his fancy pictured the girl as +preparing the modest spread for her (two) friends with her own hands and +thought, her heart full of pleasant anticipations the while. And this +seemed normal and human to Charles, and sweet enough, and just a little +pathetic besides. Angela, gayly setting out her three plates, was again +a type and a symbol. She was all the poor Nice Girls in the world, ten +million poor Nice Girls scattered over the earth that night who, the +day's justifying labors done, were trying to create a little joy for +themselves and others, sweetly pursuing their great business of +Supplying Beauty and Supplying Charm.... + +But while Angela was still in the rearward regions, making ready her +tray, Charles engaged in a scientific talk with his old friend Fanny. It +both interested and depressed him. + +Mary's young sister had taken Harold Warder out of a field unusually +large for these lean days. Harold had been in love with her from his +knickerbocker days, and was considered to be "doing very well"; the +match had been a most promising one. But ill-luck had pursued the young +couple from the first, assuming the worst of all forms, unceasing +doctor's bills. Fanny, beyond any counting, had had long illnesses +following the births of both her children; and the expenses of the first +one had swamped Warder, wiping out at once the rainy-day margin he had +married on. That Mary Wing secretly sent money to Fanny, Charles was +morally certain. But Fanny was well again now, and poverty and debt were +wont to be the butts of young love. Why, then, was her pretty face drawn +to a birdlike thinness; why this beaten look in eyes that were once so +gay? + +Tete-a-tete over the three-hand table, Mrs. Warder surprised Charles by +saying that she wanted to go back to work; her husband, however, would +not hear of such a thing. Charles, though a modern, said naturally not. + +"I can earn a hundred a month," said Fanny, "and get a perfect nurse for +twenty-five." + +He explained the error in her utilitarianism. Intently shuffling the +cards on the table, he pointed out the injustice of orphaning Paulie and +Neddy-Weddy of their mother-love. Fanny's own mind seemed greatly +unsettled. But she could be as straightforward as Mary with those she +was fond of. + +"Harold supposed," she said, presently, "that he was marrying a lively +young person, one that he, at least, would find indefinitely +entertaining. He discovers instead that he's got an ailing woman on his +hands, one with no spirits or looks at all worth mentioning. Could you +blame him if he woke up some day and said, 'I've been cheated?'" + +And the Young Wife slowly added: "It'll be years before he gets his head +above water again. And that's my doing, Charles,--I, who'd have cut off +my right arm to help him the least bit." + +Charles scolded her roundly for her morbidness. "Great heavens!--you +must know _he_ could never think that way! Look how you have helped him! +If your health went, you gave it to him--let him hold that to his heart! +There's Paulie and the baby, that you brought him, more than +compensating--" + +But Mary's sister broke this argument with her old laugh. + +"Don't tempt me, Charles! I'm all kinds of a hypocrite but that kind! Of +course, I wanted children a great deal more than Harold, and they're my +compensation--for everything--not his at all. You know all that +perfectly well. No, no," said Fanny, lowering her voice as Angela's +returning steps were heard. "If Harold ever tires of me, I'll go, you +may be sure. He won't find me clamping on his shoulders, claiming to be +taken care of for life because of my two little darlings...." + +Charles had expected to walk home with Fanny, continuing the sad but +interesting talk, but he was frustrated in that intention by the arrival +of an escort of Fanny's own. This proved to be none other than Mr. +Tilletts. + +It developed that the seeking widower, who was known as a sort of public +Former Suitor, had called on Fanny this evening, and, finding her about +to go out, had begged the privilege of squiring her to and fro. Had +Angela understood this in advance, how willingly would she have raised +Three-Hand to a Table! But at least she could do her best now to remove +from Mr. Tilletts's mind the idea that she was rude,--derived at the +Redmantle Club, where she had made her unfortunate mistake,--and +apparently she was successful, for Charles heard the plump seeker say, +"May I call?" quite distinctly, as they moved into the hall. + +The door shut on a chorus of good-nights. + +The bridge-party was over; and it was only quarter of eleven. Charles +turned toward the hat-rack and the Studio. And in turning, he surprised +a look in his hostess's dark eyes, which seemed to say, in the most +ingenuous way: "At last, a few minutes to ourselves!" + +All evening, he had been aware of a subtly more personal note in Miss +Angela's manner; a coyer and engagingly proprietary note, which he, with +his known dispassionateness toward this sex, considered as intended for +Fanny Warder's benefit. Charles had not been annoyed by this: few men +repel the adoration of a pretty girl. And now this soft simple +expectancy of hers, this girlish lingering over her somewhat pathetic +party, seemed beyond his kind heart (as he would have put it) to +disappoint. "You're not going!--it's so early!" she exclaimed, and +coquetted prettily enough: "I'd think you were displeased with +me--promising to have Cousin Mary for you, and then not doing it!... But +you don't mind _very_ much, do you?" + +Kindly Charles capitulated at once. "Pay my party-call right now--?" he +threw out, gallant and yet thrifty withal. "If you're sure I'm not +keeping you up...." + +So these two reentered Miss Angela's little parlor, with its +sleeping-car shape and too prominent Latrobe heater: a room poor enough +in itself, but having an institutional significance when considered as +the Waiting Room of the Womanly Woman. Here they sat down, side by side, +upon a dented sofa. And here, before a great while, there took place a +somewhat strange occurrence. + +There began an animated flow of girlish chatter. + +"I haven't seen you on Washington Street for three days now, Mr. +Garrott. I believe you're avoiding me! I met Mr. Manford this afternoon, +and what do you think he said? That he couldn't play bridge as well as +he could build them, and was afraid he'd be mobbed at a party! I don't +think he _could_ play any worse than Fanny, do you? But Mr. Garrott, why +does he want to go to _Wyoming_? I'd _lots_ rather go to New York, if I +were a man! I asked him if that river out there he was going to dam was +pretty, and he said he'd send me a picture post-card of it, when he +went. But I suppose he'll forget all about it...." + +Mr. Garrott, pleasantly relaxed, made suitable replies as need arose. In +his scientific way, he was noting how fine and clear Miss Angela's skin +was, what shining soft eyes she had, how soothing and sweet was her +voice. Certainly this girl did not try to create the air that she was +your manly superior, or address you like a Self-Made Man reproving his +wife. + +"Fanny's broken so dreadfully, hasn't she? She was so lovely and +attractive as a girl. Tommy was crazy about her when she visited us in +Mitchellton, a long time ago. He gave her the loveliest presents! But +Tommy was always the most generous boy. They were getting up a +drinking-fountain as a memorial to Major Beesom--he was postmaster for +years and years, you know--and Tommy headed the list with twenty-five +dollars, and he was only making forty a month! I just wish you could +have known Major Beesom! I know you'd want to put him in a book. Mr. +Garrott, I'm _so_ anxious to read some of your stories! What are your +heroines like, generally?" + +Out of which, she said presently, laughing and whisking her hand behind +her back:-- + +"You were looking at my ring!" + +"Why not?" said Mr. Garrott, starting a little. "A cat may look at a +ring." + +That was reasonable surely. Angela, after a few teasing pretenses, held +up her modest gimcrack for him to see. And Charles, naturally, accepted +the hand so presented. + +As to what subsequently occurred, there was always a divided house +within the many-sided Charles. But all his sides insisted that, at this +point, he had no interest in the matter whatever; some held that he had +not even seen the ring till she called attention to it. Now, bending +over the hand, he examined it, and said:-- + +"Well! This is news to me, you know!" + +"Not at all!" laughed the owner of the ring. "Why, what do you mean?" + +"I've seen an engagement ring once before, you see." + +"You're very clever! But--does it have to follow that I'm engaged?" + +"That was the rule, in my day." + +"You don't seem at all curious!" + +"I'm very curious." + +"Well, I'm not, of course!" + +"I'm glad to hear it." + +He made, as it were, a sort of sketch of a move to release the small +hand at this point. However, nothing seemed to come of it. + +"Are you?... Why?" + +"Oh, because--it's rather sad for an old bystander like me to see all +the nice young people going off two by two, for happiness and the great +adventure." + +To that, the girl made no reply. She merely gave a little laugh, and +withdrew her hand. The house seemed very still. And Charles was at once +aware that he had been found somehow deficient at the simple game of +parlor conversation. In a scarcely definable way, he felt himself +rebuked for timidity, wariness. + +Nevertheless, in her simple, natural way, the girl made known that the +ring was properly the possession of a man in Mitchellton--Charles +recalled Mr. Jenney--and was now worn only by courtesy, reminiscently, +as it were, with no obligations attached. + +"You see, his brothers all went off, like all the other men, and his +sister married and went away, and so he said he would stay in +Mitchellton with his mother. And it's truly the most hopeless place! He +doesn't seem to have any ambition at all--it provoked me so! I think all +men ought to have ambition, don't you?" + +"I do, indeed. And he owns that pretty ring, you say?" + +"Yes. You see," she said, laughing and coloring, "when I felt I must +break it off,--well, he wouldn't let it stay off exactly! I--I'm telling +you all my secrets! He said he'd still consider himself--oh--you know!" + +"Naturally. He had enough ambition for that." + +And, as if to show Miss Angela that, in point of fact, none knew better +than he how to talk to a girl on a sofa, Charles carelessly took up that +betrothal hand again, saying: "So he made you keep the ring all the +same?" + +"The day we left Mitchellton. And I said I'd wear it--oh, just till I +met somebody I liked better! It was really more of a joke!..." + +"Ah! And you haven't met such a person yet, I gather?" + +"Oh--I'm not to send it back till I know--" + +"How long," said the young authority, at once completely conscious of +the supreme inanity of the proceedings, and finding them enjoyable +enough, "how long do you allow yourself to find out?" + +"That isn't easy to tell.... Do you know you're the strangest man!" + +"Am I? How do I seem so strange to you?" + +The little hand was warm, not unpleasant to retain. The eyes, gazing up +at him, were liquid and bright; they were woman's eyes. "Consider me," +they seemed to say. "Am I not sweet, desirable? Am I not worthy to be +held dear? Was I not made to delight? See, I am Woman, beside you...." + +"Oh," said the soft voice, "the way you do. Cousin Mary says you're the +new sort of man, that isn't interested in girls at all. You're too +clever to care anything about them. Are you?" + +"Clever? I'd call that the stupidest thing in the world." + +"Then you do like them! I'm so glad. I've wondered, you see...." + +The feminine speeches, the appeal of these eyes, seemed all at once to +create an enveloping pressure, softer than nothing, yet extraordinary. +Or possibly the trouble was that Dionysius, after all, had freed his +eyes of the magic more brilliantly than his creator. + +"What sort of girls do you like? Tell me?" said the voice of Woman, +nearer. + +And then in the suddenest way conceivable there took place the Strange +Occurrence referred to. Without the smallest premeditation, Charles bent +and touched his lips to that smooth invitational cheek. + +On that central point there is not the slightest room for doubt. Let +there be no wriggling or evasion here. Charles Garrott, who scorned La +Femme and viewed Woman exclusively as a Movement, did bend his neck and +kiss the Mitchellton Home-Maker upon a sofa. + +He meant the salute, he was afterward certain, as but a fatherly tribute +to youth and beauty, or (considered in another way) but the expected, +and in a sense purely conventional, move in the ancient parlor-game. But +on such a move as this homes have been broken, families set to mutual +slaughter, thrones shaken, history changed. Charles, to put it in a +word, found it easier to begin paying his tributes than gracefully to +desist from them. + +Prompted by a not unnatural curiosity, the lady (who had not proved more +than maidenly surprised or rebuking) said:-- + +"Oh!... Why do you do this?" + +[Illustration: "OH!... WHY DO YOU DO THIS?"] + +Who knows what trusting heart first voiced that immemorial question? +Charles Garrott, at least, was not the first gentleman on earth to fail +to utter promptly the one satisfactory commentary on his behavior. Miss +Angela made that little, gentle note of interrogation which cannot be +written, and then she said again:-- + +"Tell me--why do you?" + +Then it was as if the intrinsic pointedness of that query penetrated the +man, suddenly and sharply. It was the mere force of iteration, no doubt; +but all at once the soft voice seemed possessed of a certain insistence, +tinctured with a certain definite expectation, you might say. Now that +Charles stopped to think of it, why was he doing this? + +The young man's arms fell, as if something had burned them. He rose +abruptly and strode away to the mantelpiece, where, however, the Latrobe +heater spoiled any hope of an effective pose. + +If he meant thus to signify that the little episode was closed and done +with, life, unluckily, was not quite so simple as that. The pretty +Home-Maker, having gazed at his back- or side-view a moment, as if +bewildered, said in an uncertain voice:-- + +"I--I don't understand you at all. Why did you do that?" + +Putting down the impulse to bolt, and the even more astonishing impulse +to return to that fatal sofa, Charles Garrott braced himself to reply. +In this effort he was handicapped by emotions altogether unknown to most +young men who sit upon sofas. For example: What would the lady in Sweden +have to say to this little affair? + +He confronted a fact which he had temporarily lost sight of: that he who +pays these tributes must pay for them to the full. Half of him might +feel resentful and furious, but it was clear that the whole of him, the +net Charles, must cut a sorry figure for a while. Half of him might be +crying out, stern as science itself: "Come, girl, be honest! Don't go +about dropping matches into gunpowder, and then pretend to be surprised +at the explosion." But the net Charles, brightly flushed, was speaking +lamely as a schoolboy:-- + +"Well! Do you think I could be _blamed_--exactly? It--it seemed such an +awfully natural thing to do. You--ah--it seemed I--I couldn't do +anything _else_!..." + +"I see," said the girl slowly. + +"Ah--you--you're a very kissable person, you must know--" + +"And do you always go about kissing people you think are kissable?" + +The young man shrank as from a blow. Not looking once in her direction, +he did not note that she had spoken with a quivering lip. With a great +effort at lightness, he stammered:-- + +"Well, hardly! It must be that I don't often meet people who--who are as +k-k-kissable as you--" + +"I suppose I ought to feel flattered." + +There was a miserable silence. + +"I was mistaken in you," continued the Nice Girl's stricken voice. "I--I +trusted you. I supposed you were too honorable--I didn't think--" + +That word seemed to touch him to the quick. He spoke with desperate +stiffness. + +"I _am_ honorable, I hope. Miss Flower--aren't you taking this too--too +seriously, perhaps? After all, you--" + +She astonished him by bursting into tears. + +And all modernity became as nothing then, and Charles was a simple man, +horrified by the sight of woman's grief. Now his abasement became +complete; now he groveled most properly; never, he vowed, would he cease +to censure himself most severely for this Occurrence. He wheedled, he +implored, he cajoled. But, of course, all this but made the matter +worse, threw his wary, inexcusable omissions into sharper and sharper +relief. And presently Miss Angela referred to him as _brutal_ (did she +not pause even after that, in a sort of expectant way?) and then ended +the tragedy by begging him to leave her, her fatally ringed hands held +fast before her eyes. + +No such conclusion to the evening of wholesome pleasure could have been +devised by the wit of fiction-writers. Charles gathered up his hat and +coat like a thief, and let himself gently out into the night. + + + + +VIII + + +He turned in at the Green Park, in the still night, and stood gazing +with bitterness at a dim gigantic Citizen, who rose in bronze at the +intersection of two walkways. The Citizen gazed back with no bitterness +at all; but then, he was dead. + +Charles Garrott, being very much alive, was thinking cadlike thoughts +with clarity and vigor. In the romances, men who won a maiden's sweet +kiss instantly besought her to name the day; failing that, they were +cads. But Charles was resolved to fail that, and he was struggling +determinedly not to feel a cad. He simply did not consider that Miss +Angela's kiss had such a pricelessness, entailing cosmic +responsibilities. Why was her kiss any sweeter than his own, to come +right down to it? + +Now pure remorse had faded: self-interest, outraged self-respect, fought +to have their say. Indeed, Miss Angela herself could not well feel more +mortified over those unimagined salutes than he, the New Man, did. And +it was as if his humiliation had destroyed all that restraining sense of +a bond here, and the brutal Charles was free now for a frank facing of +his new reactions. + +"Well, I won't marry her! I won't," said he to the calm Citizen. "I'll +call myself names for her, yes; I'll send her bonbons--flowers--that +sort of thing. I'll land Donald for her--that's a thought! I'll get her +invited to the Thursday German. But _marry her_!... No, the kindest +thing would be never to see her again." + +[Illustration: "WELL, I WON'T MARRY HER! I WON'T!"] + +And, gazing up in the silent darkness of the park, the unheroic young +man began to think how he could go to Berringer's by the Center Street +cars, and take his walks henceforth in the manufacturing district, and +in far countrysides. + +Between Miss Flower's and the park, Charles had been briefly unnerved by +a disruptive thought. This girl loved him. Recollections from his salad +days rushed on him, memories of swift violent fancies women took to him. +He was cursed, it seemed, with a fatal fascination. Women might be +practically engaged to other men; they might be at the altar's hinges; +but he could not stroll among them with his devilish gift without +scattering ruin amid the troths. If he was not openly rude to them, they +took it as direct encouragement; if he was civil, from him they viewed +it as wooing; and when actually crowned with the deliberate kiss ... + +But these bachelor terrors he had exploded with one "Piffle!" spoken so +loudly that two young street-car conductors, passing to or from a +car-barn, no doubt, nudged and jeered. Oh, no, Miss Angela was not in +love with him. She had merely conceived that he, Charles, was in love +with her. (A stinging thought this, even while it vastly reassured.) +Yes, this rudimentary country cousin, whom he had felt sorry for because +of her loneliness, whom he had been interested in purely as a Type (he +maintained), with which to cudgel the hard utilitarian egoism of another +sort of woman--this little creature must needs suppose that he, Charles +Garrott, who knew the most attractive women there were, had fallen a +victim to her village arts and bucolic wiles. + +Great heavens!--Oh, the cheek! Oh, the naive complacence of the naivest +sex the Lord ever made!... + +Why, he had never paid the smallest attention to this girl; never taken +dog's notice of her, you might say! Booting pebbles this way and that in +the darkness, the angry young man reviewed the circumstances with +scientific dispassionateness (as he considered). Compulsorily introduced +by the firm Mary, he had spoken politely to the girl; kindly presented +a suitable young friend or two; and therewith considered that the whole +matter was closed. But no, on the contrary; one pleasant smile from him, +and the Womanly Woman was up and doing. + +She had pumped out of him the hour at which he took his walks (he knew +nothing about the opera-glasses as yet); and straightway she began +waylaying him on the street, nothing less. She had all but forced a book +on him, which he would have to return with a "call"--she supposed; when +he did not call, she did something which could only be described as +inveigling him to her home (that was his word now), by the shallow ruse +of a bridge-party; and then and there she had (you might say) flung both +arms about his neck and kissed him. And by these proceedings, it +appeared to her, in that queer world where Nice Girls lived, that she +had affixed a claim upon him, fairly bagged his heart, in short. "Why do +you do this?" said she, insistently. Oh, how simple life looked to such +as these, her and her sisters of the Naive Sex! Forever putting that +stereotyped query, forever expecting to elicit the hoarse but extremely +welcome reply, "Because I love you so!" No conquest too extraordinary to +seem at all surprising to their quaint little self-approval! + +There was humor now in his imagining of the Womanly Woman as quietly +waiting at home to be wooed. It appeared that Miss Angela had done +everything but that. + +A church clock boomed suddenly: it was half-past eleven. The young man's +eyes fell from the face of the Citizen. Through the stark stems of the +winter trees a yellow light glowed strongly in a lower window. That was +Olive Street there; this light shone in the Wings' house. He noted it +absently, wondering why Mary worked so late to-night. On the heels of +that came another wonder, more personal: What would Mary think of these +proceedings upon a sofa? + +There must have been a bracing quality in the thought of Mary Wing, for +Charles's hot desire to justify himself chilled instantly. Mary had her +faults, heaven knew; but she had nothing to do with sofas. In a wink, +the young man became staggered at himself. For there was nothing he had +been thinking just now that he had not seen clearly for many years past. +What, then? Had his vision of late been blurred in the cheapest way +conceivable? When he told himself that he was scientifically commending +the supplying of Beauty and Charm, was it possible that he, Charles +Garrott, had been subtly allured by La Femme? + +From outraged and resentful, Charles became let down and depressed. +Standing and gazing at Mary Wing's bright light, he found his whole +point of view shifting. He, of course, was blameworthy, not this soft +bit of unthinking femininity. Turned out without a lesson and with but +one way of life--what could she do but signify, like her mothers, that +she was ready to twine about her oak? So again, Charles saw the girl he +had left in tears as a being mysteriously wistful and pathetic. And +still she was a type to him, still a symbol of myriads of girls, waiting +over the world: Girls brought up by simple parents who assumed that life +was still as simple as they; girls made to stake their whole lives on +the vague expectation that, because they are girls, some man or other +will be sure to want them some day; a million girls waiting, day by day +and year by year, while all they have to offer life fades away under +their eyes.... + +The young authority trailed out of the park feeling much like the cads +of Romance, after all. And yet it seemed to be settled now, definitely +and positively, that he would not make a Womanly Woman the heroine of +his new novel. + +A light snow had begun to fall. Other people than Charles Garrott moved +homeward from evenings of beauty, charm and pleasure. Motor-cars rolled +on Washington Street. Emerging from the Green Park, Charles moodily +saluted two young men who stood there on a corner; one was his good +friend, Talbott Maxon, but the author passed him almost like a stranger. +To all intercourse with his kind he felt utterly averse. Nevertheless, +when he passed the door of the Bellevue Club, presently, he found his +privacy ruthlessly invaded. + +Down the wide steps between the two columnar lights--exactly as on that +other evening when it had all begun--came shambling the loose figure of +Uncle Oliver Wing. Only now Uncle Oliver's large face was faintly +flushed, his large felt hat was pulled over his eyes, his very large +cigar was rakishly uptilted toward the heavens. From which it was +concluded that Mr. Wing was not less than five drinks and five dollars +the better for _his_ little card-party at the Club. + +"Let's see now, Charlie,--what was it you asked me?" said Mr. Wing, +catching stride and slipping his arm through the silent young man's. +"Did I believe in this Woman's Movement, wasn't that it?" + +Resenting the intrusion, Charles replied coldly: "That was it, I +believe." + +Mr. Wing appeared no whit abashed. "Well, Charlie, fact is I believe in +most any kind of a movement, as I reckon you know, and all I ask about +any of 'em is, where's the harm of moving kind of slow, and taking a few +good squints around as we go. That'd about give my view that you asked +me for," said the money-lender, a known reactionary in theory and +practice--"Move slow and squint." + +Genially, he took a fresh grip on the arm Charles had almost detached, +and therewith went off into an ill-timed long rigmarole. So convivially +windy was Mr. Wing that he had talked steadily through two blocks before +it came over Charles, with force, that Mary's uncle had had a sharp aim +from the beginning. + +"Now, you take, for instance, this privilege of work they're all +clamoring for, Charlie. Women mustn't be parasites; give us the +privilege of work, they say. And that's right, too; give 'em all they'll +take's my view. But, Charlie, my observation is that when a woman +clamors that way, it's ten to one she's thinking of work like being +governor, or a great public speaker maybe, or Miss Jane Addams, out to +Hull House there. But if you ask _me_, are they willing to work like men +do, just so's not to have you call 'em parasites--well, that's where I +say, let's stop and squint around. Of course, now, whenever you see a +rich man's daughter refusing to touch her daddy's money, and jumping up +mornings by an alarm-clock to catch the 7.42, and when you see her +working nine hours a day, winter and summer, at a job it makes her sick +to look at, for ten little dollars a week, and no brass band or +fireworks anywhere--why, then you got a right to say, _that_ woman hates +being a parasite. But, Charlie, you're so quiet, you don't say anything, +I don't guess you're following while I try to answer that question you +asked me." + +"Oh, I follow you," replied Charles, with annoyance. + +Mr. Wing shot one keen glance at the young man's face, and another ahead +as if to measure the distance yet remaining to his domicile. + +"Well, now, morals, Charlie!" he continued, most agreeably. "Lor', the +things our little gals do say nowadays! Make you laugh right out loud. +Ain't it funny how innocent women can keep, now? Up and take their +cocktails, yes, and smoke their cigarettes, and talk right out, white +slave this, and red-light that, and all the time--no more _notion_!... +Why, Charlie, you wouldn't believe the pretty-faced little gal, no +more'n twenty-two years old, I heard making a public speech once, and +what do you think her subject was? 'My plea,' says she, 'is a single +standard of morality for men and women. Whatever man may do,' says she, +'that we claim woman's right to do also.'" + +The old gasbag broke off to say, "How-do, Ed," to a passer in the +filtering snow, knocked the ashes from his cigar with the large hand +that was not clutching Charles, and resumed. + +"Well, Charlie, I'd been sitting there meek as peaches while that little +gal explained to us all about men and women, but when she gets that off, +and right away asks if anybody in the audience has got any questions, +seemed like I couldn't sit still any longer. 'Excuse me,' I says, +standing up, 'but d'ye make a plea for the single standard of physical +courage also, miss?' I says. 'What say?' she sings out, pretending not +to hear me, while she tries to think what it said in that book she'd +been reading. 'It's a little thing, miss,' I says, 'only an old fellow's +way of saying if maybe Godalmighty didn't figure a little variety'd be a +good thing in this hard world he gave us. When the ship goes down,' I +says, 'do you call on your sisters for the single standard of courage, +miss, or do you hold by the men's rule of the sea and the land, and hop +into the lifeboats with the kids? Excuse a plain old fellow from +speakin' up this way, miss,' I says, 'but seems to me maybe Godalmighty +might have known what he was doing when he gave women more feeling, and +men more fighting strength; when he appointed women to give life and men +to guard it; when, as you might put it, he appointed some virtues for +both to hold in common, and then some for each of 'em to grow and +cultivate specially. And maybe, miss,' I says, 'Godalmighty made the +distribution fairer than some of our college gals realize.' Well, +Charlie, you ought to have heard the hand the crowd gave me, though +there was some hissin' by Suffragettes, I own. And what d'ye think that +cute-lookin' little thing does? 'I deny,' she sings out, her voice +shaking, 'that God gave more strength to men. I deny there is a God,' +she says. And right there she bu'sts out crying, and runs off the +stage.... Yes, she did!--first speech in public maybe. Well, Charlie, +all I say is, that's the kind of loose talk our gals're hearing all the +time nowadays. And that," said Mr. Wing, coming to a halt before his own +steps, and glancing hastily over his shoulder toward his door--"that's +why I can't help feeling sorry for this little gal here that got into +the trouble, and taking sides with her, too, against my public duty and +morals. Why, Charlie, _she_ thought all the talk was meant, not seeing +it was only half-foolin', like in a play." + +Now it was that Charles Garrott's bored eye upon Uncle Oliver suddenly +became fixed. + +"Taking sides with her?" he said, speaking for almost the first time in +the walk. "What do you mean?" + +"Well, that's just what I did, the effect was," said Mr. Wing, his own +eye wandering, "and against my conscience, too. Why, Charlie, if I +wasn't an early retirer by habit, and this snow comin' on, too, I could +show you quick enough where all this Single Standard was +damfoolishness--unless, of course, you mean Perfect Purity, like I +preach myself. And when a woman jumps up and hits a crack at marriage, +that the rest of us are sacrificin' ourselves to build up for the good +of Society, why, she's a bad woman, you can talk till you're black in +the face, that had ought to be punished. Yes, and those that help her, +they're lending encouragement to the enemies of the Republic, seems +like, and they'd ought to be punished, too. But, shucks," said Mr. Wing, +crushing the fire from the cigar against the iron railing, and putting +the stump carefully in his pocket, "blood's thicker'n water, like they +say. And I don't regret voting the way I did, though the majority was +against me from the start." + +The two men stood fronting each other in the silent street, and the +young man's face had become rigid. And he was now perfectly aware of the +faint gleam in the old man's eye, a gleam of distinctly malicious +enjoyment. + +"Mr. Wing, what are you talking about?" + +"Why, I thought you must have heard, Charlie, you seemed so kind of +glum. Why, I thought you must be on your way from Mary's now." + +He glanced again at his door, as if to say that he really must not be +expected to stop for further conversation at this late hour. And then he +said what exploded Miss Angela Flower off the horizon. + +"Why, Charlie, you see the School Board fired Mary this afternoon. On +account of this little friend of hers, Trevenna, that she--" + +"WHAT?" + +"Well, transferred's really the word, Charlie," said Uncle Oliver, +edging up a step or two. "She's sent over as a teacher to Lee Grammar +School, reporting Monday. Johnson Geddie's the new assistant principal +at the High School, commencing Monday, too. Well, Charlie, good--" + +Charles seized the burly arm in a grip sufficiently strong for a writer, +and threw all his turmoil into three words: "_Who went over?_" + +"Creamer and Honeykamp, I guess you mean. Of course, there was right +smart feelin' aroused, and it seemed Creamer's got a growin' daughter in +the High School, that's got to be protected and all. 'Twas only Mary's +good record saved her being dropped entirely, I guess, considering how +Mysinger'd worked the case up against her. Well, _good_-night, Charlie." + +Wrenching away his arm, Mr. Wing rolled rapidly up the steps and +vanished into the dark cave of his hall. But Charles stood still as a +snow-man on the sidewalk, feeling as if the skies had fallen. + + + + + +IX + + +So Mary Wing's name flared in newspaper headlines once again. + +In matters of school politics, the editorial writers of the city were +habitually gun-shy, but it was noted next morning that the reporters had +treated Mary with marked consideration. "Of all the changes and new +appointments ordered by the Board in its three-hour session," wrote the +kindly youth on the "Post," "none created such amazement as the demotion +of Miss Wing, she having for long been conceded to be possibly the most +valued teacher in the city school system. Members of the Board, however, +refused to explain their totally unlooked-for action, Chairman Garcin +merely claiming that 'All changes were for the good of the schools.' +Charges of politics were freely heard in the lobby, and one well-known +citizen, who prefers not to be quoted at just this juncture, said," etc. + +Reporters, as everybody knows, must severely repress their personal +opinions and stick like mucilage to the bare facts. But which facts are +the bare ones? Judicious selection is a wonderful thing. + +However, one of Miss Wing's admirers read the "Post's" amiable sentences +with no abatement of his burning indignation. Print made the thing +immensely concrete, and that was all. In Charles's mind, every hard or +critical thought of Mary had fallen instantly in the face of her +astonishing disaster; "I told you so" was not in him. That his old +friend's struggle upward had collapsed in sudden disgrace: this was bare +fact enough to possess him completely throughout the tutorial day. Here +fell a Modern principle from which he had never wavered, the great +principle that a woman should have a fair field to work, and fair +judgment, without prejudice of sex. All Mary Wing's success had been +entwined with that principle; since she was in her teens, she had +fought for it, in sunshine and in thunder; and in that town at least the +way was smoother for all women henceforward, because of what she had +done. And now to break her, after all these years, only because she, a +woman, had refused to throw a stone at a mistaken sister ... By Heavens, +this could not be endured. + +Thus Charles communed with himself, crisply teaching the Elements, +French and Sociology. And he snapped his watch at Miss Grace Chorister +five minutes ahead of time and, writing forgotten, went rushing to the +support of his "demoted" friend. + +But he did not rush by way of the frequented promenade. As he had gone +to lunch by street-car to-day, so his journey to the High School was +conducted in the same discreet manner. Through all this unimagined +disturbance about Mary, the young man had not lost sight of his last +night's resolve, formed in the Green Park, as to Mary's so different +cousin. Cad he might be; understand it she might not (in view of the +kiss); but Charles was clear that it was for the best that he and Miss +Angela should meet upon Washington Street no more. + +The "Post's" story had made one thing certain at least: Mary did not +mean to tear up her teacher's certificate and pitch it, with her +resignation, in the faces of the School Board. In the still watches, +Charles had thought she might be capable of just such reckless repartee; +now he divined that she was reserving her resignation, to discharge it, +like a bomb, upon her expected election as Secretary of the Education +Reform League. That prospect in the Career blurred the situation +considerably, without doubt. Still, the secretaryship was three months +away, at the worst. And meanwhile the immediate problem thundered for +attention, namely, how to get Mary back into the High School at the +earliest possible moment? Charles, who as a man considered this problem +his own no less than Mary's, arrived at the School with three promising +plans in his head. + +It was Friday, commonly a late day for Mary, but you could count on +nothing on such a day as this. However, when he had dashed into the +great building and up the two tall stairways, there sat the late +assistant principal in her little office, hard at work before a regular +man's desk. She was discovered deep in the sorting of papers, and swung +around at his step with a start and a smile. + +"Good-afternoon!--and excuse the mess, please! The notice to move caught +me a little unawares, you see.--Don't look so solemn, please!" + +Whatever emotions she might have wrestled with last night, when her +light shone so bright over the park, it was clear that Mary Wing had put +them all down to front the world to-day. Neither did she seem +embarrassed by any memories of recent conversations on these topics, of +hints dropped and too firmly repulsed. Her manner, her sensitive fine +face, were as composed as ever. + +It may be that this, at the outset, was slightly upsetting to Charles, +who was himself not composed at all. + +He scooped a pile of "The New School" from a chair and sat with an elbow +upon the writing-leaf of her masculine desk. Dumping papers from +pigeon-holes, Mary calmly explained how complete was her overthrow. +Senff, who was known as Mysinger's "personal representative" on the +Board, had preferred the charges, she said, recommending her outright +dismissal from the schools. The train had been carefully laid; it +appeared that Mary had received an official warning from the +Superintendent--an obliging man, elderly and weak, whom Mysinger meant +to succeed before long--all of two weeks ago. Beyond influence and +politication, much weight was attached to the simple fact that Mysinger, +as Mary's immediate associate and superior, felt this persistent +antipathy toward her. All the same, the Board had debated the case a +full hour. + +"Dangerous ideas," she summarized. "I'm not a suitable person to have +authority over the education of--young women and men." + +"What they said about Socrates, too--" + +"Yes, but I don't want a monument after I'm dead!" + +She laughed, without self-consciousness, and said: "Oh, if I'd tried, of +course, I couldn't have put a better club into Mr. Mysinger's hands. +Ideas!--I'm really amazed I wasn't electrocuted on the spot. Of course +it isn't as if I were a man, you see, with a right to have ideas. That's +my real fault, from the beginning--at least with Mysinger. I'm a woman, +and so should never have been suffered 'to teach, nor to usurp authority +over the man, but to be in silence.' Dear St. Paul!" + +It was rare to find bitterness in Mary. Charles asked hastily if there +had been much talk about the building to-day. She said that the School +had been buzzing with it. + +"It's almost been worth having it happen, to see how many friends I've +got. And the children are the best, of course. All afternoon my boys and +girls have been streaming in here, in threes and fours--just to say +they're sorry I'm going...." + +A shadow fell on her oddly fragile-looking face, and the author struck +the writing-leaf with a large fist. + +"By George, you shan't go!" + +"By George, I've got to," said Mary. + +"Well, by George, you'll come right back. Listen to me." + +Leaning forward over her desk, he eagerly unfolded his leading plan, +elaborated by him in the night season. This plan involved an immediate +appeal to the State Board of Education, which body had the power of +overriding all acts of local school boards. Chalmers Brown, the young +Attorney-General of the State and Charles's good friend, was an +_ex-officio_ member of this august body. Brown would arrange to have a +meeting called at once, ostensibly on other business, if necessary. Mary +Wing would find herself triumphantly back in this office within two +weeks from to-day. And as for-- + +But at the first mention of the State Board, Mary had begun to shake her +head, and before Charles had got his plan fairly set out she interrupted +him, rather (it seemed to him) as an older brother interrupts. + +"No, I've thought that over very carefully. Mysinger's pull has me +beaten there before I begin. I'd only be playing into his hand, don't +you see--giving the State Board a public opportunity to indorse and +approve my punishment." + +"But, great heavens! Mysinger's not the whole show here. You overrate--" + +"He is, and he isn't. Some good men, like Creamer, are against me now, +it's true. And yet, if Mysinger let either Board know that he wanted me +back here, I'd come back to-morrow. He's that much of the show, Mr. +Garrott." + +Charles argued warmly. He was chagrined at the ease and decision with +which the sure young woman brushed his arguments aside. Nor did the +consciousness that she was probably sound in her positions soothe his +masculine sense of the fitness of things at all. With a subtle loss of +enthusiasm, he broached his second plan; and it too was summarily thrown +out of court. That plan had called for an investigation of the "due +cause" by the City Council--an intention attributed by the generous +"Post" reporter to the well-known citizen, unnamed. Finding his +supporting shoulder thus rejected, Charles demanded what was _her_ +plan, then. And it seemed that Mary's plan was merely to wait until May, +when the terms of three members of the local Board expired (all of them +Mysinger men), and then to see to it that these places were filled with +men friendly to her. + +The plan seemed to the young man so feeble and remote, so +uncharacteristic and tame, as to indicate a certain indifference in her. +He sat eyeing her a moment with intent speculation, and then said +deliberately:-- + +"That's good enough for publication purposes, I suppose. But--you're +thinking of something very different, aren't you?" + +"Am I?--what do you suspect?" said Mary, continuing her labors of +paper-sorting. + +"It's occurred to me that you have rather a brilliant revenge up your +sleeve all the time. What'll you care for little pigs like Mysinger, +when you go off as General Secretary of the League?" + +The self-contained young woman surprised him by throwing both arms above +her head and saying, passionately. "If I only could! Oh, oh! If I only +could!" + +Charles's gaze became fixed. "But you're going to, aren't you?" + +Her arms fell and she said, in another voice: "No, I don't think I'm +going to land it, you see!" + +"Not going to--! Why, I thought you were practically sure!" + +"That's the worst of it--I _was_, for a few wild weeks. Now I'm positive +I'm not." + +"Why!--but what's happened?" + +"Oh," said she, light and calm again, "merely reading between the lines +of Dr. Ames's letters. I hear from him all the time about the State +work--once a week, at least. But he's never referred at all to the talk +we had--about my being Secretary--from the first. Of course, I've +wondered. And then yesterday--no, day before--I had a letter asking if I +expected to be in New York any time before fall. He said he'd like to +talk with me about my work here." + +The straightforward sentences carried a painful conviction. Charles's +eyes fell from his friend's face. For this crowning disappointment of +hers he was distressed enough, indeed; and yet he was perfectly +conscious that there was a side of him which could not lament at all. +Publicly speaking, he had not honestly viewed the secretaryship as a +"revenge"; since to get Mary out of the schools, by hook or crook, was +the exact object in life of her adversary, Mysinger, who so earnestly +held that woman's place was the Home. And then, there were those more +personal and secret reactions in him, which had somehow recoiled from +this development of the Career from the start. + +"How long have you felt this way--that you weren't going to get it?" + +"Oh--for two months now, at least." + +"Two months! Why, you've never said anything about it to me!" + +"Well, I don't remember your asking anything about it." + +"No, because I supposed it was virtually settled--" + +"Oh, no, indeed. In fact--oh, it was just a mad dream for me, of course! +I'll live and die a Grammar School teacher." + +"No! I swear you'll not!" And, seeing the way cleared of all +extra-complications now, the young man flung out with unwonted +exuberance: "You trust _me_! You'll come back here so quickly you'll +not remember you ever went!" + +But the male protectorship, he should have known well, scarcely thrived +in this atmosphere. Mary tied a package of papers, gave him a look and +smile, and dropped it efficiently into the suitcase at her feet. + +"Well, that's on the knees of the gods as yet. Meanwhile--there's no use +crying over spilt milk." + +"My point is, don't you see, this milk shan't stay spilt! _I'm_ not +going to wait till May to have you back here." + +It was on the tip of his tongue to confide to her then, for her comfort, +the third plan he had for her, a plan more circuitous and elaborate than +either of his others, but yet, given time, his personal favorite from +the beginning. However, Mary's little laugh checked him. The laugh may +have been the best cover she had for feelings deeply bruised, after all, +perhaps: but the breath of it chilled the young man's ardors +effectually. + +"I'm afraid you must, though! This milk--" + +"I decline. Trust me, I say. I intend to help you here." + +But her reply was to put into words of one syllable, at last, what her +manner had been saying plainly from the beginning:-- + +"My dear friend, you _can't_ help me, in this." + +She added, quietly snapping on a light: "Don't worry your head about it +any more, please. Whatever, can be done,--I can and will do it, you may +be sure." + +It was odd how completely this silenced the young man. It was as if she +had suddenly blown up the whole line of their communication. + +And it seemed to Charles, all at once, that Mary had accidentally stated +exactly what was the matter with her, as a woman and a friend. It seemed +to him suddenly that ever since he had known this girl he had been going +to her and saying, "Look here, I'll help you do such and such," and she, +in one way or another, had always been replying, "Why, _you_ couldn't +help ME!" + +The conversation between the two old friends thus abruptly thinned out. +It became almost desultory on his part, not untouched with dignity. And +as they so chatted of Lee Grammar School and its unfavorable location, +he, the authority, was eyeing Mary Wing askance, unmistakably +reacting.... Was hardness, then, the necessary corollary of +"independence"? Was it true, exactly as Old Tories said, that a woman +could not grapple long with actuality without rubbing away that natural +sweetness and charm of hers which, it might be, the grim world needed +more than duplicate Careers? Certainly there was no charm for him in +this slip of a girl's self-assertion: "I'm a better man than you, don't +you know it?" Splendid, indeed, was her Spartan calm in a defeat serious +in every way, and with the peculiar sting conferred by Miss Trevenna's +fame. Why was it that he would have warmed to her so infinitely more, +have felt quite a new depth of affection for her, if, rather, she had +turned to him helpless and wildly weeping, "Help me! Help me, friend, or +I perish!" + +"And at least you'll get out much earlier in the afternoons," he was +observing courteously.... + +But his secret thought continued to engross him, this fantastic thought +of Mary weeping. Now he remembered Miss Angela's girlish outburst last +night, after the bridge-party; and he saw that there was something +subtly fitting, engaging on the whole, in a woman's weeping over her +troubles. But Mary, of course, could not weep; she simply didn't have +the plant, as you might put it. No--you could picture Mary asking you to +sit on the sofa and look at her ring, more easily than weeping. + +And then, becoming aware of a teacher hovering about in the corridor +near the door,--a fellow named Hartwell it was, who had long seemed +rather attentive to Mary,--Charles Garrott rose to go, a mere polite +caller. + +"Isn't it time you were knocking off?" + +"I think I'd better clear up a little more of this, now that I'm at it." + +"I wonder if I couldn't help you with some of that?" + +"Oh, no, thank you." (Why, of course he couldn't help HER, even to tear +up old papers.) "Nobody could understand it but me. But +I've--appreciated your visit." + +He wished her a good-afternoon. In a stately silence, he traversed the +spacious corridor, stalked down the handsome stairways. For the moment, +he could not get his thought back to the concrete; the sting of defeat +possessed him, the bitterness that is the portion of the friend of +women. And then, in this mood, shaking the dust of the High School from +his feet, he encountered, of all inopportune people under the sun, Miss +Flora Trevenna. + +He came upon the unhappy girl standing in a corner of the outer +vestibule, beyond the great bronze doors; she stood alone, looking off +down the twilight street. Her head turned at the sound of Charles's +feet; recognition came hesitatingly into her glance, and she bowed, +smiling remotely in the absent or reserved way which seemed to be +characteristic of her. It was clearly on a second thought that she spoke +suddenly, in her fluty voice:-- + +"Oh!--could you tell me whether Miss Wing is still in the building?" + +Pausing, his hat stiffly raised, the young man said that Miss Wing was. +"You'll find her in her office--on the third floor at the front, you +know." + +"Thank you." + +But, as he bowed and passed on, the Badwoman made no move to enter and +ascend. She stood as he had found her, waiting, aside: a solitary and +withdrawn figure, for the moment to the perceiving eye not untouched +with pathos. + +But Charles, proceeding, could see in this figure only the witting cause +of all the trouble. He had spoken kindly enough to Miss Trevenna: now +suddenly all his accumulated and complex resentment seemed to gather and +pour out. Couldn't the woman leave Mary alone, even on this day? But +no--of course she couldn't! She who had claimed her Happiness over her +mother's heart would see nothing amiss in seeking to scramble back to +good repute by the same general route. It was her Higher Law to throw +her blight over all who might assist her: over her friend, Mary Wing, no +more than over her own young sisters, from whom (Judge Blenso said) +people were already silently dropping away, now that it was known that +the "free" Miss Flora came sometimes to the house. + +_Free!..._ Was not here, indeed, that underside of "Freedom," that true +reverse of Taking My Happiness, which the New speakers never mentioned? +This girl conceived freedom just as a Developed Ego would conceive it, +as an order of things in which she should be "free," while everyone +else, going on as usual, sacrificed and denied to uphold her comfort and +support her illimitable selfishness. In her goings out and comings in, +she would take no thought but for her Self. And there she stood, no +leader of a new dawn, but a true enemy of the common good: a female +Anti-Social, a lawless Egoette, who maintained that the world was +ordered and the sun set in the heavens, that she only might indulge +herself where her whim led.... + +On the corner the young man halted, shook himself slightly, and glanced +up and down. A brief anxiousness crossed his face, followed by an air +of irresolution. + +This street, Albemarle, was three blocks from Washington, and certainly +not a street that a pleasure-walker, like Miss Angela, would be likely +to pick out. Charles's legs seemed to thirst for exercise. But it was +clear to him that it would not do to run any superfluous risks; +especially just now, when it was all so fresh and new. Therefore, after +a moment of struggle, the authority once more set his face ingloriously +toward the street-cars. + +And as he went he began to think again, more intently than he had +thought in all the thoughtful day. He had taken that challenge of Mary's +full in the face, as it were. She had said, as if in final summary of +their relations, that he was incapable of helping her. Very well; he had +a clear field now to show her, once and for all, whether or not that was +true. + +That third plan of his (of which she should hear no inkling now till the +thing was done) was nothing less than to roll up such a body of Public +Opinion as would overwhelm the School Board--a body somewhat sensitive +to Opinion--forcing it to reverse itself. This could not be done in a +day, of course. To gather momentum enough to rouse the local papers +would mean to start far back. So Charles's mind had fastened at once on +his old idea of a thoroughgoing eulogistic "write-up" of Mary, to begin +with, in some national magazine of the highest standing. Only now his +soaring ambition was to "plant" three such write-ups at least--cunningly +differentiated in matter and manner, and signed with different names. +Nor did this seem by any means a dream. From the periodicals themselves, +he saw that there was a demand for just such "stuff" nowadays, just such +little smartly-written sketches of "people who were doing things." Mary +did things, without a doubt. And once he got the write-ups in +print,--even two write-ups, or one,--he had a powerful bludgeon to +swing at the local editors. "Look here," he would say to them, "why do +we have to go away from home to learn the news? Are you fellows going to +sit still and say nothing while some live city gets this woman for +Superintendent of Schools? Why don't you ..." + +The imaginary exhortation ended there. Round the corner ahead of Charles +a man came swinging just then, rapidly drawing near. And all small +plottings were catapulted from the mind of Mary's friend as he looked +into the face of Mr. Mysinger. + +The principal of the High School approached with a native swagger, on +much "shined" shoes. He was what is called a careful dresser; a heavily +built man, fair and not ill-looking. Ten steps away, his eye fell on +Charles, and, while his lips assumed a gracious smile, the eye in +question seemed to lighten with a flash of triumph. And the sight of +Miss Trevenna was nothing to that sight. All the blood in the young +man's body seemed suddenly to be pounding in his head. + +"Well, Garrott! How goes it to-day?" + +It had not occurred to him to "cut" Mysinger, but so the matter seemed +to be written in the stars. In silence, the passing author looked the +principal through and through. And his head grew hotter, and the pit of +his stomach icier, as he saw Mysinger's smile become fixed, saw it waver +doubtfully and die, saw open hostility slide into the hated eye. So Mary +Wing's conqueror and her unhelpful friend went by at half a foot. + +"By George! I'll beat up that rascal yet for this!" + +The unliterary words were ejected, it seemed, by a demon within. But no +sooner had they fallen on the ear of Charles than all the rest of him +leapt upon and seized them, as one recognizing a long-felt want, an +unconquerable need. And thus his writer's imagination was off upon yet +another plan, the last and the best. + +Yes, that was what he wanted, needed now, more than anything else. He +would humiliate this swaggering Teuton past all endurance; he would go +and kick him till his weary legs refused the office; he would batter him +till his own wife passed him by for a stranger. Lord, what a plan! And +then, the moment he could leave the hospital, Mysinger would crawl +around to Olive Street, hat in hand. "Miss Wing, I'm petitioning the +Board to invite you back to the High School at once," he would say. "I +humbly beg you to come, and try to forgive me for my contemptible +conduct in the past. I don't know why I've always acted like such a +dirty dog" (Mysinger would say). "It's just my low, base nature, I +guess." And Mary, starting up in surprise (but, perhaps, already +half-suspecting the truth), would say: "But this is astounding, Mr. +Mysinger! How come you here, saying these things to me?" And that +insolent fellow, whiter than death, would mumble through swollen lips, +"It's Mr. Garrott's orders, miss." + +_Then_ Mary would, perhaps, understand a little better whether or not a +_man_ could help her.... + +The author turned suddenly on the darkling street, moved by an instinct +to look after his retiring enemy. By an odd coincidence, Principal +Mysinger had been moved by an instinct to turn and look after him, +Charles. Both men turned hastily round again. + +So Charles, halting on the corner for his car, shook himself once again, +reined in his imagination, and remembered that he was a modern and +civilized being. For the moment, the reminder seemed to accomplish +little. The blood continued to pound in the sedentary temples, redly. +Charles saw that the idea of primitive male combat, over a manly +woman's Career, was unmodern and grotesque. But the idea lingered all +the same. + + * * * * * + +He spent the evening upon the first of his write-ups, scenarios shut +fast in the drawer. This piece concerned Mary Wing the Educator, and the +intention was to have Mary's friend, Hartwell, read, sign, and father +it. Every precaution must be taken, of course, to give the whole thing a +spontaneous air, avoiding the appearance of a concerted boom. By +midnight, the first draft of the Educator write-up was finished, and, +wearied, the young man picked up the "Post," where he had had eyes but +for one story that morning. + +Here his wandering glance fell presently upon this:-- + + Miss Angela Flower entertained at bridge last evening at the + residence of her parents, Dr. and Mrs. Oscar P. Flower. Miss + Flower's guests included a limited number of the younger set. + +At this description of himself and Fanny, Charles smiled, for almost the +first time that day. But as he continued to gaze at that small hopeful +item, his mirth faded, and soon he began to stroke the bridge of his +nose, his look distinctly worried. + + + + +X + + +In the little house of the Flowers, Miss Angela sat forlorn at her +favorite post. She entertained the younger set no more. It was the +middle of December, and a cold rain poured. With a ragged bit of +chamois, the old-fashioned girl polished her already comely nails. The +window-curtain, shrunken and twisted with more than one washing, was +hooked back on a convenient nail; now and then Angela picked up her +shabby opera-glasses and peeped over into the fan-shaped sliver of +Washington Street. But few pedestrians passed over there to-day, and the +motor-cars of the Blessed slid by in curtains of waterproof. + +[Illustration: ANGELA PEEPED OVER INTO WASHINGTON STREET] + +It was the slack hour again, it seemed, leaving home-makers with idle +hands. Even that subtle business to which but one modern authority gave +a scientific rating, the Business of Supplying Beauty and Supplying +Charm, was here at a complete standstill. The men of Angela's family, +who must be refreshed and made joyful for their battlings in the world +without, were at this hour out, battling. Mrs. Flower was lying down in +her room, doing her own refreshing. As for the cook downstairs, she had +her orders, and recked not of Charm. Angela, thus, had her strictly +earned leisure; and, on the other hand, she had not those intenser +occupations for leisure, reforms, fights, and attacks on Morals, such as +engrossed the mind of her advanced Cousin Mary. As a womanly woman, she +naturally thought a great deal about people, her friends, and as an +unassisted stranger in the city, she really had very few friends to +think about. Hence, it was the most natural thing imaginable if she was +now wondering, for the thousandth time, what in the world had become of +Mr. Garrott. + +Angela could not understand about Mr. Garrott. He simply never seemed to +walk any more. That she had hurt his feelings very badly that night +after the bridge-party she had understood, from the start. But perhaps +she had never meant to hurt them so badly as this; and that Mr. Garrott +could vanish utterly from Washington Street had, indeed, not entered her +thoughts. This, however, was precisely what Mr. Garrott had done, from +the very day following the misunderstanding. + +For so, in the lapse of days, had Angela generously come to think of the +occurrence on the sofa. She and Mr. Garrott had had a terrible +misunderstanding. + +It was half-past four o'clock; the dreary day was shutting in. Angela +looked down into her own back yard, which was small, mean-looking, not +devoid of tin cans, and now running with dirty water. A dingy old shed +or outhouse, where some previous tenant had thriftily stabled a horse, +contributed not a little to the wintry desolateness of the scene. +Beneath the window the cook, Luemma, emerged, a ragged print-skirt +turned over her head, and emptied ashes into a broken wooden barrel. +Angela yawned, and picked up a hand-glass. + +The girl's more kindly view of Mr. Garrott's demeanor had been, of +course, a gradual growth. Her mortification and rage against the young +tribute-payer had lasted two days, at least, and chancing to see her +poor Cousin Mary at this time,--who was now being talked about from one +end of the town to the other,--she had taken occasion to speak most +disparagingly of Mr. Garrott, though, of course, in an indirect manner. +She had described him as a person of the _lowest ideals_. At this Cousin +Mary had protested, quite indignantly; and, though Angela well knew +there were phases of Mr. Garrott which her mannish cousin was not likely +ever to see, that stout championship had doubtless done much to check +her first resentment and make her see things in a truer light. Moreover, +she was naturally a sweet-tempered creature, and the long days +following, and the long empty walks, may have been just the things +needed to appeal most subtly to her higher nature. After all, Mr. +Garrott had been remarkably nice to her, paying her every attention from +the beginning. And even if he _had_ been carried away, for once--what +did that show ... + +A ring at the doorbell made Angela jump a little. While the Flowers had +a small house, they had a loud bell. Though its clanging nowadays rarely +meant anything exciting, the diversion, on the whole, was not unwelcome. +The young housekeeper rose, went out into the hall, and listened down +over the banisters. + +Below, there was nothing to listen to. Receiving only twelve dollars a +month, Luemma seemed to think she must take out the residue of her wages +in inefficience and impudence, and did; sometimes she answered the bell, +sometimes she "had her hands in the lightbread," etc. The present seemed +to be one of the latter times. The bell pealed again; a voice from the +front called, "Angela!--are you dressed?"--and Angela, replying to her +mother, went down to the door herself, smoothing her hair and trimming +her waist as she went. + +The caller proved to be none other than her disgraced cousin, Mary Wing. + +"Well, Angela, how are you?" said she, entering confidently, and kissed +Angela's cheek. "I hope I didn't break into your nap, or anything +unforgivable like that?" + +"Oh, no, indeed, Cousin Mary. How d' you do? I wasn't asleep." + +Cousin Mary was enveloped from neck to heels in a becoming gray +raincoat. Beneath that were seen glimpses of a costume rather elaborate +for bad weather and a workaday world. Nor did Cousin Mary's manner seem +in the least crushed or subdued, as morals demanded that the manner of a +disgraced person should be. + +All the same, Angela greeted her cordially enough, with only a faint +conscientious stiffness traceable to her mother. For one thing, she was +really sorry for Mary now; right or wrong, she genuinely wished they +hadn't expelled her from the High School, and sent her off to a Grammar +School, in a low quarter of the city. And then besides that, whatever +Cousin Mary's strange ideas and behavior, the fact remained that she +happened still to be one of her, Angela's, particular little +coterie--that small group of friends and relatives with whom she herself +seemed to be sadly out of touch just now. + +Mary entered with the air of being in a hurry. In the car-shaped parlor +she unbuttoned her coat, nevertheless, the Latrobe heater being, like +the doorbell, small but powerful. Angela, seated on the famous sofa, +said:-- + +"Cousin Mary, you're all dressed up! I believe you're going to a party!" + +Mary glanced down at herself with indifference. + +"No," said she, "but I've been to a little sort of one, a luncheon. And +we didn't leave the hotel till half an hour ago, either--" + +"Oh, a luncheon! They're fun, I think. Where was it?" + +"At the Arlington--very fine and beautiful, but it took hours! That's +why I'm so late getting around here. I've wanted specially to see you +for several days, Angela, but I haven't seemed to find a minute, and +this was my last chance. I wondered if you had any engagement for +to-morrow afternoon?" + +"No, indeed, Cousin Mary, I haven't any engagement." + +"Then I want you to come with me to a lecture," said Cousin Mary, "at +four o'clock." + +The young girl's face, which had become brightly expectant at the +mention of engagements, fell perceptibly. She covered her disappointment +with a little laugh. + +"Well,--thank you, very much, Cousin Mary,--but you know I don't +appreciate lectures very much. I'm not clever enough--" + +"But this isn't an ordinary lecture. In fact, I shouldn't have used that +word at all. It's a talk, a personal talk to women by a woman, and a +wonderful one--Dr. Jane Rainey. You may have heard of her?" + +"Well, I'm not sure. What is she going to talk about?" asked Angela +politely. + +"The subject that means most to every woman, no matter what she thinks +or says! And Dr. Rainey, I do believe, knows more about it than anybody +else living. Jane Clemm she was--but that was years ago, before you +could remember. I got her to come here to speak, myself,--and expect to +lose some money on the transaction, too,--heigho! But I don't mind +really, it's such a privilege to have the whole subject lit up, from the +modern point of view, by a speaker like this. Jane Rainey's a practicing +physician, a fine human being, the mother of four children herself, and +she--" + +"But what _is_ her subject, Cousin Mary?" + +"That's it!--marriage and motherhood." + +Angela stared at her cousin, and then looked rather shocked. Next, faint +color appeared in her smooth cheeks. It really seemed that Mary had +learned nothing, from the painful lesson she had just received. Why did +she have this persistent interest in the unpleasant side of life? + +She said more decisively than was her wont: "No, Cousin Mary, I really +don't think I'd care to go--thank you." + +Mary Wing, checked in her forensic by Angela's expression, looked +surprised, though, perhaps, not taken aback, and certainly not rebuked. + +"Now, why not? I honestly hoped the subject would have a special +interest for you. You--" + +"For me!--Oh, no! I--" + +"My dear, you know you told me once what your ambition was--to be a good +wife some day, when the right man came for you. And that's the ambition +of every normal woman, I believe,--or one of them,--no matter what else +she may have in her head! Well, you see, that's exactly what this +brilliant student--and woman--wants to advise us about--how to fulfill +this ambition; how to prepare ourselves to be good wives and--" + +"But I don't think of it that way at all, Cousin Mary. I hope," said +Angela, pink-cheeked, but once more standing firm for propriety against +all the astonishing Newness--"I hope I'll know how to be a good wife--to +the man I love--without going to any lectures--" + +"Do you think anybody on earth knows as much as that, just by intuition? +It seems to me ... But perhaps your feeling is--you don't like the idea +of a public talk on the subject?" + +"I don't, Cousin Mary--frankly. I know I seem to you dreadfully behind +the times--and all. But that's the way I was brought up to feel, and +it's the way I do feel. I'm not advanced at all, I thought you knew." + +There was a silence in the dingy little parlor, during which the pouring +rain became audible. + +"Of course I don't want to press you against your will, Angela," said +Mary slowly. "You know that? But--I can't get away from feeling that +being a good wife--and mother--in this awfully upset, transitional age, +when men's ideals are changing step for step with women's--and perhaps a +little in advance of them, who knows?--I believe it's the most +complicated and difficult vocation in the world. Compared with it, any +ordinary man's profession--like engineering, for instance--looks to me +like simplicity itself. And, Angela, I can't believe that every woman is +born with all this understanding, all this difficult expert knowledge in +her head, any more than I believe that every man is born knowing by +intuition how to be a good engineer. Of course we'd think it quite +strange--shouldn't we?--if Donald, as a boy wanting to be an engineer, +had thought he mustn't read any books that mentioned engineering, and +must stop his ears if--" + +Angela, feeling almost ready to stop her ears herself, interrupted with +some warmth:-- + +"Cousin Mary, we simply don't understand each other! I don't think +of--of romance--and marriage--as anything in the least like +_engineering_--not in the least! I don't think of them as subjects for +lectures by _experts_! And I was brought up to feel there were some +things not very--suitable to talk about. I was brought up not to think +about them at all." + +"Of course, my dear!--I understand. But every woman thinks about +marriage--doesn't she? She can't help it. Take me," said Mary, +good-humoredly--"a confirmed old maid school-teacher who's just +scandalized half the city, and been publicly dismissed from her job. I +haven't the slightest idea of marrying, ever, and yet I think about it +often, and would like to feel--" + +"You do? Well, I am different. I _don't_ think about it." + +"You don't think about marriage?" + +"I never think of it at all," said Angela. + +That settled Cousin Mary. After a brief pause she said, in the nicest +way: "Well, then, forgive me, Angela, and forget everything I've said." + +Angela forgave her readily enough. Shut your eyes to the horrid, +unwomanly streak in her, and Mary Wing was really a very pleasant +person. She had always said that, to her mother and others. So talk +flowed easily into other channels, and the air of cousinly amity was +soon restored. But just when that was accomplished, Mary rose +unexpectedly to go, and Angela found herself left with several topics +not yet mentioned at all. + +"Oh, don't go yet!" said she. "I want to--" + +"I _must_! I really had no time at all to-day, but came anyway, whether +or no. How pretty you look, Angela," said Mary, and kissed the now +unblushing cheek again. + +"I wish the lunch-party hadn't kept you so long! I haven't--" + +"I do, too! A whole good afternoon! And the worst of it was," said Mary, +eyeing her with a sort of speculative archness, "I stayed after +everybody was gone just to talk to Charles Garrott, whom you dislike so +much! Still," she added, with a fading of archness, "I had something to +tell him for his own good, at least." + +Cousin Mary's changes of expression were lost upon Angela. "Mr. Garrott! +Was he at the lunch party?" + +"He gave it--didn't I say? It was just a little _bon voyage_ party for +Donald--and Helen Carson! Donald's leaving to-morrow for Wyoming, you +know, to be gone a month--" + +"No--you hadn't told me.... Who else was at the lunch, Cousin Mary?" + +"Oh, just those I've mentioned, and Fanny for chaperon, and Talbott +Maxon." + +Angela, naturally, felt more lonely and out of things than ever. In +fact, she felt blankly depressed. Mr. Garrott's luncheon had included +exactly her coterie, only she herself being omitted. + +"Why do you say I dislike Mr. Garrott, Cousin Mary? Of course I like him +very much. You know I told you long ago he was much the most attractive +man I've met here." + +"Well, but I thought you must have changed your opinion, when you told +me the other day that his ideals were so low." + +"Why, of course I didn't _mean_ it, Cousin Mary! I thought you knew I +was angry when I spoke." + +The two cousins regarded each other, in the dark little hall by the +hatstand. Angela felt her position to be annoying. But she explained +with that complete lack of embarrassment characteristic only of women +conscious of rectitude:-- + +"I can't tell you _all_ about it, even now. But what happened was that +Mr. Garrott and I had a terrible misunderstanding, and at first I put +all the blame on him, and was awfully mad with him, I admit. But since +then, the more I've thought of it, the more I've seen that I was very +unjust to him--in what I thought and said, too. He really has much more +cause to be mad with me--now--than I have with him." + +"Well, I'm glad to hear it. Don't quarrel--that's my motto," said the +stormy Miss Wing. "And Mr. Garrott thinks you are charming!--I know, for +he told me so. Well--" + +"Yes--that's what has changed my feeling about it all, you see. Cousin +Mary--when you see him again, you might just say--" + +"My dear, I never see Mr. Garrott!" said Mary, rather hastily. + +"Why, you've just seen him!" + +"The first time for a week, and probably the last time for a month. He's +going down to his mother's in the country on Saturday, to stay over +Christmas and New Year's. Angela, I must _run_!" + +Left alone, Angela remained standing in the hall for a moment, gazing +into space, of which the hall really afforded little. Her despondency +now had a certain edge; it did seem hard that, while her friends and +relatives--and Cousin Mary, of all people--were going to jolly lunches +of the younger set, _her_ invitations should be only to New-Woman +_lectures_. And still, the girl's feeling had no bitterness, even now. +Of course she understood that she would have been at Mr. Garrott's +luncheon, too, but for the misunderstanding.... + +As she went upstairs, her mother called out to her, and Angela pursued +her way to the front bedroom, as she had meant to do anyway. Here, her +mother was discovered prone upon a pillowless lounge, dangerously facing +a gaslight and reading a magazine which had no covers. Having laid the +magazine, broken open, on her lap, Mrs. Flower listened attentively to +her daughter's report of Mary's call, and at the end said:-- + +"I must say I think it's very kind of Mr. Garrott to stand by her in +that way. Men secretly can never admire that sort of woman, whatever +their theories may be. And that's just it--that explains Mary's whole +lurid course. If she had ever had a ray of attention, of course she +would never have dreamed of these wild goings on." + +Angela's mother was still a pretty woman, and long habit, it seemed, had +impressed her voice with a permanent plaintiveness. She had kicked off +her slippers for comfort; her high-bred feet were clad in faded cotton +stockings; she herself looked high-bred and faded. Her air and tone were +those of one to whom life had brought rude shocks--such as, that lovely +woman's portion was sacrifice ever, and that men cared only for the +first bloom of girlish beauty--and who found her only consolations in +her religion, and in the noble words, My Duty. + +"You must see her when she calls, I suppose, but that is all. Until she +completely changes her ideas on all subjects, I cannot allow any +intimacy. I cannot." + +"She means to be nice to me, mother. And besides--that's the sort of +connections you and father have given us, you know." + +Mrs. Flower denied any responsibility whatever for the advanced Mary. +She continued her remarks with interest, the theme being one of her +favorites. Angela, having moved restlessly about the room for a time, +had halted at the window. Hence, she gazed out at a board fence billed +all over with advertisements of a celebrated spring tonic. A trolley-car +went rumbling by, its wheels throwing off jets of icy rain-water. It had +been a long, long day. + +"The things women will do when they discover they're not attractive to +men! They simply get defiant. They get all reckless and bitter!" + +Into the narrow walkway below turned a very tall man, under a small +greenish umbrella. In the silence of the house, the front door was heard +to open and shut. Then there were footsteps along the hall below, and +another door shut quietly, toward the back. + +"Anything, anything to distract their minds!" + +"Mother!--where on earth do you suppose father _goes_! His lecture was +over at half-past three. If only, _only_, he'd try to get some patients! +But he's not even in for his office hour half the time!" + +"I'm sure I do not know," replied her mother, generally, and picked up +her coverless magazine. + +Angela fidgeted at the window, drumming on the dripping pane. Presently +she said:-- + +"Oh, mother! Why _couldn't_ you or father have some relations that would +help us! We're the only family I ever heard of that hasn't a _single_ +rich relation!" + +Her mother, not looking up, mentioned complainingly the branch of her +family to which she always referred in such discussions. + +"Much good the Ashburtons have done us!" said Angela truly, and also as +usual. "When they think we're not good enough to speak to. I have nobody +to help me but myself." + +It was as if the girl was herself struck with the truth of her own +observation. Her gaze out the window became thoughtful, and then intent. +Suddenly, without more speech, she left the window and the room. + +In the hall there came an interruption. An untutored voice bawled up, +without the slightest preamble:-- + +"_Sugar hasn't came!_" + +"All right," responded the young housekeeper, after a short annoyed +pause. + +And then, returning to her own room, she thought: "If I telephone from +Mrs. Doremus's now, it'll be too late for supper. I'll have to ask +Wallie--just to step around ..." + +Angela shut the door behind her and lighted a flaring gasjet. Then she +stood still, knitting her brows slightly, glancing about. She wanted +writing-paper, and didn't know where to put her hands on any, exactly. + +In the sharp light of the gas it was now seen that Angela's little +bedroom lacked Beauty, of the purely objective sort: Beauty of that kind +depending, as all know, on fathers being good providers, which was not +the case here, alas. Everything in Angela's room was cheap when it was +new, and everything was far from new now. A very large old walnut +wardrobe occupied all one side of the room, awkwardly substituting for a +clothes-closet. The bed was of yellow imitation-oak, and sagged +considerably in the middle from worn-out springs. The bureau was to +match; its somewhat wavy mirror was the nearest Angela came to a +dressing-table; its three drawers would never quite shut, and frequently +wouldn't quite open. There were also two chairs in the bedroom, one +straight, one a re-seated rocker, and a small walnut work-table, which +trembled dangerously if you brushed against it. + +Nor was the room specially spruce, at the moment at least, people's +tastes differing in these matters, even in the same family. Angela's +young brother, for example, kept his small room shining like a new pin, +and let himself personally go till he was a disgrace to the family. +Angela, on the other hand, whose exquisite personal neatness had +attracted the notice of Charles Garrott himself, was more or less +indifferent about a room which nobody but the family ever saw. The door +of the wardrobe stood open now, with one of the yellow bureau-drawers; a +pair of shoes rested on the straight chair, with a pair of stockings +curled on the rag-carpet below. On the sway-backed bed were strewn +various things--a towel, two old summer dresses that she had been trying +on a little earlier in the afternoon, a pair of soiled white gloves, a +paper of pins and two new dress-shields. + +In the drawer of the wardrobe, Angela presently found several sheets of +note-paper, and, after a longer search, a single envelope. The envelope +was not what it had been once. It had knocked about the world a bit in +its time; its bright youth was gone. Upon its face was a dusky smudge, +souvenir of some forgotten encounter, and, near the smudge, some hand +had once written the word "Mrs.," and then lost heart and abandoned the +whole enterprise. Still, it was possibly the only envelope in the house. +Angela found, after due trial, that the smudge yielded, quite +satisfactorily, to the eraser on the end of a pencil. As for the +reminiscent "Mrs.," that was easily enough worked over into a "Mr.," +though not, to be sure, without a slight blot. + +Angela sat on the edge of the bed. She pulled the rickety work-table +into position before her. Having addressed the remainder of the +envelope, after the "Mr.," she sat biting the penholder for a space. But +when the business end of the pen was put into action, it went ahead +quite steadily:-- + + DEAR MR. GARROTT [wrote Angela from the bedside]:-- + + When you left here the other night, I did not think it would be + so long before I would see you again! + + I have been very sorry about our misunderstanding--and I have + felt that I should not have said what I did. I have thought it + all over, and I understand better now. + + When you are not so busy, you must come in to see me--and I + will explain just what I mean. I couldn't that night. + + Yours most cordially, + + ANGELA FLOWER. + +She had hardly written the final letter of her pretty name when the +front door was heard to open again, this time with a bang. Having +hastily tucked the note into the experienced envelope, Angela got +downstairs before her little brother, Wallie, had finished taking off +his dripping overcoat. + +Wallie was quite the queerest, gravest boy Angela had ever known. In her +whole life, she had never seen him laugh but once. That was one summer +day in Mitchellton, when she, having undertaken to paper the walls of +her room, had fallen backward off the stepladder into a bucket of paste. +Wallie was an eccentric, undoubtedly. Still, he was admitted to be +obliging enough about little things. Now he made no special objections +to going for the sugar; and when Angela then asked him please to step by +at the same time, and give the note to Mr. Garrott, he only said, with +one of his absent stares: "Step by? That's six blocks further." + +"Well, I haven't anybody else to take it for me, Wallie," said Angela, +in a voice rather like her mother's. + +"And, Wallie," she added, presently, "I'm not sure whether there'll be +an answer or not. You'd better just ask him, that's the best way. Just +say, after he's read it, 'Is there any answer?'" + + + + +XI + + + +To the host, the luncheon party at the Arlington had not once presented +itself as a jolly gathering of any set, young or old. He had conceived +it as a duty, and an expensive one; he approached it, truth to tell, +with a certain secret complacence as to Mary Wing uppermost in his mind; +and he left it (after Mary's private talk with him) with chastened +reflections and a group of new reactions on the subject of Egoettes. + +For two weeks, Charles had been very busy in the Studio. The luncheon +stood as his first whirl in Society since Angela Flower's bridge-party. +Donald Manford, departing to seek his biggest commission, seemed to need +a friendly send-off. Miss Carson seemed to be indicated as the logical +co-sharer of the same. At the Redmantle Club, as he had never forgotten, +Charles had taken Donald bodily away from the firm beautiful girl Mary +had selected to be his wife. Now, as it were, he was handing Donald back +to her again--loyal Moderns all. Beyond the match-making, however, this +function was intended to cheer up Mary, and to indicate to the Public +that Charles Garrott was her supporter in adversity as in success. Thus, +from every point of view, the "demoted" school-teacher was the real +guest of honor, and the host, when not fomenting conversation of a +matrimonial nature between the two young persons on his right, found a +peculiar pleasure in conversing with her. Indeed, he could hardly look +at Mary to-day without a lurking smile. + +Later, as noted, Charles sobered. What Mary lingered to tell him, "for +his own good," was that Flora Trevenna had gone away. As it was the one +thing he had supposed Miss Trevenna incapable of doing, he was +proportionately taken by surprise. But, for a moment, he saw in the +tidings only that the great obstacle in his and Mary's way back to the +High School, their common Old Man of the Sea, had been amazingly +removed. + +Endeavoring to conceal his immense relief, he said: "Gone away! Why, +where'd she go to?" + +Mary's reply was meant to shake him, and it did. + +"Oh--anywhere! She went, not because she had anywhere to go, but just +because she wouldn't stay here." + +"But--I don't understand you! I thought this was where she wanted to +stay." + +"More than anything else in the world. And that was why she went--don't +you see? She went because of her mother and father and sisters--whom you +supposed she never gave a thought to. She went because of Mysinger and +me." + +The two advanced friends stood among the shrubs of the Arlington winter +garden, beside a little tinkling grotto. In silence, Charles dropped a +pebble down among the dusky forms of fish. + +"Of course," said Mary, slowly, "I told her a story about--my trouble at +the High School. But I could see that she knew all the time. I'm sure +now that was what decided her to go--by herself. Some friend or other +got her some sort of position--in Philadelphia. Of course she went +without saying anything to me...." + +Her voice, which could be so annoyingly calm at times, was deeply +troubled. Charles expressed sympathies, with haste; and, indeed, he felt +them now, oddly and disturbingly. It was as if Miss Trevenna, by that +simple act of getting down off other people's backs, had too suddenly +upset his whole opinion of her. + +"Don't you think, after all," he said presently, "it may be easier for +her somewhere else for a while, than--" + +"Oh, easier in a way, yes! But I know she felt, and I think, too, that +her only hope of really putting her life together again, ever, was +here--where she broke it in two. To go and bury herself among strangers +won't ever settle anything. Oh," exclaimed Mary, "if she could only, +only _marry_ now! I suppose people might stop thinking of her as a +pariah then, I suppose she might come back! But what's the use of +hoping? She's still crazily in love with that man, you see." + +"What!--she _is_! Why'd she leave him then--?" + +The former principal regarded him, drawing on her gloves. She had dark +eyebrows, well-marked and unusually arched; they gave a peculiar +intentness to her blue gaze, and a faint habitual interrogativeness. +Now, perhaps at the young man's expression, she laughed, suddenly and +naturally. Her spirit was not broken certainly. + +"And women are really so awfully simple, too! Of course she left him, +Mr. Garrott, because she didn't think he cared enough for her any longer +to--justify her." + +And, grave again, she asked, directly: "Have you really doubted that she +has a higher ideal of love than half the good people who've wanted to +run her out of the city and stone her?" + +This, indeed, Charles had had no reason to doubt. He, of course, had +never shared the low opinion of a woman, that she had but one virtue, +and that one too crudely appraised. His complaint against this girl had +been upon a wholly different ground--now abruptly fallen beneath his +feet. He was troubled with the sense that this young figure, in +vanishing, had suddenly touched the dignity of tragedy. He had +remembered, with a little shock, that Miss Trevenna was not yet +twenty-five years of age. + +And still, he, the authority, knew that having a high ideal was not +enough. + +As the two moderns left the hotel, he said in a grave manner: "Let me +take you home." + +"No, don't think of it! I'm only going to the car-line," said Mary; and +added absently: "I've been trying all week to go to see Angela, and now +I must." + +"Ah, yes!--certainly!" said the luncheon host hastily, and a look that +could only be described as guilty flitted visibly over his face. + +But this disappeared; the somewhat chastened authoritative look returned +at once. Pursuing his tutorial round, Charles seemed able to think of +nothing else but Mary's ill-starred friend, who had so damaged Mary, who +had so staked and smashed her own life, on a sentence in a book. + +And who put that sentence into a book, and who was going to wipe it out +with another, if not he, Charles? Here, it might be, he had a pointer or +two to give to that great compeer of his, the lady in Sweden. + +He had done Miss Trevenna a serious wrong, of course; he had judged her +by the company she kept. It was an age when cheeky "prophets" were +shouting from every bush a New philosophy which amounted to this: that +civilized society must be made accommodating to self-indulgent people. +They did not mention, very probably they did not know, that it had not +been easy to civilize society, and that self-indulgent people had not +done the job. With such shallow egoists he had classed Miss Trevenna; +and now, silent still, she had finely refuted him. There was, indeed, a +quality not for little folk in this girl's fierce imprudences. At the +test, she had repudiated the Ego, kicked off all the meanness and +flabbiness of her teachings. But in the meantime, unfortunately, these +teachings had done for her. + +And it seemed to Charles Garrott, tramping intently along (for the +downpour gave him the freedom of the streets to-day) that it would be a +sweet and glorious thing if, say, a dozen of these leathern-lunged +professors of a new chaos could be gathered up, from the studies and +libraries where they sat so snug around the world, and brought here to +share this girl's catastrophe and go with her in her exile. And by +George!--they shouldn't squirm out by trying to blame it all on a mere +ignorant Public Opinion either! No, he, Charles, having a lot of them +together thus, would improve the occasion to explain, once and for all, +that freedom was not a thing that any chance passer could pick up and +use, like a cane; but, rather, the last difficult conquest of a unified +race. He would inform them that it was only too fatally easy to act +"free," at others' expense, the difficult and important thing being, +precisely, not so to act. And as to love, he would hammer into their +thick heads that the way to freedom was NOT through the delightfully +easy course of "demonstrating experiment" by self-elected Exceptional +People, but by the far more difficult demonstration that men and women +could be strong and constant in their affections, and trustworthy in +their passions. + +There, indeed, was a demonstration for Exceptional People to get to work +on at once. Why write large books to declare that "the great love" was +its own justification. Why waste good ink upon an ideal truism? On what +day would a New book-writer teach men and women how to love greatly, or +how to tell even a little love from love's baser counterfeit? So long as +every schoolboy, drawn by a brief spark, will swear that his is the +great love; so long as men greatly love one person this year, and next +year quite another; so long as they will gladly deceive themselves, or +ape emotions above them, lest they must deny themselves a passing +indulgence: thus long would untrustworthy mortals need the hard +restraint of Law. + +"Why, if men and women had the quality of love needed to make 'freedom' +work," thought the tutor suddenly, sloshing along toward the +Choristers', "they wouldn't need the freedom! No, then they'd be +perfectly satisfied with monogamous marriage." + +Decidedly impressed with this epigram, Charles thought at once of "Notes +on Women." To draw the ruined life of Miss Trevenna across the line of +his new novel had, of course, come into his mind while he yet talked +with Mary. But he was fully aware that not one novel, or five, would +ever plumb bottom here. + +Nevertheless, these thoughts pursued the young man through his lesson +with Miss Grace Chorister, and up to the very door of the Studio. There, +he suddenly became a working author again. + +It was now five-thirty o'clock in the rainy afternoon. The demands of +hospitality had forced the postponement of Miss Grace a full hour, and +the cutting altogether of the old lady who was studying French. Entering +his retreat thus belatedly, Charles shot a look ahead at the +writing-table, according to his habit. A letter lay on the table, +wearing a distinctly business air; and when the young man was still +several paces off, he saw that the envelope bore the name of "Willcox's +Weekly." + +For the most part, Charles's communications from editors had come to him +in long envelopes of an ominous, a rejectional, fatness. Now it was his +hour to see other samples from the editorial envelope supply, square +envelopes, gratifyingly thin. Breaking the square thin envelope of +"Willcox's Weekly" with nervous hurry, Charles read:-- + + DEAR MR. GARROTT:-- + + We have pleasure in accepting your interesting sketch of Miss + Wing, for early publication in the WEEKLY. Our "Persons in the + Foreground" department is always in the market for entertaining + material of this character. + + Check for $20 will follow in due course. We are, with thanks, + + Yours sincerely, + + WILLCOX'S WEEKLY. + +Having read these few lines once, the author, still standing, read them +again, and yet again. Upon his lip was the faint smile it had worn when +he looked at Mary at the luncheon--before she began telling him things +for his good. He was fairly entitled to wear this smile; but now it +seemed in danger of becoming fixed for life. + +He was selling write-ups of Mary like hot cakes; there was no other word +for it. He had written and sent out three write-ups--an unprecedented +number about a single person--and now he had sold two of them already. +He had hoped to plant, say, one write-up among the weeklies--to get +quick results--and now he had planted two in the weeklies. Moreover, the +third write-up had been in the hands of a famous weekly for ten days +now. + +That he had managed it all with remarkable adroitness, the young man +could not conceal from himself. Cunningly enough, he had based all the +write-ups on the fact that Mary Wing, at thirty, had risen almost to the +top of a large city school system, where no woman had ever risen before. +For that made Mary a public figure; that justified the write-ups. But, +the bait thus thrown, he had given to each eulogy a special character +and thesis of its own, always with an eye to local effects. This piece +here, for example, which "Willcox's Weekly" found so extremely +interesting and entertaining, concerned Mary the Freewoman, and touched +delicately yet with vigor upon her late persecution for righteousness' +sake. And this piece, the most personal and the best of the lot, alone +bore the signature of Charles King Garrott. He had got Hartwell to sign +one, Elsie White Story, President of the State Equal Suffrage League, +to sign another. And only yesterday, Mrs. Story had telephoned that +_her_ piece (Mary the "Feminist"--only you may be sure Charles had not +used that horrible word) had been gobbled up by the "Saturday Review," +and sent around the "Review's" delightful letter. + +So Charles could recall Mary's hard saying, that day at the High School, +with a sense of triumph now. She, who had said he couldn't help her, had +rather overlooked this gift he had, his power and his art. +Unquestionably, the thing was going to break big: she would have the +surprise of her life.... + +"Great heavens! _How I can write!_" suddenly exulted the young man, +throwing out his arms. "I'll beat 'em all some day!" + +Upon which, exactly as at a cue in a play, the door from the bedroom +opened, slowly and quietly. And there stood Judge Blenso in the crack, a +flat package in his hand. + +Between uncle and nephew there passed a long stare. The uncle began to +turn a little pale. But it was the nephew who spoke first, nervously and +yet expectantly too:-- + +"Prepare yourself, Charles, my dear fellow! I much fear it's +'Bandwomen'!" + + * * * * * + +It was a long time before he was alone again. + +There were moments in every writer's life, of course, when he was +obliged to wish frankly that he didn't have to have a secretary. What a +writer most wanted at times was solitude, just a chance to sit quietly +and think things over. + +A great while Judge Blenso had pottered about under his little red +"Nothing But Business, Please" sign. Now he was posting elaborate +entries in his secretary's book, now he sang sweetly to himself over +wrapping-paper, paste, and twine. For if his sedentary employer's +failure to blow up, this time, had momentarily nonplussed the Judge, the +sight of the letter from "Willcox's Weekly" had raised him to the +highest spirits again at once. That distant people, entire strangers, +were actually proving willing to exchange real money for words written +by Charles there, and typed by him, Judge Blenso,--here was a delightful +thing, full of novelty and promise. And nothing would do, of course, but +that he must start the rejected novel out upon another journey to New +York without loss of a moment's time. Business _before_ pleasure, rain +_or_ shine. That was _his_ way. + +But he went at last, to make his toilet for the express-office. And +Charles, alone, sat taking stock, with no more exultation. + +Blank and Finney's letter had proved to be twin-sister to the remembered +letter from Willcox Brothers Company. That is to say, it was rejection, +flat and unqualified. But this time, after the first shock, Charles had +perceived that he did not seem to be much surprised. It appeared that +his expectation of the old novel had, after all, died violently on that +other day. It was almost as if he himself had come to despise the old +novel, because the publishers despised it--as if that were any +reason... + +From the mantel he had plucked a thick ledger entitled (on a neatly +typed label), THE RECORD. This ledger was the great work of Judge +Blenso's life, and large enough for twenty authors. Here the Judge set +down, with much pains and a striking assortment of colored inks, the +detailed progress of each of Charles's manuscripts: "When Finished," +"When Sent Out," "Where Sent," "Editor's Decision," "Editor's Comments +if Any," "Remarks," etc. On these pages, the essential part of +"Bondwomen's" career (officially known as Entry 2) was thus recorded:-- + + _Comments + _Decision._ if Any._ + + 1. Willcox Brothers + Company Adverse. Declined for + financial reasons. + + 2. Blank and Finney do. do. + +The Record now showed nine entries, including the novel. Entry I was +"The Truth About Jennie," which the Judge had insisted on posting in, to +give a tone of success to his work at the outset. Entries 3, 4, 5, and 6 +were short stories; Entries 7, 8, and 9, the write-ups of Mary. The +pages devoted to the write-ups made, as we know, stimulating reading, +but with the fiction entries the case was otherwise. Here under +"Comments if Any," the words "See printed form, on file," appeared with +monotonous, indeed sickening, regularity. The Record did show, indeed, +that the "Universal," in rejecting Entry 5,--"When Amy Left Home,"--had +written a personal letter furnishing the Judge with this "Comment": +"Excellently written, but claimed unsuited to his present needs. Let him +hear from us again." Otherwise, rejection was unmitigated. + +A scant showing for the work of four years, look at it how you would. +One examining these coldly dispassionate annals would probably say, +offhand, that there was but one form of writing Charles King Garrott was +qualified to do: that was the write-up form. He had just read his two +letters again, his acceptance and his rejection, side by side. Unusual +and peculiar it seemed that the only writing he had sold for money, +since "Jennie," was this series of articles designed to bring fame to +Mary Wing. Of course, as far as that went, a man would like a little +fame for himself, now and then.... + +"Why, I'm a fool to think I can write!" groaned the young man, suddenly. +"I'm wasting my life! I ought to be carrying bricks up a ladder." + +His fall from complacence was, indeed, complete. However, every writer +knows these little ups and downs. It may be, that Charles did not +believe his bitter words, even then. And now his secretary reentered, +checking thought. + +"Well! Now for the express!" + +Judge Blenso wore a new English mackintosh and an olive felt hat, +rakishly turned up in front. No board of social investigators could have +commended him for spending virtually all his wage upon his back; but the +results seemed always to justify him none the less. + +"And, my dear fellow!--you shouldn't worry, as the expression goes! +Bandwomen's a charmin' novel, a charmin' sweet love-story, and James +Potter Sons'll be sure to take it--gad, by the first mail!" + +Having seen it with his own eyes in Willcoxes' famous letter, the Judge +was now finally convinced that "Bandwomen" was the correct title of +Entry 2, just as he had said in the beginning. Further argument being +useless, the young man returned a vague reply. + +"And there's that other idea of mine, too," said the Judge genially, +halting with his package under his arm--"bringing your sketches of Miss +Wing out in book form! Put in Entry 1, too 'Jennie's Truth,' if we +liked--make a regular holiday giftbook! Gad, you know, Miss Wing's +little pupils at the school would give us a whackin' sale!" + +He went out blithe upon his duty. After an interval, the adoring voice +of Mrs. Herman floated up, beseeching him to put on his ar'tics. + +At the Studio table Charles sat, struggling to get down to work. He had +put away The Record, put away embittered thoughts. But he did not get +down to work with much success all the same, the reason being that his +great Subject, unluckily, was no longer clear in his mind. + +From the table-drawer he had produced a stack of manuscript, an inch +high; and now he sat, not reading it, but merely disapproving it _en +masse_. The stack was his premature effort to begin, really to begin his +new novel--six chapters of the new novel written, fifteen thousand +words. Launching upon this draft an hour after he finished Mary the +Freewoman, he had pushed on, night after night, at first with confident +rapidity. Latterly, he had become conscious of an increasing sense of +resistance. And now he knew that all this was mere waste stuff, +accomplishing nothing but to show him what not to write. + +Well, but what to write then? What did he really want to say? It was +absurd; but he did not know. It really seemed that he saw too much to +settle, with enthusiasm, upon anything. By constant accessions of fresh +understanding, his centre of balance, his novel's chief prerequisite, +was kept in a continuous state of flux.... + +Of "material" on the Unrest, Charles possessed a superfluity; of +"plots," of "significant characters" and "illustrative incidents," his +head was fuller than his pencil would ever write. His problem, of +course, had always been for the fixed point of view and the moral +"line." No longer could he be satisfied with that crude, simple line +which had contented him in his first book, which still contented the +other fellows: the line which "proved," as _Lily Stender_ proved, that +economic independence was the automatic salvation of women. He knew that +wasn't the whole story now. As for writing a book to show that Woman's +Place was the Home, of course that had never crossed his mind, even when +most strongly gripped by conservative reactions. His quest was for a +framework which should develop conflicting values on a far finer scale. + +Of course, what he should have liked to show was a wholly admirable +woman: one who combined all the sane competence and human worth of the +best new women, with the soft faculty for supplying beauty and charm of +her old-fashioned sister. But that day in Mary's office had left him +with the honest suspicion that such a goddess did not exist, and +couldn't. From the other direction also, as noted, his delicate scales +had been joggled, with unsettling literary effects. The too hasty +manuscript on the writing-table by no means followed the "line" the +author had first plotted, prior to his meditations in the Green Park, +after the bridge-party. No, in this draft the Home-Maker was married and +had three children in Chapter One. Through all, the desire to rebuke the +egoism of the day had persisted, as clearly the point of view most +inviting to him, fullest of possibilities. And now Miss Trevenna, in +some way, had disturbed and unsettled him there too.... + +The rain beat against the Studio windows. The green-shaded lamp burned +dully on the author's table. Big Bill, without surcease, ticked off the +author's minutes. Charles rubbed the bridge of his nose, pondering +deeply. Just now, as he turned the pages of his private book--where the +essay form had long since been abandoned, where appeared the most +surprising vacillations of authoritative opinion--he had made a somewhat +striking discovery. It had suddenly come upon him that "Notes on Women" +had, gradually but distinctly, dwindled down into "Notes on Mary," +"Notes on Angela Flower," and "Notes on Flora Trevenna." In short, it +appeared that, in the most unconscious way, he had been seeking to +extract his "line" from his own story, as it were, from "life." + +The discovery came upon the young man as most arresting and significant. + +"And I don't know where I stand, that's just the trouble! I ought to +wait awhile," he thought, aloud. "See how it all works out.... Things'll +be turning up...." + +On which--once more--Judge Blenso's picturesque head came sticking +through the Studio door, and Judge Blenso's rich voice said, +officially:-- + +"Young gentleman here with a letter, Mr. Garrott. Admit him?" + +Returning to actuality with a slight start, Charles replied, "Admit +him--certainly!" A day for letters, indeed! + +Forthwith, the Judge standing aside, the young gentleman stepped into +the Studio. A grave-looking young gentleman he proved to be, of some +sixteen years, perhaps, with a dome-like forehead, a resolute mouth, and +thick spectacles. He entered in silence, in silence held out the missive +referred to. + +"Good-evening," said Charles. "Thank you. This comes from--?" + +"My sister, Angela Flower." + +The young man's heart seemed to drop a little. + +"Ah, yes! And--ah--is there--an answer?--" + +"I'll wait and see," said Wallie Flower, following instructions, in a +deep, calm voice. + +"Ah, yes. Sit down a moment, won't you?" + +He essayed a bright negligence which he was far from feeling: this thing +had come suddenly. No amount of scientific argument, no recollection of +sharp rebukes received, had ever convinced Charles that he had cut a +fine figure in the affair on the sofa. Indeed, the very ease with which +he had avoided all further consequences of his Rash Act, by the purely +mechanical device of street-cars, had deepened, rather than diminished +his consciousness of obligations unfulfilled, of caddishness, in short. +To salute a girl tenderly after her bridge-party, and then never go +within a mile of her again--well, that _was_ a little crude, say what you +would. + +Hence Mr. Garrott, opening Angela's envelope with the blurred "Mr.," +anticipated bitter reproaches, anticipated being termed a brute again, +and called on to be honorable without further delay. Hence again, as his +eye leapt over the neat lines, and found only sweet forgiveness and +generous friendliness, he felt a sudden upstarting of relief and +gratitude. A more perfect note had never been written! Why, the charming +girl wasn't expecting anything of him at all! + +Or, rather, nothing at all worth mentioning. On a second glance through +the perfect note, the hypercritical young man did observe an expression +or two not up to the general standard, perhaps. "I did not think it +would be so long before I would see you again." "When you are not so +busy, you must come in to see me." On the whole, it could be argued that +it was rather a mistake to put those sentences in. Fine as the note was, +it would have been a little finer still without them. Yet, under the +circumstances, what more natural? And of course, as far as that went, he +and the city traction system had the issue in their hands. + +So Charles looked up buoyantly at the bearer of good tidings, to speak. + +The bearer, however, had clearly forgotten his presence. He had remained +standing, three feet from the table-end, and was found to be gazing, in +the most pointed manner, at the old Studio lamp. The grave face of Miss +Angela's brother plainly expressed amusement, and a certain good-natured +contempt. + +"Hello!" said Charles, diverted. "Anything wrong there?" + +Without turning, the boy answered with a small dry chuckle: "Yes. +Pretty near everything." + +"Well! I've noticed it hasn't been burning well. Need a new mantel, I +suppose--" + +"New mantel won't do you any good long's your air-draft's choked that +way." + +"Oh! So that's the trouble, is it?" + +"That's one of them. P'r'aps you like it that way?" + +The proprietor of the lamp having disclaimed such a fancy, the strange +lad said: "Well, I'll fix it for you, then. Sit steady." + +He reached up an arm long as a monkey's, which shed drops of water on +the writing-table, and the green glow suddenly faded out, leaving the +Studio in total darkness. + +Out of the Stygian gloom Charles said: "There's another light there. +I'll--" + +"I know. Thought I might as well look into that one, too, while I'm at +it. Just give your globe and chimney a minute to cool." + +"Oh, of course!--certainly." + +"Don't s'pose you want to stand a new mantel for the lamp?" + +"I'm enough of a sport, but I fear there's not a new one in the house." + +"Hold it for me, please," said the boy. + +A pinpoint of light had appeared in the blackness; it moved toward +Charles's hand. He received the little searchlight, let it go out, +hastily found and pushed the button again. And then Miss Angela's +brother began to take his lamp all apart, cleaning it, blowing through +it at unexpected places, and wiping the parts with a dark oily rag, +which, luckily enough, he seemed to have in his coat-pocket. + +The lad's single-mindedness, his un-selfconscious matter-of-factness had +attracted Charles at sight. He recalled what Mary Wing had told him of +Wallie Flower's struggles to get an education. Thus, as the +light-repairing proceeded in the almost total darkness, a conversation +grew up, at first largely question and answer. And the upshot of it was +that Charles, as a tutor, offered to instruct Wallie Flower, free +gratis, in German and English, the two college entrance subjects in +which he was still somewhat deficient. + +This odd development came at the end of the talk, when the illuminating +power of both Charles's and the Judge's lights had been notably +improved. When the brother understood that further education was being +offered him for nothing, a gleam came suddenly into his oddly mature +gaze. + +He almost exclaimed: "Do you know German?" + +"You might say I wrote it." + +He pondered. "That means you do know it?" + +"Like a member of the family." + +"Do you teach nights?" + +"I'm going to teach you nights." + +And it was so arranged, the lessons to begin directly after Christmas. +The boy became briefly embarrassed, boggling over his thanks. But +Charles cut him short. "I'm doing it because I want to. That's the only +reason I ever do anything." + +Relieved, Miss Angela's brother turned to the door, for all the world +like one who had come to mend the lamps, and nothing else. + +"By the way," said Charles, casually. "Thank your sister for her note, +and say that I'll send an answer by mail." + +He was left pleased with the interview, and with himself. In the +generous gift of three hours a week to Angela's brother, he perceived +something fitting and compensatory. If obligation existed--and it did, +in a way--did not this discharge it, subtly and modernly? Kiss the +sister on the sofa, tutor the brother in the Studio--what more fair or +honorable than that? + +One thing had rather struck him, of course--Wallie Flower's saying that +he had hated to come away from Mitchellton. This, it seemed, had been +chiefly due to Mr. Bush, the boy's science teacher at the Mitchellton +Academy, whom Wallie clearly adored, whose eyebrows he had blown off in +an experiment only last summer. As he had previously understood that +both the Doctor and Mrs. Flower had also been attached to Mitchellton, +it really appeared that Miss Angela was the only member of the family +who had actually desired to make the move. And she had moved. + +But this thought--like the hypercriticisms on the note--merely knocked +at the door of the young man's mind and passed on. He felt himself +warming anew toward this simple Type, with its charming friendly +instincts and its sweet forgiveness of the stormy ways of men. On his +return from his holiday, he resolved that he would give Angela some +token of his regard more substantial than a note by mail: send her, say, +with that book of hers, a costly box of appreciative blossoms. + + + + +XII + + +Unlike the ladies in the books, Angela, regrettably enough, did not get +a "sheaf of letters" every morning. Mr. Garrott's answer to her note, +which lay beside her breakfast-plate on the second day following, was, +indeed, her only mail that week. Hence it was with feelings of +excitement that she seized a table-fork and hastily slit the envelope. + +Angela read:-- + + DEAR MISS FLOWER: + + May I say how deeply I appreciate your note? And will you + please believe that I have blamed myself entirely for what you + so generously call our misunderstanding? While, of course, I + must continue to blame myself, you cannot know how pleasant it + is to be permitted to feel that you have forgiven me. + + With the deepest appreciation, and all the good wishes of the + season, believe me, + + Yours sincerely, + + CHARLES KING GARROTT. + +It must be said of this note that it was the sort that puts its best +foot foremost. First impressions of it were agreeable, but it did not +wear. On the second reading, Angela perceived that, though as nice as +possible, Mr. Garrott's reply said nothing about calling, which, in a +manner of speaking, was the true subject of the correspondence. By the +time she had read the reply half a dozen times, she found it flatly +disappointing. Two days later, when she heard through Cousin Mary Wing +that Mr. Garrott had gone to the country, not to return till after the +New Year, she was conscious of a sudden and pervading hopelessness. + +The feeling applied, not to her principal friend alone, but to all the +conditions of her life. + +Angela understood, of course, that Mr. Garrott's remarkable offer to +tutor Wallie for nothing was an attention to her, and a very handsome +one. Still, it was not just the sort of attention that a young girl +prizes most, perhaps; and in especial it did not meet the needs of this +particular situation. To have a busy man-friend teaching German to your +little brother on your account is very flattering, indeed; but it does +not necessarily lead to the early clearing-up of a personal +misunderstanding. That Mr. Garrott had been much worried by their +misunderstanding, all along, Angela had known, by means of that womanly +intuition of which we read so much; now his note said so, in so many +words. But, manlike, he still did not see that, at heart, she was the +same girl that had attracted him so in the beginning, and that if he +would but call, she would make everything as it had been before. + +How was she ever to see him again now? + +At nineteen, youth accepts life's vicissitudes unquestioningly, but at +twenty-five, a womanly woman (if still without a home, a husband and +three curly-headed little children) has had time to whittle a number of +observations to a fairly sharp point. Angela thought her situation a +hard one, and it was. Wealth, influence, valuable connections--these +aids were not for her. All the ordinary opportunities enjoyed by girls +"in society," she lacked--in chief, opportunities of meeting people +casually, as at parties, of seeing the same people again and again, +under the most agreeable auspices. Her family simply failed to put her +in a party position, as it might be called; in consequence of which, it +came to this, that really her only meeting-place for the few people she +knew was on the street, walking. And even at the best, of course, that +method (by the mere laws of choice and chance) was most unsatisfactory. + +Suppose that Mr. Garrott _had_ been taking walks all the time, for +instance, but, by reason of her having called him a brute, was choosing +other streets--how was she to know? A city is a big place, and one young +girl in a tight skirt cannot walk very fast or far, or cover a large +amount of space in a given time. + +"Marna" alone was outstanding; and it carried but the slenderest +anticipations. Moreover, that question, all these depressing questions, +were academic now, and would be for weeks to come. The little coterie +had scattered far, and she had no means of filling the empty places. + +There followed the dreariest days Angela had known since winter before +last in Mitchellton. + +"How can you _expect_ anybody to notice us, mother?" she exclaimed, one +day. "The family of a poor, obscure doctor, living in a _hut_ on a back +street, with not a living soul to help us! I think it's remarkable I +accomplish as much as I do." + +It was on this day, a cold Sunday afternoon shortly before Christmas, +that the lonely girl carried out a good intention she had had in mind +for some time. She wrote a long, intimate, sisterly letter to her +favorite brother Tommy, who had got so far away since he married money +in Pittsburg. + +Angela had just come in from a freezing, eventless walk with Fanny +Warder. (Fanny, who as Mrs. Flower said, had made a great success of her +life, marrying at twenty, seemed to be on an indefinite "visit"; there +was talk, of course.) Having first thawed her hands at her register, +which was supposed to waft up heat from the stove in the dining-room +below, but didn't particularly, Angela drew up her rocking-chair into +the zone of ostensible warmth. She sat with one slender foot curled +under her, by a trick that no man has ever mastered. And this time she +had not searched for the formal tools of a note-writer, but employed a +stub of a pencil and a pad upon her lifted knee. + +"Dearest Tommy," wrote Angela, and followed with a solid paragraph of +very affectionate greeting. She went on:-- + + Well, Tommy, I promised to write you how things were, after we + got settled down. I must say the outlook is rather discouraging + at times--and home isn't what it was as you remember it! Do you + remember what fun we used to have even in Hunter's + Run--driving in to "the balls"--and how fine it was in + Mitchellton as long as you were there? Well, everything is + _sadly_ changed now! Wallie, I'm afraid, hasn't improved as he + gets older, he seems to rarely or never think of anybody but + himself--and, of course, having fun is simply something he + _doesn't care for_! He shuts himself up in his room every + night, making horrible mixtures in a "sink" he's put in--that + smell up the whole house, and never _dreams_ of contributing to + the housekeeping expenses--though he's been raised now to _ten + dollars a week_! Father is sadly changed, he gets quieter and + quieter all the time. + + Sometimes I'm really worried about him, he's so _indifferent_! + He never jokes any more, and doesn't try to get any patients, + though I _know_ he could get lots with his reputation. He seems + despondent, Tommy, and sometimes doesn't even come in for his + office-hour--and the other day he lost a patient that way that + the Finchmans sent, she waited half an hour and then went! But + though he may have liked the country life better; and let us + all _vegetate_; that can't be it--for he certainly made no + objection when the family _consensus_ seemed to be that we + should move here! Of course, we have to face the fact that he + and mother aren't very _congenial_, it is her problem, and + while I wouldn't criticize mother for worlds and she certainly + does her duty as wife and mother--I do think it's a _great + mistake_ for her to always make her attitude a sort of + _reproach_, saying how "she's sacrificed herself to him" and + all--you know what I mean-- + + Mother really gets along better than any of us--especially as I + now do _all_ the work of the entire house! + +The young writer paused, staring chillily at the register. She rarely +looked out the window now, hers being the blank certainty that there +would be nothing to see. Moreover, it was dusk. So, rising presently, +she lighted the gas, and resumed her sad sisterly letter. + +Of her mother she wrote in some detail: of the various friends of her +girlhood she had renewed acquaintance with, and how she was always +exchanging calls with Cousin This or Martha That, who was So-and-So +before she married. To Angela, it had really seemed funny how all these +connections of her mother's, whose social possibilities they had so +often discussed before they left Mitchellton, had resolved themselves +into dejected old ladies who had had unhappy marriages, and whose +children had also had unhappy marriages, as a rule, or were in some +other way unavailable as friends. Out of five families thus exhumed by +Mrs. Flower, positively only one unattached young person had emerged, +and this one, named Jennie Finchman (!), while certainly well-meaning, +was a shy, anxious, painfully homely little thing who had never had a +good time in her life, and gave all her pocket-money to a mission in the +Dutch East Indies. + + Well, Tommy [continued Angela], I've tried to give you a + picture of the new home like I promised--and I only wish it was + more encouraging! As for myself--the only outside person I had + to help me was Cousin Mary Wing, and she is a "New Woman," as I + wrote you in my Thanksgiving Day letter, and doesn't go with + anybody but _advanced older_ people!--and, besides, she got + into a terrible scrape, poor dear, and was dismissed from the + school! Cousin Mary, it's only fair to say, has done more for + me than anybody else, introducing me to her older woman + friends--who have called on me, and several have invited me to + teas, lectures, and etc.! But, of course, none of them were + _social_ people really, or at least of the younger set--and I + practically haven't been invited to a single party, except + "dove ones"! The one exception was a meeting of an "advanced + club," where I met several attractive men, who have been as + nice to me as you could _possibly expect_. + + But the truth is, Tommy, money counts a great deal more here + than it did in Mitchellton; all the girls who are prominent + socially have wealthy families behind them! I think I would + hold up the family end quite well on very little--but I have + hardly a decent "rag to my back," my _clothes_ let everybody + know I am a person of _no importance_, so the little inner + circle sees no reason to take me up,--mother and I have figured + that with only _fifty dollars_ I could get a really nice new + suit, and a simple evening dress as well,--and perhaps hat and + shoes, all of which I _sorely need_! But, of course, poor + father simply hasn't got such a sum, and Wallie puts all his in + the bank--for college next year, he has $240 there now! Tommy, + you know I don't mean to accuse the family of being + selfish,--father told us in advance that we would be poorer + here,--but besides that--nobody in the family but you ever + seemed to _understand_ that a girl can't accomplish anything + unless she is given some sort of a _chance_. Even mother + doesn't understand, she just thinks "things happen"! She is + always telling how in _her_ day men would work hard all day + "superintending the farms"--and then at night ride twenty miles + on horseback, to just talk for an hour to some girl of no + special attractions! I can't make her see that men simply + _aren't like that_ any more. + +The concluding paragraph of the letter merely described the writer's own +daily round, especially touching on the dull walks, so rarely broken by +a familiar face, which remained almost her only form of recreation. Here +Angela decided to put in one sentence in a less reserved vein, which she +did: "Well, Tommy, if you mean to make any thank-offerings to 'the poor' +this Christmas, you know where they will be _most appreciated_!" But, as +she loved her brother devotedly, it was also natural for her to return +to a sweet and generous note in farewell: "For your sake, Tommy, I am +glad you aren't here, with all the trials and hardships, but out in the +world having a happy life of your own!" + +The completion, stamping, and sending-off of the letter to Tommy left +Angela with a sense of definite accomplishment. It was as if something +pleasant had happened in the family at last, or at least was going to +happen very soon. Unfortunately, however, this agreeable feeling, having +such small relation to reality, was born but to sicken and die. Time +proceeded with no pleasanter happenings than before, and a letter from +Daniel Jenney, of Mitchellton--whose ring had caused the trouble--became +a positive event. + +By now, no doubt, the first natural excitement of "going to the city" to +live had subsided. Enthusiastic anticipations had been rubbed bare by +hard actuality, poverty, Finchmans, and so on. By this time also the +young home-maker had systematized her housekeeping, as she herself +said, and commonly ordered from butcher and grocer by means of Mrs. +Doremus's telephone, three doors away. With experience, too, Angela had +cut down the daily area of cleaning and polishing, from her first +youthful excesses. Small incentive there was to rub your fingers to the +bone on a house which was hopeless from the start, and which practically +nobody but her mother's sad friends ever set foot in. Thus--and also +through the all but eccentric indifference of the men of her family to +beauty and charm--Angela had more time than ever for thinking. And the +more she thought, the more clearly she saw that social progress in a +strange city was solely a matter of what might be called favorable +self-advertisement, and that this sort of advertisement, in her case at +least, was solely a matter of just a little money. + +But where was money to come from? Little could be expected from Tommy, +even at the best. As for the housekeeping allowance (on which +home-makers properly rely for some personal "pickings"), that held out, +alas, yet frailer hopes. So closely had her father and mother calculated +the budget, indeed, that in three months she had squeezed but five +dollars and a half out of it: this, though she had early investigated +the cheaper cuts of meat and learned the desirability of never paying +cash. + +"Oh," thought the girl, again and again,--"if father'd _only_ get some +patients!" + +Mary Wing's pretty sitting-room had, indeed, established definitely in +Angela's mind the close connection between money and work in an office. +But, for the sound reasons explained by her to Cousin Mary, Angela could +never consider work in an office as a possibility for herself. What, +really, would become of the Home, while she went rushing daily to an +office, to make money for her personal adornment? Besides, she could not +but see that Cousin Mary was herself proof of the fact that going to an +office had a very unfortunate effect upon a girl. Argue as you liked, +the fact remained that, even in this so-called advanced age, the normal, +sweet, attractive girls, the girls who were prominent socially, were +never office-girls. + +In short, how to get money without working for it? That, truly, was the +great question confronting every nice girl, every womanly woman.... + +To Angela, it gradually came to seem that nothing pleasant was ever to +happen to her again. Not only that, but the pleasantest sort of things +seemed to be happening all the time to everybody else. + +Returning Mary Wing's call one day, in the hope of news (Cousin Mary's +disgrace was being generously forgiven, now that the Badwoman had gone +away), Angela picked up two items that depressed her curiously. One was +that Donald Manford had got that position he was trying for in Wyoming: +that meant that one member of the coterie would vanish for good within +three months' time. The other item concerned a remarkable series of +articles about Cousin Mary that were coming out in the magazines all of +a sudden, and which Cousin Mary said were written by Mr. Garrott, though +admitting that his name wasn't signed to them. The Finchmans, whom +Angela had met on the street, said, "How do you like having a celebrity +for a cousin?" Cousin Mary, for her part, seemed to like being a +celebrity immensely. Angela had never seen her in such high spirits; it +really seemed in bad taste, considering the recent past. And, of course, +Angela wondered a little if Mr. Garrott, the departed, wouldn't have +written something about her, too, but for the misunderstanding. + +A chance meeting with Mr. Tilletts, on the way home from this visit, +hardly helped much. The seeking widower, afoot for once, had seemed +hurried; he merely paused for a hasty word or two, and then was on his +way again. + +"Considering I haven't a soul to help me, I think I've done remarkably +well," the girl protested once more, as if answering an inner voice, to +her mother next day. "We've been here only a little while, and I have +three men-friends already." + +"Who is the third?" inquired Mrs. Flower. + +When Angela mentioned Mr. Tilletts, her mother said, laconically: "He +has never called." + +"Men don't call any more, mother, I've said again and again! It's +practically gone out." + +Not feeling very well to-day, she lay in an old wrapper atop the +sway-backed bed. Mrs. Flower sat, for company, by the outlooking window, +dutifully stitching at a frilly "waist" which Angela had begun, but not +finished. But her mother was a beautiful seamstress and really enjoyed +an occasional task. + +"Besides," said Angela, listlessly making a dimple in her pretty cheek +with the end of a bone-handled button-hook, "I think Mr. Tilletts will +call. He specially asked to--only a little while ago." + +Mrs. Flower, after a speaking silence, observed: "Donald Manford never +sent you the post-card from Wyoming." + +"Well--all the time in the world hasn't passed yet, mother!" + +"Your Cousin Ellie Finchman says he is deeply interested in this Miss +Carson. She hears he has made her an offer." + +"How could Mrs. Finchman possibly know that, mother? Besides, _I_ don't +care! I like Mr. _Tilletts_ better than Mr. Manford!" + +Coming to bloom in the age of Chivalry, Angela's mother had enjoyed a +great deal of "attention" before she decided to bestow herself upon the +worthy Doctor. Hence it was constitutional with her to take a belittling +position toward less successful young women, including even her own +daughter. Equally natural was it for Angela, with no such opportunities +as her mother had had, to hold fast to what successes she had, and even, +it may be, for memory to magnify them somewhat. And yet, in the +freemasonry of women, she never resented her mother's coolly judicial +summaries, and in this case, frankly felt the maternal slap to be +justified. Really, Mr. Manford had never paid her any direct attentions, +which perhaps had something or other to do with her admiring him so +little as yet. + +On this day, the lonely young girl's spirits seemed to touch their +nadir. How _could_ anything pleasant happen? There was no imaginable +way. + +"Oh, mother!" she exclaimed, with an exasperation rare to her. "Why, +_why_, couldn't you and father give us _one_ relation that would help +us? Did you ever _hear_ of any poor people before that didn't have a +_single_ rich relation?" + +Then she cried out: "Oh, _please_ don't mention Mrs. Ashburton!" + +It was surely the most natural, reasonable, and human complaint in the +world. In family talk, it had an established standing, too, having first +been formulated far back at Hunter's Run. But now it was as if Angela +had flung her challenge in the teeth of fate once oftener than fate +could stand. + +On the very next day, in brief, the fairy godmother came rolling up to +the door. + +We read how it is always darkest just before the dawn. Angela, who knew +that pleasant things rarely just happened, indoors, had gone out, so it +was that she missed the direct distribution of gifts. But, as it +chanced, she had been having her first really good time, since the +earlier part of the bridge-party. In fact, on Washington Street, at +about the same time and place, she had met Mr. Tilletts again; and now +he was not hurried at all. It pleasantly developed that Mr. Tilletts's +doctor had ordered him to stop riding around in his great car, and that +henceforth he would be walking constantly. Moreover, the genial gallant, +after a considerable promenade, had taken Angela to tea at Mrs. +Hasseltine's famous shop, and, at parting--sure enough--made a +provisional engagement to call "one evening this week." Altogether, the +coterie seemed in a fair way to pick up a new member, after all. + +Whether fascinating or overplump, Widower Tilletts unquestionably +possessed the magic power, wielded by man alone, to restore the +self-esteem of a neglected young girl. Angela opened the front door of +home in a livelier humor than had been hers for weeks. And so entering, +she found her mother standing in the hall, and heard at once tidings +which, though not for her exactly, yet made her forget herself +altogether. + +Mrs. Ashburton had been, and gone. Mrs. Ashburton was going to send +Wallie to college, at once. Mrs. Ashburton was going to give Wallie +_five hundred dollars a year_, till he had got his education. + +This oft-cited lady, at last the waver of the magic wand, was Mrs. +Flower's first cousin. Close friends in their girlhood, their ways had +long ago parted; and, since Dr. and Mrs. Flower's visit to New York in +1896, amenities between them had hardly gone beyond an exchange of cards +at Christmas. But now it happened that Mrs. Ashburton, _en route_ to a +balmier clime than hers, had "broken her trip" here, after the frequent +way of tourists, and, having duly viewed the sights of the city from a +cab window through the morning, had bethought her to look up her +resident kin. So the rich relation came to the little house on Center +Street. + +By chance, it was Saturday afternoon, and Wallie was alone in the house. +It seemed that an experiment he had been working on for days had just +turned out a failure, and he had opened all the windows and the front +door by way of letting out the smell. But even then he did not see the +lady standing on the steps, so intent was he on the large glass retort +in his hand. His face was quite white, and beaded with perspiration. So +Mrs. Ashburton had described it to Mrs. Flower, who came in to find her +just leaving for hotel and train. She had asked: "What are you looking +at that brown liquid so hard for?" "That's it; it's brown," Wallie had +muttered, still without looking at her. "You mean it ought to have +turned out white?" said she. "No, green," said Wallie, frowning and +squinting. "Where'd the chlorine go to?" "Why do you care so much?" Mrs. +Ashburton asked, more and more interested. "Why do I _care_?" he said, +scornfully; and then, as if becoming conscious of her, personally, for +the first time, he turned his spectacles on her and said calmly: "You +wouldn't understand, ma'am. A--a problem here.... Well, I don't +understand it myself." And then, losing her again, as it were, he +actually endeavored to shut the door, with the lady outside. Mrs. +Ashburton had had to push against it, she said, and put her foot in the +crack, to attract his notice. "I'm your cousin--_your cousin!_--Mrs. +Ashburton!" she cried. "And I want to come in and talk to you, please." +And this she had done, with the amazing result mentioned above. + +Angela felt that the family tide had turned at last. She would scarcely +have been human if it had not occurred to her how easily she might have +been the one to be struck by the golden lightning; but such passing +notions in no sense marred her sincere, though vicarious, joy over this +great news. Moreover, it did seem, of course, that such a sum as five +hundred dollars could not percolate into a family at any point without +raising the whole level of prosperity very appreciably; and it was with +whole-hearted happiness that she skipped upstairs to congratulate her +lucky brother in the little bedroom she would not have to clean or +"make" any more. + +"Something _very_ nice is going to happen to _me_ soon, too!" she +thought gayly, as she undressed that night. "I feel it in my bones!" + +Her mind naturally slanted toward her favorite brother, with an +intuitive increase of hopefulness. And, true enough, it was from +generous Tommy that the more personal blessings presently came, though +in a form that had not entered Angela's dreams. + +Tommy's reply to her sisterly letter promised at first, indeed, to be as +disappointing as Mr. Garrott's had been, and for the same reason: it +omitted the essential thing. Angela, having shaken the letter, and then +shuffled the pages, early discovered that there was no thank-offering in +it. Similarly, Tommy's sentences seemed to contain nothing more +substantial than affectionate regrets: setting forth what a struggle he +had trying to keep up with the set that Nina had always moved in; how he +was five thousand dollars in debt now, getting deeper, and never had a +nickel to jingle for himself, and that was the God's truth; how it had +always been his dream to do something big for his sister, and certainly +would do the same when old Mottesheard (Nina's father) died; how the old +chap hung on in a way you wouldn't believe.... + +Angela read with a certain sense of chill. Truly womanly, she, of +course, never questioned the superior claims of wives. And yet it did +seem a little hard that Tommy (who made a large salary as a bond +salesman, or something like that) should lavish everything on a girl he +had never heard of three years ago, while she, his own sister-- + +And then, turning into the fourth page, she came on a passage which +checked all minor-key reflections instantly. In their place, rose and +grew a startled astonishment. Tommy, noting what she had written about +her long, dull walks, was offering to _give her an automobile_. + +At first, Angela simply could not take in this offer as a solid reality. +It sprang upon her like some wild, exciting joke. She read, with her +breath coming faster and faster, and her soft eyes as big as saucers:-- + + Now, Sis, I know a car may strike you offhand as a good deal of + an undertaking for a poor family, but you'd find it wouldn't + prove so at all. The car I have in mind for you is a little + simple one, that you could easily run and manage yourself. A + man from the nearest garage will teach you how to drive it in + an hour. There'd be no upkeep at all, with the easy city use + you'd give it--practically no expense of any kind but gasoline. + The little car is old, of course, but still sound as a trivet, + and it'll run till you wouldn't believe it on a gallon or so of + juice.... + +For a space the letter faded from the young girl's vision. Before her +mind's eye flashed a series of entrancing pictures: pictures of herself, +no longer the lone, slow pedestrian in a too large city.... + + And don't think you would be depriving us [Tommy went on]. Nina + _will_ have a new car every year, and we've really had no use + for this one for some time. By the by, didn't you tell me there + was an old barn in your back-yard, or an alley? Why wouldn't + that do for your garage? Then you would have your car ready at + hand, without storage cost, and could take it out at a moment's + notice and go for a spin with your friends. + + Now think it over, Sis, and let me know if you want it. I can + ship it at once, by prepaid express. Nina has a frank.... + +"Oh, _mother_!" cried Angela excitedly. "Tommy wants to give me an +automobile!" + +The heads of the Flowers lifted from their breakfasts as if jerked by a +common string. + +When the breath-taking letter had been read again, aloud this time, +there followed a family symposium, the question being whether or not +Angela could have the automobile. To her surprise and delight, it +appeared that there was really no question; all the family wanted her to +take the automobile; all agreed with Tommy that it would not be a +prohibitive undertaking. Mrs. Flower, an habitual conservative, pointed +out that there would be nothing to lose in any case: if having the +automobile proved impracticable, Angela could simply sell it. Wallie +said that, if the automobile came before he left for college, he would +teach Angela how to run it himself, thus eliminating the expense of a +man from the garage. And, finally, her father astonished her by saying +that he would find the necessary funds--estimated at ten dollars--for +repairing the abandoned shed, which now leaked dangerously, into a +serviceable little garage. + +At nine-thirty o'clock that morning Angela rushed out of the house to +the nearest telegraph office, to dispatch her happy reply. Excited +though she was, however, she did not forget to count the words:-- + + Crazy about it Tommy. Arrangements made. What kind is car? + + A. F. + +Tommy's response came at bedtime:-- + + Car started to you this afternoon. It is a Fordette. Happy New + Year. + + TOMMY. + +The night before Wallie started North for college Angela went to him in +his little bed-and-workroom and asked the temporary loan of seventy-five +dollars. In the interval, she had learned that her father had a patient; +it seemed, indeed, that he had had her for some time, only she was not +an office patient, so nobody had known about her. Also, Angela +anticipated that the housekeeping allowance would prove rather more +squeezable now, with Wallie gone. Still, one cannot pass into the +motor-car classes on a shoestring, of course; and Wallie, with his +prodigal allowance and his handsome store in the bank, now literally +rolled in wealth. + +Brilliant prosperity, however, did not seem to have improved her little +brother's character; he proved to be as reluctant as ever to "part." +After a good deal of unworthy haggling, he agreed to lend Angela but +fifty dollars, and actually entered the amount in a ridiculous little +black book he kept for such things. + +The joke of it was that fifty dollars was really more than Angela had +expected. She went out from the interview well pleased. Her resolve was +to spend thirty dollars of Wallie's loan on a new suit, and keep all the +rest for gasoline. + + + + +XIII + + + +They had all cautioned her, her father, her brother, the nice man who +sold the gasoline, to pick the quietest streets, and to go very slowly. +So, from the alley-mouth, her safe progress had been by Gresham Street +straight to peaceful Mason, where the traffic was so reassuringly light; +and now, as she rolled securely out Mason Street, there began to dawn +within her a first shy confidence. She went as slowly as her +well-wishers had meant, at least; prudently close to the known haven of +the sidewalk she kept at all times; now and then she stopped short, just +to see if she could, and always she could. Through all, was the +indescribable thrill of really doing it for herself now; lingering +incredulity but gave a sharper savor to delight. And she was continually +excited with the consciousness of large new possibilities here, of +personal power in quite a new dimension. + +It was possible to go on indefinitely out Mason Street, but at Olive +(always a quiet thoroughfare) she was seized with a sudden +adventurousness. She decided to turn up Olive, in short; not meaning to +stop at the Wings', of course, but just thinking that if the Wings were +looking out the window as she went by, it would be quite a pleasant +thing. The enterprise, once conceived, was carried out with perfect +technical success; but at the moment of passing the Wings', unluckily, +an enormous ice-wagon came lumbering close by, riveting her attention, +leaving her not so much as an eyelid to wink toward people's windows. +Hence, she never knew whether the Wings were looking out or not. But her +confidence waxed. At Center Street the rumble of a street-car warned her +to stop a moment--just in time, too, for the car was hardly two blocks +away--and when the car had passed, what must she do but roll boldly +across the tracks and into the altogether unexplored regions beyond! + +What prompted her to do this? Of course, the natural thing was to turn +down Center Street a block and get straight back to quiet Mason, which +had been duly tried and not found wanting. Afterward, she remembered +distinctly that she had been on the point of doing just that. Was it the +new adventurousness that beckoned her on, instead? Was it something yet +subtler and more mysterious? At any rate, here she was pushing into a +quarter of the city where she had never set foot in her life, where, in +all human probability, her foot alone would never have brought her. And +lo, she had not gone a block into the undiscovered country when a wonder +befell, and with a little jump, all but a little cry, she saw the lost +member of her coterie rise suddenly before her. + +He had come round the unknown corner just ahead, and was walking +straight toward her. She became aware of the beating of her heart. All +this, it must be understood, was the very first time that Angela had +taken out her Fordette alone. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Garrott was just off the train. Two hours in a day coach might have +cramped his long legs; there might have been cinders down the back of +his neck. Nevertheless, he advanced with an unmistakably lively tread, +continually slapping his leg with a folded periodical of a size and +shape like "Willcox's Weekly." + +Nor was the coterie member's presence on the Wings' street mere blind +chance, either. Those remarkable articles in the magazines about Cousin +Mary, which had but popped as a rumor into one of Angela's ears and out +the other, had naturally occupied a somewhat more prominent place in the +thought of their creator. He remained, indeed, dazzled by the +completeness of the write-ups' triumph. + +Charles had stayed in the country four days longer than he had intended. +And in his extended absence his whole mine of publicity had gone off +with a brilliant suddenness that had startled him. The successful sale +of the third write-up before he left town had assured a decisive _coup_, +but the quick action the weeklies had given him went beyond all reason. +He had not hoped that even the first of the write-ups could see print +before the middle of the month, say; on the contrary, he had discovered +the last and best of them--the one signed Charles King Garrott--on the +train just now, in "Willcox's," for January 10th. In short, in the space +of a Christmas holiday he, Charles, had spread the vindicating feats and +features of his "demoted" friend to the four corners of the globe. +Literally that, for did not the combined circulation of "Willcox's," the +"Saturday Review," and "Hervey's National" exceed two million copies +weekly (this on the word of the circulation managers themselves, a class +of men whose consecration to the austerest veracity has passed into +proverb)? Surely there remained few literate persons in the world to-day +who could plausibly pretend that they had never heard of Mary Wing. + +And Mary (as Angela had noted) had appreciated these extraordinary +services to the full. The letter she had written him in the country, +after the appearance of the "Saturday Review" article, was uniquely +grateful. A beautiful letter Charles had thought it; he had it in his +inside pocket now. And the interesting thought it had raised was this: +If his usually independent friend could be as grateful as that for the +write-ups, what would she say when his whole plan worked out, and his +Public Opinion had overwhelmed the School Board for her? Thus, on the +train, after reading "Willcox's" piece three times, and now as he strode +up the quiet back-street from the station, the author was intently +plotting out the next, or practical, stage of his campaign, still +unsuspected by her: the stage of the reprinting of the write-ups in the +local papers, in fine, of repeated editorial endorsement of the same, of +the outburst of letters from "Indignant Taxpayers," "High School +Graduates," and "Old Subscribers"--practically all, of course, written +by Uncle George Blenso and himself. + +His thoughts proved increasingly stimulating to the home-come Charles. +And when he came to Olive Street, he suddenly bethought him to turn up +that way; not expecting to stop at the Wings', of course (for he had an +engagement to call there this evening, much as if he hadn't been a +modern at all), but merely thinking that if he should happen to meet +Mary it would be quite a pleasant thing.... + +Having turned, the buoyant young man presently sent, as it were, a +scouting eye on ahead. And it fell, not upon the friend he had made +famous in a night, but upon an Object approaching. + +The object was a conveyance, a little vehicle of the self-propelling +type. It was an automobile, clearly; a runabout, you would have to term +it, though certainly of a pattern adopted in no recent year. So steep +and bobbed was this runabout's little body, so quaintly archaic its +contour, that it stirred in the beholder dim recollections of the early +days of the horseless age, of strange pictures seen in scientific +magazines back in the nineties. Very slowly the little vehicle +approached, but very loudly, too, with an increasing bias toward the +sidewalk, with queer rumblings and groanings, with the oddest snorts. + +Charles's puzzled eye lifted. And so it was that it encountered again +the soft gaze that he had last seen misted in tears, upon a sofa. And so +he heard the pretty voice, that had once referred to him as a brute, +saying:-- + +"How do you do, Mr. Garrott!... I--I'm very glad to see you back!" + +"Why--Miss _Flower_!" + +Sheer surprise had halted him in his tracks, and the self-propelling +runabout, which had been almost stationary all along, became entirely +so, right at the curb. + +"When did you get home?" Miss Flower was finishing, laughing, a becoming +color in her cheeks. + +"I'm just in--this minute! How are you? I--ah--didn't realize at all +that it was you." He had taken the small hand she offered, momentarily +flustered, despite all effort, by the utterly sudden re-meeting. He was +aware that the girl looked a little conscious, too. But something in her +gaze seemed to be trying to tell him that bygones were bygones now; and +she went on with reassuring naturalness:-- + +"I hope you had a nice holiday? I've wanted very much to see you, and +thank you myself. About Wallie, I mean--your offering to teach him--" + +"Oh!--Why, _that_!" + +"It was really the nicest thing. I--haven't seen you since, but you +don't know how much I--we all appreciated--" + +With recovered poise the young man easily brushed aside these thanks. +"But I'm awfully glad," he added, "that he didn't wait for me, after +all." + +"Oh!" she exclaimed. "You _heard_, then?" + +He mentioned his letter from Mary Wing, causing her to say, "Oh," +again.--"Wasn't it _wonderful_! I knew you'd be interested...." + +She was prettier than he remembered--or was it merely that the new hat +(trimmed but yesterday) was more becoming than the old?--and her gaze, +though not reproachful a bit, had for him a quality subtly appealing. Of +the lives and loneliness of young womanly women--of that forced +_waiting_ which dams up all energies unused, and hangs the spirit to +thrash about in a void, working over each small event to a towering +importance--of such matters, a man, even Charles, the authority, knew +only through the powers of his imagination. Charles did observe, +however, that this girl seemed very glad to see him. And he felt that he +now reciprocated these feelings. + +"But," said he, with a hypocritically pleasant look at the vehicle, +"Santa Claus seems to have remembered you, too! This is something new, +isn't it?" said Charles, though feeling that new was hardly the word. + +"Yes,--aren't you surprised? My brother in Pittsburg gave it to me. I've +just learned to run it! It was so exciting!" + +And then, in a pretty, hesitating way, she said: "Won't you let me drive +you--home, or wherever you're going? I'd like to, so much. I--want so to +tell you all the news." + +He protested that he could not think of using Miss Flower as a taxicab. +But when she urged it, in pleasing, ingenuous sentences, and explained +that she was out only to drive about anywhere, for practice, it did not +occur to him to maintain the churlish negative. And, indeed, this was +exactly what he had desired from the moment of reading her perfect note +last month--sweet reconciliation in just such a casual way, admitting or +entailing next to nothing. + +So the returning author of the write-ups was to be seen carefully +squeezing himself, and "Willcox's," into the seat of Tommy's delightful +gift. + +"Let's see--the engine's still going--isn't it?" said she, rather +superfluously, it seemed, in view of the uproar. "Then I have to kick +that and push this over...." + +As the girl said, so she did, her look a little anxious, her young face +flushed with excitement. And, sure enough, the vehicle, of a +self-propelling type, suddenly shook itself with a few loud snorts, and +jumped forward with a jar. + +"And what sort of car is this?" resumed Charles, dissembling intense +curiosity as mere sympathetic interest. + +"It is a Fordette," replied Angela, not without pride. + +As they wobbled round the corner, narrowly missing the sidewalk, she +added in the same proud manner: "And this is my very first drive by +myself." + +The taking of the corner (she explained that she could not turn round +alone yet) meant that he was not going to pass the Wings', after all; +but Charles hardly noticed that. He had himself to look to, in his +somewhat unusual position. However, the drive to the Studio, though +noisy, was very short; her completely feminine inefficience as a driver, +their snail's progress, could not extend it over many minutes; and the +whole thing proved as easy and reproachless as could possibly have been +wished. Light friendly talk was the note, flowing without embarrassment +now. Angela told of the two great happenings in her family, seeming to +count upon his interest, and getting it genuinely enough, too. He was +glad, sincerely, that Luck had smiled on this girl, who had seemed to +him not to be having much of a chance. But she was not one, even so, to +take all the conversation to herself; it was a trait that he had noted, +and liked, in her from the beginning. + +"Mr. Garrott," she said, at the first little pause, "aren't you going to +have some stories out pretty soon now? You know you told me you were +writing some--before you began your book?" + +How gladly Mr. Garrott would have reported a little luck, too! But no, +he was still known to Tables of Contents only as the author of +write-ups. Somewhat ruefully, he explained to Angela his position about +the editors; namely, that the sooner the lot of them came under the eye +of a lunacy commission, the better for all concerned. + +She became the comforter: "But perhaps they've accepted some of your +stories while you were away so long!" He, however, knew that there was +nothing in that. + +"Well, no--no. You see, my--my relative who lives with me, Judge Blenso, +looks after my mail when I'm away. And he's been sending me the casualty +lists from time to time." + +"But that story I liked so much--you told me a little about it one +day--about Helena and her husband, don't you remember, who went off to +the desert island--" + +"Oh, that? That's been declined--yes, declined three times, if I +remember rightly--" + +"_Really!_ But how _could_ they! I should think they would have _jumped_ +at it! Why, I thought it was just wonderful...." + +Her instinct for supplying charm was not amiss, it seemed. + +"By the way," said the young author carelessly, as they curved into his +own street, "have you happened to see this?" + +And he not only showed Angela his "Willcox's," with the write-up in it, +but bestowed it upon her, for her own. It developed that he had extra +copies in his pocket. + +Angela was very grateful for the magazine. Everything was as pleasant +and friendly as possible. And at parting, she said, with only the +slightest return of self-consciousness:-- + +"This has been a very short drive, Mr. Garrott! I hope we can have a +real one some day soon." + +To that the young man, standing on the sidewalk before his own door, +replied with a courteous generalization. Wariness was reflexive with +him, so to say. But then, as he looked at the soft young face, he seemed +to become suddenly conscious of the essential caddishness of his past +behavior, and of yet another feeling, too, less coolly judicial. Had not +the Kiss, in fact, set this girl somehow apart from others, remaining as +a subtle bond after all? + +Pressing her slender hand, he added: "Meanwhile, I've enjoyed this one +very much! You've been--extremely good to me." + + * * * * * + +"Willcox's" had given Mary the Freewoman a fine spread. The write-up +occupied all of one of its large pages, with three paragraphs "Continued +on Page 49," among the Men's Ready to Wear Clothing. Out of the middle +of the text, the best of the portraits supplied by Fanny Warder gazed +back steadily at the two relatives in the Studio. The famous Mary was +seated in a flowered armchair, and seemed just to have looked round over +her shoulder. Her delicate, quite girlish, face wore her characteristic +look of faint, grave interrogation; her eyes were intent and fine. + +"Gad, you know!" said Judge Blenso, who had seen Charles's name in print +for the first time with an exclamation of pride and pleasure. "Why, it's +stunnin', my dear fellow! Simply stunnin'!" + +But the mind's eye of Charles, looking down at the life-like +presentment, was seeing that confident gaze averted; the ear of his +fancy was hearing the low sounds of womanly emotion in this quarter at +last. That, of course, was just after he had gently said to her--why, it +might be next week!--"Do you remember telling me one day that I couldn't +help you at all? Why, Miss Mary, did you really suppose I'd let you go +on as a Grammar School teacher till _May_!...." + +"Bring 'em out as a holiday book--that's what I say! Why, good gad, +Charles!--we only got twenty dollars for that piece there!" + +The young man laughed absently, and removed his overcoat. A glance at +Big Bill showed that it was just four o'clock. He had examined the mail, +heard the secretary's unfavorable reports. The Studio, after nearly +three weeks' holiday, suggested the necessity of work undoubtedly; he +was as far from settling upon his Line as ever. But it seemed that he +didn't feel like plotting scenarios to-day. + +The "Post," the "State," the "Chronicle"--why shouldn't he go down there +now, get the thing started at once?... + +"Oh, Judge, by the way! Do you know whether Miss McGee ever brought back +that book I lent her?--fat red book, called 'Marna'?" + +"'Marna,' 'Marna'? Never heard of it. Yes, that's so, she did! Here it +is!" said the Judge, and forthwith plucked Miss Angela's long-kept loan +from the bookcase close by. + +"That's it! Let's lay it here on the mantel. Then maybe I'll remember--" + +"And borrowed a lot more, too!" exclaimed the Judge, suddenly laughing +loud and long. "Gad, I lent her an armful, fact!--night we had the +sleet-storm!" + +"You did?--good! We'll convince her we're her true friends yet." + +His secretary, having gazed at him a moment with brilliant blankness, +suddenly exclaimed: "Why, Charles, my dear fellow, you're looking like a +fighting-cock! You must have put on a stone--fine! Here, let me feel +your muscle!" + +Charles tried to evade that ceremony, but it was, of course, no use. +Having caught him going through certain setting-up exercises one night, +and being misled by the light remark he let fall, Judge Blenso was +irrevocably convinced that the sedentary Charles had an affair of honor +on his hands. The night he made this discovery--the very night Charles +secretly began the exercises, of course, the night of the day he had +seen Mysinger on the street--the Judge had become almost dangerously +excited, springing from bed and walking about a long time in his +pajamas, saying over and over: "The old blood'll tell! Gad, you know! +It's the old blood!" All attempts to explain, then and since, had been +utterly without effect. + +However, a knock on the door interrupted the proceedings, and Mrs. +Herman came walking into the Studio--a dark, round, rosy little body, +beetle-browed but beaming. + +"Such a popular man I never saw!" said she, roguishly. "One lady meeting +him and driving him up from the station, another calling him up before +he's hardly arrived, and goodness knows who'll be next!" + +"Why, who's calling me, Mrs. Herman?" + +"It's Miss Wing!--waiting at the phone! And no wonder, with all you and +the Judge have done for her, I'm sure! Judge, I hope you find your new +chair comfortable?" + +Having received the unexpected summons with a peculiar start of +gladness, the young man descended the stairs with the most agreeable +anticipations. To do a valuable service for a friend is, with some +natures, to become fonder than ever of that friend; and Charles, from +the moment of reading her unprecedented letter, was aware that his +original services to Mary had distinctly had these sentimental +reactions. (For of course such natures _are_ sentimental, disgustingly +so, and real Men--not to say realistic men--invariably hate and despise +their friends, and speak to said friends at all only with a view to +taking away their money or their wives.) + +So, sitting down at the little telephone-table in the dark rear-hall, +Charles smiled to himself and said, in a false voice:-- + +"Pardon me, but is this the famous Miss Wing, who--" + +And Mary's voice seemed to spring toward him through the receiver, like +an embrace: "Oh, _King Charles_!" + +It was a little name she had made long ago by turning his first two +names about, but reserved for rare occasions only. Rare also was it to +hear this commonly contained voice so deeply stirred. + +"Welcome home! I hope I didn't interrupt your work, but it seemed I +couldn't _wait_! And, of course, I haven't _half_ thanked you yet, +haven't begun to tell you how much--how much--I appreciate all you've +done for me...." + +Once more, the fortunate Charles was brushing aside a lady's +gratitude--rather generously, considering the infrequency of grounds of +gratitude here. He laughed gaily into the receiver. + +"The real point is, why under the sun did you connect me right away with +the remarkable outburst of popular admiration? Hartwell went gossiping +about, I suppose?" + +"I didn't need Mr. Hartwell to tell me anything about that! But--" + +"Aha! So Fanny told you about the photographs--" + +"She never breathed a word--" + +"Good-evening, Miss Holmes!--old Watson speaking! Will you kindly +explain your--!" + +"Why, of course there wasn't but one person on earth who could have done +such a beautiful thing for me!" + +All alone in the hall, Charles felt himself coloring with pleasure. +However, the unwonted flush was not for long. + +"I have to pinch myself," the girl's eager voice rushed on (did it sound +just a thought more triumphant than even the author of the write-ups +could have expected?),--"for every magazine I pick up is full of nothing +but Me! I've just seen 'Willcox's'--oh, you don't know how much I liked +that! You've simply taken my breath away! And then to come in and find +_this_!--everything beautiful happening to me at once! I--" + +"What? _More_ honors, celebrity?" + +"The greatest!--the most wonderful! Mr. Garrott, what DO you suppose?" + +Mr. Garrott hardly liked the slant the conversation was taking. The +understanding was that whatever beautiful things happened to the Career +were to happen exclusively through him now. + +"Why!--I can't guess! Not--Has the School Board--" + +"Pish for the School Board," cried the voice that was wont to be so +calm. "You're talking to _the new Secretary of the League_!" + +"I'm.... _What?_" + +"The person you're conversing with, if you please, is the General +Secretary of the National League for Education Reform!" Her happy laugh +rang on the wire: "Are you _staggered_? Well, I am, too! I simply can't +begin to take it in...." + +Had Mrs. Herman's house fallen about his ears, the young man at the +telephone-table could, indeed, scarcely have been staggered more. His +sense was of one falling headlong through space. He gripped the edge of +the table with a large left hand, and for the instant there was no +speech in him. + +"I found the letter from Dr. Ames when I got in just now--oh, the nicest +letter, explaining everything! And of course I wanted to tell you right +away--you've been so good about wanting to help! Don't you remember, it +was you who spoke of this as my brilliant revenge? We little thought +then ..." + +_Wanting to help!_ Doubt not, that was the body blow. "No--no! And I--I +really don't take it in--even now," he was saying, struggling +desperately for his mask. "I--ah--I'd given up all--idea, you see! Why, +I understood that was _all off_! I--" + +"Of _course_--so had I! That's what makes it such a wonderful bolt from +the blue! There was another candidate, you see--a college president, +imagine!--and Dr. Ames says he felt he ought to be very discreet and +reticent till it was all settled. But I was elected unanimously, and +must be in New York to take charge of the office on March 1st...." + +It was the complete collapse of his triumph and his hope: he would not +be going to the newspaper-offices now. But that sentence, that concrete +date, took the whole matter deeper still. Charles Garrott took a firmer +grip on Mrs. Herman's little table. Now his voice came firmer, too:-- + +"The first woman secretary they ever had!... Why--it's _immense_!" + +In the ensuing dialogue, in which, for pride's sake, he sought to strike +just the right felicitatory note, there was an instant when the +possibility flashed upon him that the stunning event was itself but the +unimagined by-product of the write-ups. The directors had decided not to +give the distinguished post to an obscure provincial teacher, when all +of a sudden his great broadside of fame for Mary had come roaring in +among them. The thought, in this moment of utter frustration, seemed +actually welcome to him. But it had hardly fluttered before Mary struck +it dead, in the most incidental manner: incidental--since, to be just, +she, having no knowledge whatever of his secret plans, could hardly +guess what annihilation she was dealing out to them. It developed, in +short, that her election, though held back a few days to be ratified by +the trustees of the League's endowment fund, had actually taken place on +December 27th. And it was too readily recalled that the first of the +write-ups had not appeared till the following day. + +"Yes--yes!... Fine holiday, thank you!--fine! But of course--no triumphs +like this to report!..." + +"Well!--I mustn't keep you now, of course!" said the victorious voice. +"I'm looking forward to seeing you ..." + +No, it was sufficiently clear that he had but labored to heap coals in +Newcastle. It was just the case of the old write-up, last year; only now +a thousand times worse. Often before, this desire in him to help, this +spontaneous protecting instinct which seemed to be always flowing out +here, had been rebuffed and defeated. But this time, his defeat seemed +to be final. And, hanging up the receiver at last, the young man sat +silent with the feeling that something valuable and important had +suddenly departed from his life. + +He felt that he had been rather imposed upon, but that didn't matter +particularly. He felt beaten, as he had never been beaten before, and +that seemed to matter a good deal. With an odd and profound sense of +blank chagrin, he recognized, at last, that when Mary Wing had said that +she didn't need his help, she had been merely stating a literal and +obvious truth. How he had been such a fool as ever to think otherwise? + +But deeper than all this, it seemed clear from the beginning that he was +disappointed in his friend, personally. Had he not read into her all +along, and put into the write-ups, a rather finer quality than she, in +fact, possessed? Spinsters were entitled to a man's freedom to follow +away their work--of course. But it seemed that he had never been able to +imagine Mary as actually seizing this Right. And now, here she was doing +it, with joy--the end of next month. Now behold her, whose praises he +had so superfluously sung round the world--just an ordinary Redmantler +after all, it seemed, exultantly striking off mother, home, friends; a +female Egoist, no more, visibly engaged in "fiercely hacking away".... + +He could, indeed, scarcely take it in. And stoutly he assured himself +that his whole feeling about the matter would have been different--if +only she had showed, at once, that this would be a wrench for her, that +her thought was colored by a sense of values not connected with her +Self. But no; it seemed that the new General Secretary had no thought to +spare for the immaterial business of being a sister and being a +daughter. + + * * * * * + +So Charles's call at the Wings' on the evening of his homecoming wore a +complexion not contemplated by him when he had arranged the matter. + +He had made this engagement, under the general misapprehension, in his +reply to Mary's grateful letter last week. And now he had to keep it, +however malapropos, resolved as he was that she should never sense any +criticism or disapprobation in him. To seek to "influence" her, +naturally never entered his mind. No, he was her casual spectator now +and henceforward; he had dipped his oar in her affairs for the last +time. + +But the call was hardly much of a success, despite all efforts. Mary, +having now had time to recapture her usual poise, no longer impressed +one as being so unreservedly overjoyed with herself. It was noted that +she kept referring to the write-ups, kept assuring him how delightful +she found it to be a celebrity as well as a Secretary, etc., etc. The +caller's intellect coldly gave her credit for "being very nice." +However, no niceness could help much to drape the stark obtruding facts; +no civilities seemed fitted to cope with the intangible wall suddenly +sprung up in the old friendship. And if there had lingered in Charles's +mind some revolting incredulity, some reactionary insistence that Mary +could never really carry out the typical exploit of the Egoette, the +talk this evening finally killed it. The famous educator's sentences +made it clear, once and for all, that she was Leaving Home for good--for +her own good, of course--on the 1st day of March succeeding. + +Charles was determinedly "sincere" throughout the brief call, +continuously and spuriously hearty. Inwardly, his resolve grew more and +more fixed that this young woman, who was so rarely competent to Lead +Her Own Life, should be permitted to lead it quite unassisted +henceforth. For himself, he decided that his life should go to the +unremitting service of pure Letters. But of such matters, of course, he +permitted his agreeable chatter to yield no hint. Taking his departure +upon a new wave of felicitations, he could but congratulate himself upon +the trained adeptness of his mask. + +And Mary, having shut the door upon her caller, stood leaning against +it, her arched brows drawn together in a faint frown, her fine eyes +faintly bewildered. + +"Now what," she said, half aloud, "have I said or done, or left unsaid +or undone, this time?" + +And then she went slowly back to her mother's bedroom, where she found +her mother with stockings to darn, and (taken unawares) her eyes a +little red. + + + + +XIV + + +In the Home on Center Street, the shrunken curtain was rarely hooked +back on the nail now. And on the ledge of the little window that gazed +toward the Blest, the shabby opera-glasses gathered dust. + +As is perfectly understood, Careers in the making are the stuff to make +conservatives of others. Observing Egoettes, an authority, if male, +inevitably reacts, thinking better and better of the gentle business of +supplying beauty and supplying charm. Charles Garrott, in short, having +repudiated all connection with the life of Mary Wing, was in just the +proper frame of mind to applaud the life of Mary's so different cousin. +And Charles did applaud it--certainly. But, of course, such purely +scientific endorsement did not controvert another established known +truth, namely, that, under certain circumstances and as applied to +certain individuals, the supply of the soft commodities referred to may +very well prove a little in excess of the demand. + +The well-known thought first flickered back into Charles's mind on the +third day of his homecoming. At the moment, he stood on the corner +nearest Berringer's, having just dismounted there from Miss Angela's +conveyance. On the fifth day of his homecoming, at the same corner, his +reflections on supply and demand were assuming an increasing +definiteness. + +"Well, then--good-bye!" he was saying, with his fatal pleasantness. "And +thank you very much for the lift." + +From the seat of Tommy's valuable donation, Angela was gazing up at him. +And he saw that her face, which had been smiling, was touched with a +brief seriousness. + +"Oh, you know I've enjoyed it--so much! But--we never seem to have +anything but these little bits of talks. I'm sorry.... Perhaps I'll see +you to-morrow?" + +"Ha!--quite likely!--yes! Thank you! Well!--_good-bye!_" + +And he turned away toward luncheon and the good man-talk with a crescent +uneasiness, having failed to point out--possibly failing to +remember--that to-morrow was Saturday, and he would be off to the +country again. + +Day before yesterday, he had encountered the conveyance as he left the +Demings' at one o'clock. To-day, he had overtaken it on his walk +downtown--literally that, for he was a fast walker and a little +absent-minded besides. Thus he had now enjoyed three peace-making drives +with the girl he had once parted from forever, all in the course of his +first five days at home. And now at the end of their third pleasant +talk, particularly after these last prospective remarks of hers, Charles +could not but feel that the true object of these re-meetings had been +satisfactorily accomplished. Now the reconciliation was complete; now he +felt no lingering shadow of doubt of his forgiveness for having once +been a brute. + +He did not regret the drives; he was very glad, indeed, to be good +friends again; but his subtle instinct seemed to warn him that he and +Angela would do best, would get along with the fewest misunderstandings, +without a rapidly developing intimacy. And, taking the higher view, it +clearly was not right, it was not moral, that a confirmed bachelor like +himself should go on indefinitely monopolizing a nice young Spinster +Home-Maker's time. + +Returning to town on Monday, Charles, though in the kindest way, went to +Berringer's by the Center Street car-line. He felt, indeed, that he was +really looking out for the girl's higher good more than for his own: she +lacked that competence to manage her own life, so harshly flaunted by +others. All passed off well. On Tuesday he utilized the traction system +again, with equally satisfying results. And then, on Tuesday afternoon, +as he trod professionally from the old lady's who was studying French to +Miss Grace Chorister's, he suddenly ran upon the Fordette again. + +By an odd chance, the quaint little vehicle was standing still, directly +in front of the Choristers'. His reconciled friend was out of it, +standing by, bending well over the car, peering into it. Nevertheless, +by some sixth sense, she saw him at once and, straightening up with a +pleased smile, she waved and called:-- + +"Oh, Mr. Garrott!--how glad I am to see you! Do you know how to crank?" + +He approached with the gallantest air, the most civil speeches. All the +same, as he bent to his hard labor--for the Fordette proved dangerously +stiff in the crank--and politely sought to explain how to avoid killing +the engine for the future, he was conscious of a certain sense of +rebellion.... Excellent, laudable, justifying things, beauty and charm; +but the plain fact was that he, Charles, was simply not in the market +for them at present, that was all. + +The friendship, indeed, was well cemented now; the talk characterized +with a growing confidence. + +"Oh, how strong you are!" said Angela admiringly, as he finally got the +old engine to spinning. "I do wish I could do it like that! Now you must +let me pay you for your trouble!--won't you? I'm just driving around, +really, so don't think--" + +"Oh, thank you, but I go in here. Business hours, you know! Well! Now +you're--" + +"Oh, is this where you teach every afternoon?" asked Angela, with +interest, gazing past him at the handsome stone "front" of the +Choristers'. "Oh, yes, Miss Chorister.... How long does the lesson +last?" + +"Oh, an hour--usually. But, of course," added the young man, his eye +wavering slightly, "that depends somewhat--on circumstances--" + +"You don't get out till about half-past four, then? I do _wish_ you +weren't so awfully busy! Mr. Garrott, have you been away again? I don't +seem to have seen you at all for a good many days now." + +"Yes! That's it!--been away again! I go away all the time--practically. +And when I'm here, why, it's nothing but work, work, work, from morning +to night, for me! It's a wonder to me I have a friend left, I have to be +so horribly unsociable--_always_. But," continued Charles, "I'm glad I +happened by in time to be of some help. By the by, hadn't you better get +in and try her out? I don't like to rush on to my lesson till I know +you're all right." + +"Yes, I suppose I had. I oughtn't to stop you now." + +His suggestion, indeed, had a striking reasonableness. Fortunately, the +try-out proved quite successful, after only a little pushing and +kicking. But the Fordette snorted from before the Choristers' very +slowly, Angela looking back over her shoulder, smiling at him, a pretty +and appealing look on her entirely feminine face. + +Charles went up to his daily hour with Miss Grace, in a brown study. + +Miss Grace, it must be known, was a Temporary Spinster, verging toward +Permanence; she was round, gentle, blonde, by no means displeasing or +ill-looking. Had the world been the normal place Old Tories took it to +be, Miss Grace would undoubtedly have been one of those happy women who +find themselves, at twenty-five, with a home, a husband, and three +darling little curly-headed children; and there were a hundred signs +that so she would have found full happiness indeed. But the world being +not normal now, but, on the contrary, in Unrest, something remote had +gone wrong with Miss Grace, parting her from her manifest destiny. +Perhaps the panic of 1907 was to blame, or a decrease in the visible +gold supply; perhaps the trouble was in that hard saying of the +Redmantlers, that Love was going out. At any rate, here hung Miss Grace +on the parent stem in Washington Street, a Waiting Woman: the +non-understanding and unaccounted-for Anomaly in a disordered social +system; an adult human being thirty-two years old, with nothing upon +earth to do. + +Miss Grace's subjects were Sociology and the History of the World. An +agreeable soul herself, she noted that her tutor's manner this afternoon +was taciturn and distrait. As he was concluding his remarks upon the +thirty pages of Lester Ward that made her lesson, she noted that he lost +his thread suddenly, and left a sentence permanently hanging in mid-air. +Back into the tutor's head, in fact, the artless questionings of another +had popped with arresting force: "_Is this where you teach every +afternoon? You get out about half-past four?_" From taciturn, Mr. +Garrott's manner became restless and rather irritable. And when the hour +of four-thirty arrived, he did not snap his watch at Miss Grace and +depart at once, according to his almost invariable habit. No, he moved +in a novel manner, to the drawing-room window. And he stood there, oddly +and irresolutely, gazing out, first up the street and then down. + +Why had he mentioned that the lesson lasted an hour usually? Why hadn't +he said, frankly, that it lasted till five or six o'clock, and often +later? + +Slowly but surely the idea was being established that it was the natural +and usual thing for him and Angela to drive in the old Fordette every +day. It was time for him definitely to break up this idea. Otherwise, +what was to be the end of it all?--that was what he wanted to know. More +and more he seemed to become aware of a gentle claim, an indescribable +pressure, very soft, yet rather alarmingly sure. Why on earth couldn't +she be satisfied just to be pleasant friends once more? Why all this +talk of future meetings, of seeing you again all the time? + +Miss Grace stood some distance behind her tutor, observing his strange +behavior. Somehow her attitude wore the air of a typical expression of +character. Miss Grace had flutterings, as witness her growing knowledge +of the Merovingians; she even pretended to nibble fearfully at her +tutor's occasional exhortations, that she cease her parasiting and go to +work. But beneath such vague symptoms of Unrest, it was clear that she +remained as her tradition and environment had fixed her, a Woman of +Romance: that is to say, a being gladly content to serve as the +spectator and audience of Man. + +"Mr. Garrott," she said suddenly, in her rather childlike voice, "I +don't believe you are a bit busy this afternoon. You really must stay +for tea. Nobody's coming in, sister's out, and you know you haven't +stayed for perfect ages." + +To her surprise, the unsocial tutor accepted at once. He remained with +his pupil till quarter past five. Thereupon, he reached his Studio +without interruption, entirely on foot. + +Charles (thinking for the young girl's highest good) was rather pleased +with this development. By accident, he seemed to have hit upon quite a +satisfactory sort of _modus vivendi_: street-cars to Berringer's, and +tea at Miss Grace's till dark. Next day he tried the programme again. + +This time, it did not work out quite so well: the secret truth of the +matter being that, at bottom, all Spinsters have certain well-defined +points in common. That, in fact, is what makes them a class. And, +speaking in the large, you may say that there is no such thing as a +Permanent Spinster. + +Lessons at the Choristers' took place in the library, a stately room, +yet charming, too. Into it, a dusky maid wheeled a double-tiered +tea-table, all mahogany and glass, silver and china atop, little cakes +and small enticements on the deck below. Talk of historical matters +ceased. There sprang up light prattle of the little things Miss Grace +knew and liked best. + +The tutor, basking by the fireside and waiting for night, was not +unhappy. Though he frequently lectured Miss Grace, through long use he +really liked her. Now, he was also consciously grateful for her haven +from the too social life of Washington Street. That he could not go on +taking tea with Miss Grace every day for the rest of his life he, of +course, knew well; but he would just take each day's problems as he came +to them. Meanwhile, this Spinster supplied a quiet charm. Her hands +hovered ministeringly over the tea-table. For a plumpish woman, she had +noticeably small hands, graceful and white. When the tutor made her a +civil compliment, she colored like a school-girl. + +[Illustration: THIS SPINSTER SUPPLIED A QUIET CHARM] + +Following the compliment there was a moment of fire-lit silence. And +then Miss Grace's voice said softly and sweetly: + +"You are looking at my ring. I'm wearing it--" + +So that ended _that_. + +The tutor was on his feet so abruptly as to set the tea-things shaking. + +"No! No, I wasn't--I swear! I must go at once," said Charles. + +Unaware of the painful memories her womanly words evoked, Miss Grace +naturally looked very much surprised. + +"But--_what's_ the matter? Why, you act as if it were something improper +for you to look at my ring!" + +"Absurd," said the tutor, with a gesture. + +He had merely remembered, all of a sudden, something very important he +had to do, that was all. Pardon his haste, but he had already stayed too +long, he feared. + +Indifferent to Miss Grace's bewilderment, he left at once, wondering if +voluntary celibacy could not exist, and be respected, upon this earth. +And next day, as he stood on the corner of Center Street awaiting his +good, safe street-car--indeed, as he was in the very act of boarding the +said safe car--the little Fordette chugged up behind and nipped him. + +It was a pure accident, and he knew it. But he saw at once that no +accident could well have been less opportune. It involved a discovery +highly prejudicial to his future. + +Angela, indeed, had not even seen Mr. Garrott. She had merely perceived, +rounding the corner into her own street, that she was about to run over +somebody, and had awkwardly clapped on her brake, just in time. +Recognizing her friend in the person she had so nearly bumped, she gave +a little feminine cry of mirth and excitement; and, while she apologized +and laughed over the strange coincidence, Charles's car, of course, +suddenly clanged away and left him. The rest followed, as the night the +day. + +Almost the first thing she said was: "Oh, is _this_ where you take the +street-cars, when you haven't time to walk?" + +Charles's reply indicated that he was very erratic and uncertain in +these matters, taking the cars now at one point, now again in a totally +different quarter of the city. + +So the two friends, no longer constrained by misunderstanding, started +off on the slow mile drive to Berringer's. In the course of this drive, +Charles had his first justifying thought of Mary Wing in ten days. + +He recognized, with deep misgivings, that this girl's attitude toward +him was wholly ingenuous and natural, the "claim" he complained of but +the spontaneous expression of her girlish conception of their relations. +That, of course, was just the worst of it; in that naivete (oh, surely +this was the Naive Sex!) was her soft strength. He, with his cursed weak +politeness, knew not how to withstand her maidenly theory; she, on the +other hand, had new means of putting it forward constantly. All was +changed, he saw now clearly, from the instant when she came riding back +into his life at the wheel of the ancient Fordette. + +How was he to have any privacy of movement henceforward; how get from +place to place? + +Beside him, the girl was talking, with simple pleasure, of bridge. It +appeared that she was thinking of having another party next week, in +honor of Cousin Mary. Mr. Tilletts was very anxious to improve his game, +she mentioned. + +"And I think I'll invite you too," she said, with becoming +coquetry--"even though you've never paid your party-call--for the other +one!" + +But why wasn't she sometimes at home, home-making? That was what he +should like to know. + +And aloud, he spoke with hard brightness of the weather. + +Through her seemingly incessant practice, Angela drove better now; not +efficiently or rapidly, but no longer with her first anxious air, +stopping short when she saw a wagon a block away. This left her more +freedom and enterprise for conversation. Mr. Garrott's meteorological +comments soon petered out. Subtly, gently, her manner seemed to reprove +him for wasting their time, as it were, on trivialities. + +She said presently: "Did you ever read that book I lent you, Mr. +Garrott--'Marna'?" + +The young man groaned inwardly. He could not understand why he had not +returned the book last week as he had intended--with or without the +blossoms--instead of dilly-dallying along this way, till some point was +made of it. True enough, Angela interrupted his loquacious apologies:-- + +"Oh, it isn't that! I really don't want the book at all. But--" + +She drove a few feet farther--an appreciable interval at four miles an +hour--and ended, rather wistfully:-- + +"I wondered if you weren't keeping it--for another reason. I mean--just +because you didn't want to come to return it." + +"Why, what an idea! Ridiculous!--" + +"Mr. Garrott, you know you _have_ seemed to--since--" + +"You've no idea how overworked I am these days--never a minute to call +my own! Why, there's your cousin, Mary Wing,--one of my best +friends,--and I haven't so much as laid eyes on her--but once--since +'way before Christmas! Think of it! And that's--" + +"You used to be willing to take a _little_ time for pleasure," said +Angela, looking away from him, "before--we had that awful +misunderstanding." + +"It gets worse and worse all the time!" said Charles, hastily. "That's +what I say! That's writing!--yes, indeed!--inexorable--once let it into +your life, and it eats it all up--forcing a man to be a--a hermit for +life, you might say. But there was something I was very anxious to tell +you, Miss Flower. Let me see ... slipped me for the moment. Ah--oh, +yes!--did you know Donald Manford's back again?" + +"Oh! No, is he? I hadn't heard." + +"Yes, old Donald got back Sunday, full of pride and honors...." + +And then into the eyes of the worried young man there shot a faint +gleam. + +He had mentioned Donald absolutely at random, but the moment he heard +the youth's name on the air, an idea exploded in his brain, leaving +behind a dull hope. Unlike himself, Donald was a marrying man. Why, when +you stopped to think of it, wasn't Angela the very girl for him? And +why, then, shouldn't he, Charles, frankly reversing his purposes at the +Helen Carson luncheon last month, bring together once more these two +nice, simple cousins of the too-modern Mary, just as he had done that +night at the Redmantle Club, when all the trouble had begun? + +Of course, at the moment, Charles's "psychology" was not quite so +elaborate as this. The thought, indeed, flashed through his brain in +purely concrete form, thus: "_That's it! I'll put her on to Donald._" + +Forthwith, he launched upon a voluble talk, an address, at once +extolling Donald's character and throwing out suggestive commentaries +upon it: how Donald had come home in the vein of a boy let out of +school, seeming to feel that at last his playtime had come; how he (so +different from himself, Charles) openly sought and hungered for pleasure +now, was mad for some good times. And, observing closely, he thought +that Miss Angela looked interested in his exposition, too, though hardly +so interested as one might have liked, perhaps. + +"Why, I didn't think he was that sort of person at all," said she. + +"I've never seen a man change so--come out so--in my life! Landing this +great job, you know!--it's taken a great weight off him. And then the +thought that he has only a few weeks more at home, too--it's really +revolutionized his character! Why, Miss Flower, the man's all but quit +work! Really! He ..." + +A knocking sense of disloyalty--to Mary's known plans--checked him, but +briefly. What was that to him now? Had not Mary convinced him, once and +for all, that she was more than competent to manage her own affairs? +Deliberately, the young man released his valuable information:-- + +"Why, he leaves his office every afternoon at four o'clock--rain or +shine--and walks up Washington Street, absolutely hunting for somebody +to come and give him a little fun! But who is there to do it? He's been +out of things so long, he hardly knows anybody! And then, too, Donald, +beneath that--ah--standoffish manner of his, is really a shy man. What +he needs most, really, is encouragement...." + +To all of which Angela's final reply--delivered after a slight +silence--was: "You seem to love to talk about Mr. Manford to-day, Mr. +Garrott." And then she took the wind out of his sails completely by +saying:-- + +"I don't think of Mr. Manford really as a friend of mine. You know--I +often think you're the only real friend I've made, since we left +Mitchellton." + +During the remainder of the drive, Charles thought it best to affect an +amiable absent silence. But that gained him nothing, any more than his +treachery to Donald and Miss Carson. Before she released him at the now +too familiar corner near Berringer's, the girl said, simply and +seriously:-- + +"Mr. Garrott--aren't you really _ever_ coming to see me again?" + +Why again? When had he ever been to see her? And why all this talk of a +misunderstanding? _He_ had never misunderstood anything. + +"Why, yes!--yes, certainly!--when I ever find a minute to see anybody! +Ha, ha! But--when that'll be--" + +It was her great merit in his eyes that she had never really reproached +him. It seemed to cost her an effort to go on:-- + +"You've never forgiven me for--for saying what I did that night. You +know you haven't! But if you'd ever come to see me--so that we could +really have a talk--I feel I could make you understand that I--never +really meant it!" + +The maiden's gaze at once embarrassed and vastly depressed him. In it he +read, as if spread upon a bill-board, her soft certainty that, though he +himself might not realize it yet, he was her man.... + +In the restaurant, the four or five entirely masculine persons with whom +Charles commonly lunched took note of his peculiar gloom. It was their +whim to assume that a valued pupil had just discharged Charles without a +character. Theirs was a crude and noisy wit. But the tutor ignored, +hardly heard, their gibes. He sat withdrawn and silent over his chicken +hash (for which Berringer had no less than fourteen different names). +And before his fascinated mind's eye there unrolled an endless vista of +driving duets, with the gentle feminine pressure closing down ever more +and more irresistibly upon him. + +What to do, what to do? That was the question. There did not seem to be +a corner of the city now where the Fordette did not go poking its ugly +mug. + +All very well to say: Be bold, be cold. Refuse under any conditions to +get into the Fordette. That, to him, was simply not a possible line of +conduct. Inability to be successfully rude to people, even under the +most favorable circumstances, had long been recognized as the damnable +flaw in his character. And as to this very peculiar case--how could the +roughest boor, the most thoroughgoing cad, repel and affront a nice +young girl whom he voluntarily kissed but last month--one whose only +fault, after all, was a fatal constancy? + +Now he fairly confronted the two distinct and fundamental weaknesses in +his position: the moral and the mechanical, the Kiss and the Fordette. A +just thinker always, he would not deny, even now, that it was his own +free-will act that had first altered everything. If he took the ground +that he had kissed, with warmth, a girl he cared nothing on earth about, +what sort of person did that make him? No better than a Frenchman, daft +about La Femme. She, it could not be gainsaid, really paid him a finer +compliment, took the nobler view of him, when she assumed that those +salutes had signified something. She was not without right to her naive +confidence. And now that she had this maidenly expectancy firmly mounted +upon a gasoline engine--do what he would, he could not escape a ripening +affection. She would get a call out of him yet. There would be another +bridge-party, and he would be at it. And after the bridge-party.... + +Alone with his thoughts among his noisy companions, Charles drew a +handkerchief across his brow. A Home was, indeed, a sweet and beautiful +thing. But the positive fact was that he, Charles, did NOT want one made +for him at present. And still, the soft advance that leads straight to +Homes pressed resistlessly on. + +Great Heavens, what a price to pay for one little kiss on a sofa!... +Well, two or three little bits of kisses, then. What a price! What was +the reason of it, where the justice? + +He spoke aloud, for almost the first time at his lunch, with sudden +heat: "I believe I'll move away from this town!" + +The remark elicited a shout of laughter. In the midst of it, the tutor +rose and stalked intently away. It had just occurred to him that he +might force a quarrel on Angela, on some trivial pretext: pretend that +she had hurt his feelings in some way--about not returning that book of +hers, perhaps--something like that. The old dodge: a million men must +have worked it. But even as he dallied with the notion, Charles knew +very well that the ruthless strength was not in him. Besides, his +thought now had taken a cold retrospective turn, interesting in its way: +the sight of Talbott Maxon, grinning there, had roused old associations +in him. Talbott was a good one to laugh! But the Oldmixon girls had had +him laughing out of the other corner of his mouth. + +How had he ever lost sight of _that_ little affair? + +People like G. B. Shaw might go about pretending that they had invented +the idea of Woman the Pursuer. But the fact was that he, Charles, had +personally discovered the elementary truth before he was out of his +teens. Experience, you would have said, had driven it home +unforgettably. All the way up to the old lady's who was studying French, +tucked away in an obscure corner of the street-car, Charles was soberly +going back over the instructive time he and Talbott had had with a group +of Temporary Spinsters--all of five years ago--and wondering how under +the sun he had ever allowed its lessons to grow dim. + +That old trouble had started casually, too--how sharply it all came back +now! At a dance it was, when Talbott, who was also fatally kind-hearted +(and was pushed by a chaperon from behind, besides), had invited Susie +Oldmixon to abandon the wall for the waltz. Of course, he had been stuck +for four dances for his pains: of course Miss Oldmixon--a womanly +girl--had misconceived the character of that long set-to; of course she +invited him to a party in a day or two. Then it was that Talbott, +sensing how things were going, had introduced him, Charles, much as a +cowardly conscript offers a substitute. But the base act had gained him +nothing; the Oldmixons produced a friend of theirs, Sarah Freed,--how he +came to loathe the sight of Sarah!--and upon the instant, he and Talbott +found themselves caught up together in a literally endless chain of +little engagements, usually thus: a party, a party-call, another party, +etc. Naturally, they had early had the bright thought of breaking the +chain by not paying any party-call; and at once, this very same kind of +soft pressure was put upon their weak chivalrousness: "Ethel thinks you +must be mad with her," one or the other of the loyal sisters would say. +"You know you've never paid your party-call." If they yielded, and went +and paid their party-call, it was not considered that they had then +discharged their duty like soldiers; no, by an inexplicable shift in the +point of view, the call was straightway viewed as a personal +"attention," and they were at once invited to another party. So it went: +these girls had reduced to an intuitive science the feminine instinct +for making one thing lead to another. Of course they were always +offering to teach him and Talbott something, as auction or the Boston; +always trying to lend them something--like "Marna"--which would have to +be returned. And even if all the regulation pitfalls were fairly +side-stepped, it really accomplished nothing, for in that case Sarah or +the Oldmixons were sure to have a Visitor. Even Sarah Freed, of course, +rather hesitated to ring you up on the telephone and say: "Please, +please, come to see me! You know I haven't a thing in the world to do +but sit and think about men, and you're the only man who has spoken +politely to me since 1908." But none of the virgins minded at all +ringing you up and saying, "Do come to see my Visitor." + +The worst thing in it all (reflected Charles, with worriment, in the +street-car) was that Sarah and the Oldmixons were far from being brazen +hussies; they were really nice girls, only sharpened a little by tedium +and the creeping fear of "failure." Odd though it seemed, they actually +remained almost completely unconscious of their own processes. And still +it had taken him and Talbott nearly a year to get out of the soft +vicious circle; and still he remembered distinctly that they had then +agreed upon the following as their invariable rule of conduct, +thenceforward: Never be polite to a womanly girl, unless positive you +want to marry her. + +A _year_! And of course he had never kissed Sarah and the Oldmixons, +either.... + +Charles went on his rounds in a humor of fatalistic despondence. The +mood proved premature, decidedly: while there is life, there is hope. +And it seemed that he, by too much thinking, had wrongly discounted the +promising aspects of his case. He had builded rather better than he +knew. + +When his lesson with Miss Grace was over, at four-thirty that afternoon, +the tutor said gloomily:-- + +"I can't stay for tea to-day. But I think I'll just stand here, and look +out of the window a little while." + +Of course, after yesterday, there could be no more tea-taking. Equally +of course, caution was more needed than ever. "Don't wait for me," +muttered Charles, reconnoitering, to Miss Grace. And then he forgot her +entirely as his eye, shooting out the window, fell upon Donald Manford +sauntering carelessly along, over the sunny street. + +From the Choristers' window, Charles gazed out at his young friend with +moroseness and moody envy. What he had told Angela about this youth was +(by chance) almost literally true. Donald--hitherto a hard worker, +through Mary Wing's unceasing influence--_was_ visibly relaxing the ties +he was so soon to sever; he _had_ come home in distinctly a holiday +humor. And a lot of good that did him, Charles! Donald walked Washington +Street there with utter free-and-easiness, with almost insolent +impunity. Dull, lucky Donald! He, of course, did not have the devilish +gift; Donald kissed no one. No one viewed Donald as her own true man; no +home-maker chased him all over the city in a Fordette. + +Behind him, Miss Grace pushed a flat button on the wall and said: +"Tea'll be ready in a minute, Mr. Garrott. You really might as well +stay, you know, as stand there looking out of the window." + +The tutor made no reply. In fact, he did not hear Miss Grace. By strange +luck, he was in the grip of an extraordinary, a truly fascinating +experience. Quite suddenly, his ears had been captured by a sound from +the street, a sound that had an arresting familiarity among all other +sounds, a peculiar whirring, a rumbling, and a snorting, insistent, +growing louder. Upon earth, was there but one noise like that? + +Swifter than a bullet, Charles's eyes had gone speeding down the +spacious street. And his heart leapt up within him as they lighted upon +the self-propelling conveyance approaching--but half a block away, +chugging steadily nearer.... + +Yes, his word to the wise had not been wholly wasted, it seemed. There +rumbled the good little Fordette after unconscious Donald, gaining on +him, gaining almost rapidly.... + +"Mr. Garrott, what _are_ you looking at?" + +"Oh!... Nothing," said the tutor in a muffled voice. + +But in truth, he was looking, with breathless interest, at the fairest +sight seen by him in many a long day. Safe behind the Choristers' +curtains, with general joy, with the acute delights of a born +strategist, Charles saw what had so often happened to him, happen now to +poor old Donald. + +By odd coincidence, it fell out that the re-meeting of Mary Wing's two +cousins took place within fifty feet of the Choristers' window. What +more natural than that Angela, in the moment of passing her home-come +friend, should look over her shoulder and speak a pleasant greeting? Or +that Donald, surprised and civil, should unconsciously take a responsive +step or two toward the sudden speaker of the greeting? What more +certain than death or taxes but that the Fordette should thereupon come +to a halt--which it did so easily and naturally? (Oh, how perfectly +simple it all was, as you stood off and watched, how gentle and friendly +and inexorable!) Casual talk seemed to spring up: how easily Charles, +peeping with starting eyes between the parted curtains, could imagine it +all!--"I'm so glad to see you back! I've wanted so to congratulate you +on your great success! I'm crazy to hear about Wyoming!" And presently +those crucial words, so innocent-looking, so sweet: "Mr. Manford, won't +you let me," etc. "Truly I'm just out for a drive." And--sure +enough--oh, by George! _Hooray!_ There was the poor fool grinning; there +he was compressing himself, clambering right into the jaws. _Ah, there, +Miss Mary!..._ And there the two young people went snorting away up the +street: perfectly normally, though something in Donald's cramped +position, his long legs hunched up to his chin, did oddly suggest a +captive, seized and bound. + +The tutor astonished Miss Grace by bursting into a wild roar of +laughter. + + * * * * * + +But of course, he understood, on cool analysis, that this really settled +nothing. That exciting spectacle, which seemed to make the whole process +so extremely concrete, represented a hope, nothing more. And the more +this hope was scrutinized, the less substantial it seemed to become. +Walking safely home in the golden afternoon, Charles suddenly recalled, +with cold annoyance, a remark Donald had made, after his second walk +with Angela in November: "Charlie, she worries me." And Angela, for her +part,--though of course womanly, and hence agreeably plastic in her +affections,--really seemed hardly more attracted to Donald, as yet. +Charles thought he knew the reason, too. With a fresh chill, he recalled +the look the girl had given him, on the corner near Berringer's, +to-day. + +Had he really "put her on" to Donald even in the remotest degree? Was it +not highly probable that she, patrolling Washington Street at +four-thirty, had been looking, not for Donald, but for another? + +Of course, there could not be the slightest doubt that--for the present, +at least--Angela preferred him to Donald, infinitely, unreasonably. And +Angela usually got what she wanted, too, it seemed. For example, she had +wanted to move her family from Mitchellton to this city, where he, +Charles, lived. And she had moved. + + + + +XV + + +He fell instinctively into a small manoeuvre, which was merely this: +that he quietly shifted forward his public itinerary by quarter of an +hour. Next day, he started rapidly toward the street-cars at quarter +before one, and shot out of Miss Grace's at quarter past four, sharp. +Ultimate detection was certain, of course; but for the moment the +trifling ruse did seem to win a hardly hoped-for respite in the headlong +courtship. Neither on Friday, nor again on Monday, was the Home-Making +Fordette so much as seen. And the next disturbance of the authority's +delicate social scales, and of the author's Line, came, as might be +said, from precisely the opposite direction. + +In the Studio, matters had continued to progress backward. Once here, +and the door safely shut, Charles had been steadily at work, the +hymeneal shadow put resolutely from his mind. No writer's time, he had +pledged himself, should go to somber meditations on the cosmic +consequences of a kiss, still less to fruitless bitterness concerning +wasted write-ups, the hardness of Egoettes, etc. Day by day, he had +wooed that subtle calm of the spirit which is the bread and meat of +authors; night by night, expended himself in the service of pure +Letters. And it had all been for nothing. + +Contrary to explicit resolve, in short, he had been making a fresh +attempt at his new novel, hoping--rather weakly--that his mind wasn't +quite so unsettled as he secretly knew it was. And, once more, he had +been well punished for his rashness. Symptoms of weakness having +developed increasingly through the week just past, on Monday evening +Charles took his medicine, just before supper. Ten thousand words of +brand-new manuscript lay in his drawer there; and he would be lucky if +he could save a thousand of them for the novel that should be. + +Of the "line" taken by this second abortive effort, the less said the +better. It suffices to suggest that if Mary Wing had been a totally +different sort of person, it might never have been undertaken at all. + +Of all ways of spending the time known among men, unquestionably the +most abominable, the most nerve-wrecking and devilish, is Thinking up a +Book. Charles smoked box after box of cigarettes, couldn't sleep at +night, talked in his sleep when he did, and was growing a scowl between +his brows almost as dark as poor Two-Book McGee's--the interesting Type +that was leading its own life and wished it weren't. The final +conviction of the worthlessness of his work was hardly calculated to +improve the young man's state of mind. He was, indeed, profoundly +discouraged and concerned. For ten weeks now he had been struggling to +isolate a point of view which would at once "carry" all his newer +observations on his Subject, and command the support of his unqualified +conviction. And to-night he seemed further away from his goal than he +had been the day he finished "Bondwomen." + +However, what brought Charles's humor to a sudden head this evening, +what precipitated the fury in which Donald Manford found him--Donald, +entering so happy and fine in the evening regalia which the match-making +Mary seemed to clap on him every night nowadays--by chance had not to do +with his own book at all, but with another's. + +In short, the young author, very injudiciously in view of his resolve to +think of Egoettes no more, had been dipping into "Marna." + +This book of Angela's had long lain as a plague on the mind of Charles. +For a space, he had not returned the book because of the estrangement, +or misunderstanding; for another space, because of the swiftly ripening +intimacy, compelling the general policy of lying low; and now a large +fresh obstacle had risen, in the girl's unfortunate remarks directly +connecting the return of her book with a call. Whether, after that, he +could harden his heart to slip "Marna" back to her by the hand of the +Judge--without any appreciative blossoms, needless to say--remained to +be seen. So long as the situation remained as it was, Charles had +decided simply not to take up the worry at all. + +Hence Angela's book rested, gathering dust on the Studio mantel. And, +chancing to come on it in his moody pacings after supper, the author had +picked it up, in mere resentment at its being there. Standing hostilely, +he permitted himself to skim a few pages of the stuff, toward the end. +Next, with growing intention, he looked into the middle. And finally, +he sat frankly down with "Marna" in the Judge's new easy-chair. + +It had occurred to him that it was probably his professional duty to see +what sort of line on the Unrest the other fellows were taking these +days. This book here was enjoying an immense vogue; every newspaper +reminded you that it was the Best Selling Book in America. What truth, +then, did it have to tell? Or--put more simply--it may be that Charles +had merely fallen a weak victim to the true writer's continual +temptation and longing, viz.: to clutch at anything, anything, that will +keep him from having to write, or think up. + +Angela's book (which was so strangely unlike Angela) had come from the +typewriter of a brilliant and industrious British Thinker. From the +"literary criticism" and publisher's advertising that he read--and he +seemed to read little else in these days--Charles had already gathered +that "Marna" followed that simple "ultra-modern" line which to him, with +his expanding knowledge, now seemed so oddly old-fashioned. In his +standing skim just now, he had noted, with quickening distaste, how +easily _Marna_ accomplished a glorious Career: as, indeed, a girl has +small excuse for not doing, when she has an able author working for her +night and day. In particular, he observed that her "demonstrating +experiment in freer forms of union" turned out far more happily than +poor unauthored Flora Trevenna's. As well as Charles could make out, +_Marna's_ swain not only had a wife living when she met him, but was +engaged to another woman besides. But when the splendid girl said to +him, on page 478: "What a joy, beloved, to strike back at the grubby +little people who're trying to fetter the love-spirit! Ah, but I'm glad +you're married!"--after this, every one knew that it was all up with _De +Bevoies_, who, being a poet, could hardly be expected to argue back at +agreeable talk of this sort. (_Marna_ had met him at an anarchist +"social"; he was stunningly modern, and borrowed two pounds from her the +first thing next morning.) Not long after the talkative but Higher +Honeymoon on the Breton Coast, _Mrs. De Bevoies_ died, with thoughtful +promptness, and it was noted that the New couple at once adopted the +old-established form of union, after all, and (of course) quickly became +the toasts of London. + +"_George!..._ How easy writing would be," thought Charles, with great +indignation--"if only the truth were as simple as that!" + +And then, seated under the lamp Wallie Flower had so skillfully +repaired, he turned to page 1, intent upon getting this other fellow's +heroine, and her Career, at the point of origin. The _Twexhams_, he +learned, lived quietly, thirty miles from London. (Their address, if it +is of the smallest interest, was Fernleigh Cottage, the Priory, Dean's +Highgate, Lower-Minter-on-the-Mavern, Essex.) _Marna Twexham_ had the +striking beauty conventional among the Freewomen of fiction. Having had +a year at college, attended several gatherings in the Redmantle Club +vein, and read three or more books in which unmarried women told the +truth about Life, she inevitably reached the conclusion that it was her +duty to make herself free. Put in another way, she saw that it was her +duty to go to London. For, of course, "young women of genius" understand +perfectly that freedom is a matter of geography, a metropolitan +consummation, as we might term it, and would properly smile at the +antediluvian who maintained that people can be free in the suburbs, if +they can be anywhere. Thus _Marna_ smiled at the old fogey, her father, +who opposed her going to London to be free. It seemed that the old chap, +for reasons Charles could not fathom, actually wanted to keep the girl +with him. "There are dangers in London that a good woman knows nothing +of," he said, warningly; but _Marna_ eyed him so knowingly that he +changed his tune at once. "You are all we have left, Marny dear," he +wheedled. "Don't go away from us--yet, at any rate." "Why is it assumed +that a woman who does not choose to marry is _left_?" asked the wise +strong girl; and while her father scratched his head over this poser, +she continued, firm but kind: "Really, you know, Dad, the idea that +people have got to spend their lives together merely because of an +accidental birth relation--really, you know, all that's jolly well +played out. We've proved quite too awfully much about the beastly +repressive influence of the family-tie." "But your sister!--poor invalid +Muriel!" pleaded old _Twexham_. "She loves you so much, she so dependent +on you! It will kill her to--" _Marna's_ smile, checking his maundering, +was a great credit to her self-control (the author said). To set up +playing checkers with a neurasthenic spinster, against a soul's sacred +duty to itself and mankind! "Can't you really see, Dad," she said, quite +patiently, "that a trained nurse can look after my sister much more +efficiently than I can?" "It isn't that--exactly," faltered the +moss-back parent. "It's your love she needs. And--I feel that you _do_ +belong to us, Marny dear! I feel that--" "No, father," replied the +glorious creature, gazing out the oriel window, over the terrace, +rose-garden, etc., and into the morning sun. "I belong--out there! Such +small abilities as I may possess," said _Marna_ with exquisite modesty, +"belong to the Race. Such small contributions as I may be able to make +to the thought of my time, I dare not withhold. I cannot be weakly +sentimental--and stay," she concluded, with some feeling. (And indeed +Dean's Highgate _was_ a quiet, dull place; Lower-Minter-on-the-Mavern, +also.) Presently, the old fellow broke down and wept, and then _Marna_, +repelled, eyeing him as if he were something odd and decidedly +contemptible, said firmly ... + +"Nasty little beast!" cried Charles Garrott, aloud. + +He leapt from Judge Blenso's easy-chair, and glared about like one +desirous of something to kick, and that right quickly. Then, with a +flashing understanding of his need, he went springing toward the Studio +window. And passionately he flung the window wide, and passionately he +hurled the best-selling book in America forth into the winter night. + +"Faugh!" shouted Charles. + +Down in dark Mason Street, the shooting "Marna" struck the limb of a +large tree, and caroming violently, bounded back against a passing old +gentleman in a black felt hat, who looked like a Confederate veteran. +The old 'un, starting with annoyance, clapped a hand to his shoulder, +and gazed round and up; then, suddenly catching sight of the young man +standing at the third-story window, he shouted something in a high angry +voice, and brandished an aged arm with menace. But the young man merely +continued to stand there, silently scowling down at him. So then the old +gentleman, composing himself but resolved that he should not be smitten +for nothing, picked up Miss Angela Flower's new book from the sidewalk +before him, dusted it carefully with an experienced handkerchief, and +hobbled away with it into the darkness. + +"Disgusting little Egoette!" said Charles, scowling after him.... "And +that's the sort of stuff that passes for _thinking_ nowadays! That's the +stuff our women are reading, forming their--" + +"Who're you cussing out the window, Charlie?" said Donald Manford's +hearty voice behind him. + +Charles wheeled sharply. + +He resented being walked in on this way; resented all companionship from +his kind just now; in especial, he resented Donald Manford's contented, +care-free face. At the same time, this face of Donald's awakened other +and different emotions, relative to the slim hope it embodied, and +enjoining tact, some cunning. + +So, controlling himself, Charles merely said: "Well? What're you horning +in here for?" + +"Dying for one glimpse of your sweet phiz. Nice welcome!" laughed the +young engineer, exuberantly. "But how'd you ever get into a street-row, +Charlie, out of your third-story window?" + +"Oh!... Just talking to myself. Bad habit of mine," he said, with an +effort. "You're rather flossy to-night!--out to give the girls a treat, +I gather. Let's see. German, I suppose?" Laying his tall hat tenderly on +the Judge's little typewriter-table, Donald acknowledged the soft +impeachment. + +"Well, who's the lucky lady, this time?--Or maybe you're stagging?" + +"Who, me? Not on your life! I've got Miss Carson again--lucky thing!" + +"Indeed," said the author, coldly. + +"And a pippin she is too! Talk about clever, Charlie! By Jove, there's a +girl that makes a fellow use his cocoa all the time, let me tell you!" + +Charles sat down heavily at his writing-table, and lit a cigarette. Mary +Wing managed her affairs well, indeed. He spoke with mysterious +bitterness:-- + +"You _are_ blossoming out! If anybody'd told me last year that you'd be +praising one of the new highbrow sisters, I'd have kicked him downstairs +for a liar." + +"When a girl can look like that, my boy--" + +"Developing into a regular man-flirt too, aren't you? Last I heard of +you, you were driving up Washington Street with Miss Flower." + +Instead of resenting the odious epithet, Donald's face was seen to +assume a pleased smirk. + +"Ho!--had your spies on me, have you? Why, did we pass you to-day?" + +[Illustration: "HO!--HAD YOUR SPIES ON ME, HAVE YOU?"] + +Charles's heart seemed to leap a little. "Why, no," he said, sweetly. "I +was speaking of one day last week. So you stole another drive +to-day--you sly rascal!" + +"Don't know that you'd call it driving, exactly. Where'd that brother of +hers dig the little four-wheeler, d'you s'pose? I thought that kind were +extinct, same as the Dodo--" + +"Why, I think it's a very nice little car, Donald! Small, old-fashioned, +yes--but very comfortable and--easy-going. I've--ah--had a--a number of +pleasant drives in it. The real trouble is," said Charles, with immense +carelessness, "she honestly doesn't know how to manage it very well as +yet. And I, of course, don't know how to teach her--unfortunately." + +Having seated himself in Judge Blenso's chair, Donald was lighting, with +a lordly air, one of Judge Blenso's cigars; the Judge himself being at +his club, through lack of interest in the Studio. Extinguishing his +match by waving it languidly back and forth, the youth said, with a +faint reminiscent smile:-- + +"Well, I gave her a pretty good lesson this afternoon, far as that goes. +Had a very fairish time, too. Nice little girl, she is." + +The author gazed, with a sort of nervous incredulity. He laughed +hurriedly. + +"Nice!--well, I should say so! She's--she's charming! You'll have to +look pretty sharp if you want any more drives there--too much +competition! But, of course, she may not be _bookish_ enough, to suit +your new taste--" + +"Oh, bookish, no. She's not that sort. I'll tell you what your little +friend is, Charlie," said the young engineer, with an air of +insufferable conceit. "She's what _I_ call a womanly woman." + +Charles averted his eyes. This simple fool's quick response to the +"putting on" treatment almost passed belief. Unquestionably, Donald was +far more receptive to feminine influences now, than he had been in his +industrious pre-Wyoming days; again, mere use, mere custom and +propinquity, were famous for accomplishing just these wonders. Still, +Charles's philosophic overmind, contrasting this grin on Donald's face +with that unflattering remark of his last November, threw out a +different concept, viz.: that perseverance in a woman is a marvelous +thing. + +But the hope, though it shot up delightfully, was a thin one yet. Dull +Donald went on knowingly:-- + +"But speaking of the competition, what's happened to you, old horse?" + +"How do you mean, happened to me?" + +"Your little friend says you used to meet her nearly every day for a +drive, but now you haven't been seen for days. I told her you'd probably +changed your hours a little, as I'd seen you at lunch earlier than--" + +"You did?" said the author, looking at the engineer with unconcealed +annoyance. "Well, you were mistaken, that's all! You had no business to +say anything of the sort. Of course, my hours may vary a little--in +fact, they vary a good deal. Great heavens, I--" + +"Well, don't get peevish about it!--friendly tip I'm giving you, that's +all. She thinks you're mad with her--do you get me? Says you've never +forgiven her for something she said to you once--some misunderstanding +you had--you know, I guess--" + +"Why, damnation, we never _had_ any misunderstanding! I'm _busy_! I +don't undertake to start to lunch at a certain particular second--" + +"Well, don't tell it to me!" said Donald, cheerfully. "Trot along and +explain it to her, that's the way.--I say, Charlie--change the +subject--did I tell you what old Gebhardt said to me the first day we +looked over the plans? About my concrete bridge over Sankey River?" + +And then the childish egotistical youth was off. It seemed, indeed, that +the monologue ensuing was what he had come for; it seemed that he had +dressed himself one hour too early for the German with just this most +agreeable of all purposes in his mind: to sit and have a good long talk +about himself. Charles received his boastings with restless boredom, +marking meaninglessly on the pad before him, moodily biding his time. He +could have kicked Donald for his stupidity in mentioning his trifling +change of hours; but of course his need was to get the conversation back +to Angela quietly, without arousing the slightest suspicion. His need +was that Donald should agree to give Angela regular lessons in driving +the Fordette, every day through the lunch-hour. + +But Donald, happening to note the face of Big Bill, came suddenly to his +feet: and then, as suddenly, gave the talk an unlooked-for turn. + +"I say, Charlie! How about you and old Blenso for the Wings' apartment?" + +Charles's head came slowly round. "How about what?" + +"Dashed sight more comfortable than up your two flights here!" + +"The Wings' apartment is for rent?" + +"Didn't you know that, old stick-in-the-mud? What's the matter with you? +Mary's been hunting a tenant for two weeks." + +Charles, finding it unnecessary to state that he had not seen Mary for +exactly that length of time,--barring one very transient meeting on the +street,--merely indicated, without any polish, that, not being a +gadabout ass like some, he made no pretense of keeping up with all the +latest tittle-tattle. + +He then asked, in a voice indicating no interest in the subject: "What's +Mrs. Wing going to do?" + +"Going to North Carolina to live with Fanny." + +"With Fanny!... I suppose she didn't consider going with Miss Mary?" + +"Couldn't stand the pressure. Why, New York would kill her off like a +fly! And besides, she doesn't want to get too far away from the Warders, +you know. Of course, Fanny can't make her very comfortable just now--but +we talked it all over and that seemed the best arrangement, all round." + +"I see." + +"Mary can't turn back now, of course. Well, Charlie," said Donald, +earnestly, "I don't hold with her fool notions, and all that but hang it +all!--she's no ordinary woman, and this is no ordinary job. Those people +are giving her two assistants and $5000 a year. What d'you know about +that for a poor little girl?" + +He was struggling to get into his overcoat without "breaking" his +shirt-front--going at once, evidently. But Charles had lost sight of his +strategic intentions. + +"Well, how about you two old chaps for the furnished apartment--February +fifteenth, if you want it?" + +Charles observed that he couldn't look at it. Donald, as if only +stimulated by his host's taciturnity, became sentimental. + +"First Mary, then Mrs. Wing, then me--this is going to be a break-up, +Charlie, do you realize it? I'm beginning to feel it, too, let me tell +you! Jove," said Donald, putting on his shining head-piece and bringing +the conversation back to himself simultaneously--"now that I come right +down to it, _I_ don't want to leave this good old town!" + +He departed, to his unconscious match-making. Charles, left alone, +merely sat on at his table. And all that he thought of Angela Flower now +was of an insignificant remark she had let fall, the first time they had +walked together: "Mr. Garrott do you know who _Marna_ reminded me of? +Somebody you admire a great deal...." + +And then for half an hour, his writer's mind insisted on working over +and over that detestable conversation between _Marna_ and her father, +and changing it a little, just a little touch here and there, to make it +fit smoothly upon Mrs. Wing and Mary.... + +"I tell you," said the lonely authority, suddenly, bringing his fist +down on the table with a thump,--"this whole Movement's a failure if it +lessens _woman's lovableness_! I tell you the whole object of this +Movement is to make women _more lovable_!" + +For he, of course, had never thought--like the author of "Marna" for +example--that passionate love was the only sort of love worth +mentioning. In that narrow sense, in her sufficiently cheap faculty for +stirring the senses of men, it was clear that woman, whatever she did or +left undone, would always remain "lovable." But as to love in broad and +human terms--well (to keep the subject wholly impersonal); could any one +in his senses call _Marna_ a lovable being? No, her creator, in his +determination to show how strong and "free" she was, had quite +unconsciously made her a harsh and vain self-worshiper, revolting to +decent persons. Had he, as we might say, thus inadvertently given the +whole thing away? Was it finally true that a woman could not claim and +lead her Own Life, except at a heavy price--paid down in her best +treasure? Was the ruthless Career-Maker but the logical other-form of +the waiting, the too pursuing, Maker of Homes? + +From his drawer, Charles presently pulled out the former exercise-book +which had enjoyed the great rise in the world. In this book, he had +written no sentence since his remembered Notes on Flora Trevenna. Now he +set down with a firm hand:-- + + What is called the Woman's Movement is seen, in the last + analysis, to be only every woman's struggle between two + irreconcilable impulses in her own nature. + +Having written that sentence, the young man stared at it long. To him it +was like a bright beam of light, turned upon the roots of his peculiar +problem. For if these two impulses were in truth irreconcilable, why +need he go on struggling to reconcile them in a heroine he could +unreservedly admire? + + + + +XVI + + +With the sun of a new noon, with the recurring need of obtaining +sustenance from one's environment, there came again the more practical +problems of this weary world. + +At ten minutes past one on this day, Tuesday, Charles went slipping from +the house of the little Deming boys to that of the old lady who was +studying French. She lived, luckily, but three doors away. She was a +very lively old lady, and possessed her tutor's high regard. But that +she might represent help to him, that she could personify the tutelary +god of Bachelors rushing at last to his aid, had simply never crossed +his mind. + +The old lady's regular lesson-hour was, of course, two-thirty o'clock. +But, as it happened, she had had her last instruction in the French +language for some time to come, it having popped into her head, and that +of the old gentleman her husband, to go to Palm Beach for a three weeks' +vacation. Hence her tutor's presence in her drawing-room at this +unwonted hour seemed to be due to mere chance (though who knows?). In +short, as he saw it, he had merely "stopped by" to deliver a list of +irregular verbs, which the old lady was to master completely while at +the Beach. + +Having stopped, Charles did not start again upon the instant: far from +it. Friday's and Monday's run of luck had not been expected to keep up +indefinitely, at the best. And Donald's blundering remark betraying his +ruse had inevitably suggested the idea of experimenting a bit with +opposite tactics, to wit: quietly turning his schedule backward, for +variety's sake, and starting to lunch very late. Thus it was that +Charles, having said all he had to say to the old lady, lingered to say +it all again, and again, clinging verbosely to his oldest living pupil +as it were, while one eye shot perpetually out the front window, close +beside which he had taken up his position. + +For the third time, the old lady promised to be studious on her holiday. + +"Don't you remember how well I knew the plurals of the _-ou_ nouns +yesterday?" said she, chipper as a boy. "Well, my husband had heard them +every one to me the night before!--that was how I did it! Well, don't +you see, I'll make him hear me the verbs every afternoon while he's +taking his nap--over and over!" + +"Exactly, ma'am. Do just that. Have him hear them over and over--every +afternoon. That's the only way really to master them--the only possible +way. And as I say--be sure to take along your dictionary and your +Fontaine's 'Fables,' and read three or four pages every day--except +Sunday. I said that just now, I know. But, ma'am, it's one of those +things that--ah--can't be said too often--" + +Here the tutor's eye, reconnoitering out the window again, fell upon a +motor-car just coming to a standstill before the old lady's door. He +started, nervously. But, of course, this was not the Fordette: it was +five times too big, at least. + +And he said, in a quickened voice: "Whose car is that standing out +there?" + +"Why, mine, of course! Eustace stops for orders before going down to +bring my husband up and I just sign to him out of the window if there's +nothing. Indeed I hoped you wouldn't make me read my 'Fables' while I +was away, but I will if you say so, for of course I'm going to learn +French. And you take care of yourself, young man. You haven't looked +well to me for several days." + +"I'm not quite well, ma'am, I fear," said Charles. "I was just thinking +I'd better let Eustace drive me down with him, if you don't mind. +I--ah--scarcely feel like walking to-day." + +"Of course. And have him bring you up again when he takes my husband +back, why don't you? My dear young man, I reproach myself. I'd have had +him call for you at the Demings' and take you down every day, but you +know you always said you loved to walk." + +"I did--I used to--but--ah--I rather think I've been overdoing it, of +late. I've been walking more than is good for me. Well!--thank you very +much. I'll go and get right in, shall I?" + +Having wished his aged pupil a happy journey once more, Charles started +toward the door, much pleased with his lucky stroke. And then, all at +once, a splendid idea burst upon him, a vast and brilliant possibility. +And in exactly the same instant, he heard the chipper voice of the old +lady speaking again behind him, rather thoughtfully:-- + +"I wish I could persuade you to use my car altogether while we're +away.... But I suppose you'd think that fearfully--fearfully _effete_!" + +"WHAT?" + +It must have seemed odd to her, the instantaneousness with which her +tutor sprang round. And then he began to move back toward her, very +slowly, round unwinking eyes glued upon her. + +"Ah--_what did you say_?" + +"You look astounded. I suppose you're offended at the suggestion. Now, +really--why not take my car while I'm away?" said the old lady. (What a +dear, what a darling old lady she was, to be sure!) "Why are you young +men so reckless with your health, breaking it down with all this foolish +walking, up and down--" + +"Oh, ma'am!" stammered Charles. "I--I hardly know what to say. I'm not +offended in the _least_--feeling as I do at present. But I--I really--" + +"Then I'll make you do it!" she said, with the greatest energy. "I'm +going to exert all my will-power--I'm chock full of it, I warn you!--and +make you use the car regularly from now on, and stop this walking. +Promise me! I'll have Eustace report to you every morning for his +orders, and you are to use him as your own ..." + +The tutor stood like a man entranced. Before his mind's eye there were +unrolling the most enchanting pictures: pictures of the same series that +had fascinated Angela's mind's eye when her brother had offered her the +Fordette, but of precisely the opposite intention; pictures of himself +whizzing securely from point to point, here or there at his careless +ease, all walking henceforth reduced to the mere hurried crossing of +sidewalks.... + +"But I--I'm afraid it would be an imposition! I don't deny it would be +a--a pleasure--a benefit--feeling as I--" + +"Then that's settled! Imposition, nonsense! As it happens, you will be +doing us a favor. Why, wasn't my husband saying only last night that +Eustace, having nobody at all to look after him, was certain to spend +these three weeks in one long spree, and be worn to a shadow when we get +back? His habits are so unfortunate, I warn you about that--" + +"It's so--_awfully_--kind of you, ma'am! I hardly know how to--" + +"Not another word!--leave all the rest to me. And you really don't look +well, young man. Now, shall I have Bruce make you something,--oh, very +nice,--before you start down? Oh, why, bless you, I take a julep myself +whenever I feel the least bit like it!" + +Then the ardor of his gratitude really touched the old lady, even though +it seemed excessive for her small courtesy. Later, looking out the +window, to sign to Eustace, she saw that the young man was actually +laughing to himself with pleasure, as he went down the front steps. She +thought him a very strange young man. + + * * * * * + +He gave his machine-god standing orders, which, after all, proved simple +enough. Eustace and the Big Six were to pick him up at the little Deming +boys' every day at one o'clock, and drive him to lunch; Eustace and the +Big Six were to call for him at Mrs. Herman's every afternoon at +half-past three, and take him to and from the Choristers'. Those, +positively, were the only danger-points, these the small arrangements by +which peril was to be circumvented. And he had not overrated the value +of his brilliant gift from fortune; the arrangements, being made, were +executed with the happiest success. In the fine big limousine of the old +lady (_la grande jolie limousine de la vieille_) Charles pursued his +daily rounds in complete security, and he hardly saw the shadow of +another meeting now. + +Or rather, there was the possibility of but one more meeting; and, that +scarcely seemed to matter, now that he had so clearly won back his +voluntary celibacy. + +At Saltman's bookstore, he had purchased a fresh copy of the odious +"Marna," and in his new kindness and good-will toward all, he finally +resolved to return the book in person, and to ask for Angela at the +door, to boot. Utter freedom of the city upheld his native dislike for +being a mere rude boor. And by one simple venture, he could honorably +liquidate all claims, pay at one stroke all the various calls demanded +of him: the book-call, the party-call, and the call in acknowledgment of +the Kiss. + +Even if Angela should happen to be at home when he called, the isolated +meeting could hardly lead to trouble. But, after all, of course, the +point was to fulfill rather the letter of a call than its essential +spirit. Charles thought it decidedly for the best that Angela should not +be at home at the time. Thus he further procrastinated, awaiting an +afternoon so sweet and balmy that every owner of a self-propelling +vehicle would be morally certain to be out in it. + +And then, while he so dallied about the Call, while his own days +continued to reel off smooth as clockwork, a faint new cloud began to +steal over his first careless happiness. Having finally saved himself, +the unheroic bachelor felt his deadened consideration for others slowly +and reluctantly stirring into life. + +The first time he in his speedy limousine passed captive Donald in the +Fordette, Charles was even more pleased than he had been that other +day, at Miss Grace's window. By chance, he overhauled the little +conveyance on the second day of the new era, as he shot away from the +Choristers' at half-past four o'clock; and, captivated by the sight of +the simpleton engineer in his own old place, he could not resist leaning +forward as he drew abreast, knocking on the window and waving gayly to +the two nice normal cousins of Mary. He saw that Angela, recognizing +him, gave him one swift surprised stare. And then the old lady's Big Six +leapt by her, as the limited leaps by a tank in the night, and he sat +back convulsed with a brilliant diplomat's delights. + +He, indeed, had put her on. Clearer and clearer it grew that he could +beat Mary Wing at match-making, if at nothing else under the sun.... Let +her look to herself! + +But the second time Charles had this interesting experience--just two +days later, on his drive to Berringer's--he did not knock on the window, +or laugh, or even smile. No, this time he sat still on his luxurious +seat, looking straight ahead. And presently he found himself arguing, +very earnestly and conscientiously, and somewhat as follows:-- + +While it might be true that for the moment Angela liked him best +(entirely owing to the tender feelings aroused by the Kiss) no one could +deny that a match between her and Donald would be a far more suitable +thing. In fact, such a match would really be very suitable, indeed, +whatever cold-blooded eugenists like Mary Wing might think. Talk as you +liked, Donald was not at all the man to be happy with a girl who firmly +and continually "made a fellow use his cocoa." On the contrary, Donald +was the mere simple, primitive male who wanted a woman that he could +"protect," feel superior to and be coddled and attended by. And any +fair-minded person must admit that Angela, whatever little faults or +foibles she might seem to have, was precisely this sort of girl. Harsh +nonsense about her Sacred Duty to the Race was not in her. + +Did she, indeed, have any faults--real faults of character, that is? +Womanly though she was, she was no idler, no parasite like Miss Grace, +for instance, but a genuine worker, accustomed to pay her own way by the +practice of a highly specialized and difficult business. This business, +at best, was a monotonous and grinding one; she herself was a stranger, +poor and lonely. Was it so wicked, then, that in her leisure-hour she +should wish to drive out occasionally, and meet her young friends? + +The Big Six, "Marna," the matter of the Wings' flat, doubtless each had +contributed in its way to put Angela back in her true light: the light +she had shone in before the days of the wooing. Admit, if you liked, +that for the moment her purely feminine, or pursuing, side might seem to +be just a little over-developed: that, argued Charles, was but a +temporary, and really a proper and necessary manifestation. The Home +that Angela was at present engaged in making was Dr. and Mrs. Flower's +Home. The Will in things had it that every girl should have a Home of +her own to make. There lay the momentary source of Unrest: considered +rightly, the Fordette was merely the ingenious instrument employed by +the Will for working out its high designs. Once that was accomplished, +once Angela was established in her own little nest as Donald's sweet +true wife, then, beyond doubt, her essentially womanly side would at +once spring into full possession of her. Then she would fairly settle to +her life-work of making her own Home, while supplying large quantities +of just the sort of beauty and charm that engineers appreciate most. + +Moreover (concluded Charles's argument of the case) marriage was clearly +a matter where quixotism was misplaced, and a man's first duty was to +himself. And, finally, of course he would never have put her on to +Donald, if he had known that the old lady was going to lend him her +limousine. But he had not known: and that was the old lady's fault if +anybody's. + +On the night of this day, by chance,--the day of Donald's known fourth +drive in the instrument of the Will,--as Charles lay prone upon the +Studio lounge, feebly thinking up, Judge Blenso suddenly opened the +Studio door and said: "Charles! A lady at the 'phone!" Instantly coming +to an elbow, Charles inquired who this lady might be; and the Judge +(whose manner toward his relative had markedly changed, since Charles +was known to have abandoned his exercises and foregone his affair of +honor) replied with great coldness: "It's Miss Rose. Come along!" "Miss +Rose?" repeated Charles, slowly beginning to rise. "Why, I don't--" +"Yes, yes, I said! Miss Rose! No!--let me see! Miss Flower--something of +the sort! Good gad, how long're you going to keep her waiting?" But +Charles, remembering the promised bridge-party in a flash, said: "I'm +sick, Judge," and lay back on the lounge forthwith. "Ah--just say, +please, that you found me lying down--not well at all. She might leave a +message, if necessary." To which the Judge replied, disgusted: "I don't +wonder you're sick, the sickenin' life you lead! By gad, sir!--can't +even _walk_!..." + +No message came back other than that Miss Flower was sorry to hear he +wasn't well. But the little incident, though nothing came of it, showed +clearly that she wasn't going to give him up without a struggle, Donald +or no. He could never feel completely safe until she was married, and +that was the truth. And he still had that cursed book to return, too. + +But it seemed that his higher nature, once aroused, would not go quietly +back to sleep again. The first glad selfish days were over. When, on the +Tuesday following, he again saw Donald as Angela's willing captive, +when, shooting by, he observed the fatuous youth ogling and smirking +over his predicament, as much as to say that there was no such person as +Helen Carson, then Charles's face became very grave, his look intensely +thoughtful. And when he reached Berringer's that day, he ordered--sure +enough--"Wait for me, Eustace." And when he emerged from Berringer's, at +a little before two, he said, in the face of all resolves:-- + +"To Olive and Washington Streets, Eustace. And then turn and go slowly +out Dean Street, toward Lee Grammar School." + + + + +XVII + + +Partly because she was not ready to resign her place in the schools, +partly, perhaps, to heighten the dramatic stinging quality of what she +called her "brilliant revenge," Mary Wing had kept her great _coup_ a +secret for the present. So she, famous wherever weekly periodicals were +read round the world, honored officer-elect of a powerful national +organization, walked daily, in sun and rain, to a grammar school as +before. + +As to looks and appearance, Charles had always recognized Mary as one of +the variable women. She was not indifferent on those subjects, he +judged, but the utilitarian supremacy of work in her life commonly +produced that effect. Mary rarely went to parties any more; but at her +flat in Olive Street she often enough entertained at dinner, +strategically, a person or two of consequence in the educational or +political world. Charles (being, of course, of not the slightest help to +anybody) had never been invited to but one of these little dinners. On +that solitary occasion, the look and air of his friend in evening dress +had considerably surprised him, and in several other ways, including the +dinner, he had absorbed agreeable impressions of Mary not tallying with +other impressions. However, pretty clothes and pretty manner were deemed +too good for every day, it seemed; for the realities, Mary dressed as +plainly as she acted. And now, trudging homeward along this slightly +squalid street, she looked, it must be admitted, not like a shining +celebrity at all, but just like an ordinary person, a school-teacher, +and rather a fatigued one at that. + +So, at least, thought the author of the write-ups, catching sight of her +through the glass over Eustace's shoulder, noting the somewhat droopy +manner of her walk. But he reflected, there was no satisfying some +people. And hastily clutching up the speaking-tube of the old lady, he +gave the order which brought his great car to a standstill; and so +stepped forth upon the sunny sidewalk, just in front of her. + +The General Secretary looked up, with a small start at finding herself +intercepted. She saw Charles Garrott, and her face changed perceptibly, +though under what impulse he could scarcely have said. That his recent +demeanor must have seemed slightly puzzling to her, the young man was, +however, sufficiently aware: and now he was all at once conscious of a +want of ease within himself, a rare and odd constraint. + +Hence he fell instinctively into his lightest and most mask-like tone: +"Well met! I was hoping I might run on you somewhere out this way. Do +get in and let me take you home." + +Mary accepted at once, with pleasure. + +"But whose beautiful car is this you're using now?" she went on easily. +"I was sure I saw you whiz by in it the other day." + +"Oh, this!--yes!--I must tell you about it." + +So due explanations covered the start of the drive. Establishing his +famous friend in the old lady's limousine, Charles told, in modified, +expurgated form, how he had got possession of it. For Angela's benefit, +he had lately informed Donald that he was unwell from overwork: that was +why he had to ride in a closed car wherever he went. Report of this had +unluckily reached Mary, it seemed, necessitating more explanation: that +he was not sick at all, unless you would count writer's sickness, etc., +etc. + +"And this saves such a lot of time, getting around, too--which is no +small thing." + +The conclusion of the explanation was followed by a small silence: +scarcely one of the golden sort, but rather a dearth of conversation +such as had once been rare between these two. But Mary, whose manner +seemed as usual, or perhaps only the least bit more polite, broke it at +once, saying cordially:-- + +"So you have an extra hour for your own work now? That's splendid! And +how's your new novel getting on?" + +"Oh!--not at all, thank you! I've made two starts, but both of them +proved false, I regret to state. So now I'm back at zero again. It's a +hard business, writing a book.... And as far as I can make out, I'm +specially handicapped by having all sorts of foolish theories as to what +a novel ought to be. If I were only a good plain realist now, how simple +life would be!" + +His tongue loosened; he found himself embracing the chance topic, so +hard and impersonal, so beautifully remote from everything that fretted +his mind. He had come, magnanimously, to give one fair warning about +Donald; but no doubt he planned it that his warning should fall +casually, half-buried in other talk. There was such a thing as being too +generous for self-interest, of course. Or possibly Charles perceived +that the sound of his own voice, running surely along on a subject of +which he knew everything, and she knew nothing, gave him just that sense +of easy command of the situation which his manly need demanded. + +Mary had said courteously: "You think realism is so much easier to +write?" + +"I've never tried, of course--but doesn't it impress you so? You +remember old Meredith said distinctly, that was the cue for little +writers. And I must say I think he had an idea what he was talking +about. In fact," continued Charles, with unwonted loquacity, while his +limousine rolled rapidly, "if I were old and generally recognized as the +dean of American novelists--kindly do not laugh--and was visited for +counsel by a young writing fellow who had no literary abilities except +industry--why, I should say to him at once, 'My dear young man, become a +realist, of course. That is really the only line where you will find +your want of abilities a positive advantage. If you possess any shred of +humor, charm, insight, sympathy, idealism, so-called,--above all, +idealism,--and if you are cursed with any sense of form and unity, and +feel that a story ought to have a beginning and an end, and be _about_ +something in the mean time,--why, trample on all this as you would on so +many snakes,' I should say to him. 'Get it fixed firmly in your dull +mind that life is dreary and meaningless, or has but a material meaning, +if you like, and that sound fiction must behave accordingly. Then,' I +should say to my young friend, 'if you will but choose as your heroine a +young girl with more looks than character--and not necessarily such a +lot of looks either--who comes up to the city to get on, it is +inconceivable to me that even you could fail to score a great realistic +success.'--'But,' we can imagine this fellow, this nonexistent admirer +of mine, saying, 'I don't understand you. What am I, as a creative +author, to put in to take the place of the insight, humor, unity, and +all the rest that I've eliminated?' 'My poor boy, I've just told you,' I +should reply. 'Industry and pessimism. That is all a realist knows and +all he needs to know. You tell me you have the industry. I tell you that +the pessimism is the easiest little trick to pick up in the world.' +But," said Charles, in his own voice, "I fear, Miss Mary, I 'm putting +you to sleep with all this musty shop-talk--" + +"Indeed, no!--it's extremely interesting," said the heroine of the +write-ups, very civilly, but looking straight ahead. "You don't often +talk about your work." + +"Haven't often had the chance," thought Charles. And if that was +considerably unjust, he did not seem to mind at all, but rather was +pleased by the knowledge that Mary observed his copious ironic manner, +and found it baffling and queer. + +"Well,--in conclusion, as you public speakers say,--I was only going to +add that I didn't know enough to swallow my own medicine. The trouble +seems to be--Well, take the horrible thing called sentiment now, that +makes a sophisticated realist so sick. I look about me and, try as I +will, I seem to see the disgusting thing very much alive and +kicking--not something made up by a fourth-class writer to tickle +shopgirls, but actually playing a prominent part in the hard world round +me, all the time, everywhere. I seem--" + +"I don't see how any one could deny that!" + +"It wouldn't seem so, would it?" said Charles respectfully, and a sudden +faint gleam came into his eye. "But really isn't that what they do, in +effect? Here am I, as an observer, seeing men and women all round me +doing things they don't want to do, giving up things they do want to +do"--did his voice, too, acquire a thin edge?--"for immaterial reasons +that can only be traced to some inner ideal--hated word! And then here +am I, as a writer, required to deny all these observations of mine--and +for what reason? Merely, as far as I can make out, to keep some sour +chap with a defective liver, probably a German to boot--why are Germans +so pessimistic, do you know?--from calling me a sentimental ass. Of +course we admit," he prattled on, taking note of the passing streets, +"that sentiment is weak and childish and Victorian, and 'idealism' is +the screaming joke on Western civilization. Still, isn't it my only +business as a writer to find out whether or not these contemptible +things do act and react in the life I see? And if they do--must I +represent the contrary, merely to please the peculiar taste of a small +sad school that has no God but a second-hand mannerism bagged from dear +old Europe?--By the way, are you in a special hurry now?" + +"Why, no. Not at all." + +"Good!--Eustace," called Charles through the tube, "drive more slowly." + +And then, feeling himself completely master of the situation now, the +young man said with quite a gay laugh:-- + +"And to add to all my other troubles, I've deliberately gone and taken +Woman for my subject! That will make you smile! You remember you warned +me in advance it was a theme I didn't know the first thing about." + +But Mary was not observed to smile. + +"I did say that, in fun once," she said, punctiliously, after a +perceptible pause--"but, of course, I didn't mean it--in any literal +sense. Indeed, I think--" + +"But you were right--absolutely!--that's just what I want to say! I 'm +finding out more and more every day how true that word was. This whole +Movement now--what is it? What's it for? Blest if I know! The last time +we talked about it, you may remember, I took the ground that the +Movement--or what I supposed was the Movement, that week--suffered by +confusing itself with another propaganda it hadn't a thing under the sun +to do with. But--" + +"No--what propaganda? I don't remember." + +"Oh!--Personal Liberty!... The Cult of the Ego, perhaps you might call +it. But, of course, for all I know," said the light masterful Charles, +"that is the Movement, and always has been. Only last week I lighted on +a new formula--sort of a definition--to-morrow I'll probably discard it +for another. It's very unsettling--for my writing, you know. By the +way--can't you help me out a little? What would be your best definition +of the Unrest--for literary purposes?" + +But Mary, with a carefulness not usual to her, eluded controversy, +merely saying it all depended on how you looked at it, or words to that +effect. And then she gave him a small thrill by neatly taking his bait. + +"But what is your new definition?" + +"Oh, that! Definition's too grand a word, of course. I merely wondered +if what is called the Woman's Movement was anything more than a +projection--don't you know?--of an everlasting struggle going on between +two irreconcilable elements in every woman's nature." + +The car rolled in silence. + +"There's a pessimistic definition for you! For I suppose," said the +friend of women, and could no longer keep the seriousness out of his +voice, "it must be true that every struggle implies the defeat--of +something.... Doesn't it? I suppose we can really never get away from +the sad discovery of childhood, that we can't eat our cake and have it +too." + +"That's interesting! But I don't believe I understand you altogether. +What do you symbolize as the cake?" + +She, the strong and successful, had turned on him her level arched gaze, +intent with its habitual interrogativeness. It was instantly clear that, +though she might be struck with his few remarks, she was far indeed from +being struck personally. And her sudden characteristic look was to him +like a hand held up, the banner of her independence flung out--and just +in time, too. + +Charles laughed mirthlessly. He was aware of the lameness of his reply. + +"Exactly!--what? It all depends on how you look at it, as you just said. +And I seem unable to look at it the same way two days running.... Number +6 Olive Street, Eustace." + +Mary's response escaped him. + +He sat staring through the glass, at the passing sights, a curious sense +of anti-climax within, a strange flat feeling of failure. He was like a +boy who, having run valiantly at a jump, tamely subsides and ducks under +the string. What then? Had he really been about to court a new +humiliation by _lecturing_ Mary Wing? Telling himself that he came +generously to warn her about Donald, had he actually been thinking that +he would discuss the personal losses involved in Leaving Home?--perhaps +by some frankness even bridge the gap in the old friendship? It really +did seem that some such thoughts must have lurked in his mind, judging +by this sense within him now. + +Then, out of blankness and frustration, the young man felt slowly rising +a deep exasperation, a mighty grievance. So he shook himself at once, +donned his mask quickly while yet he could, and said in quite a +natural-seeming voice:-- + +"But I'm afraid I've bored you horribly with these purely literary +troubles. And, by the way,--speaking of realism versus romance just +now,--how are Donald and Miss Carson getting on these days?" + +She appeared a little surprised at the change of topic, but replied +easily: "Oh!--very well, indeed, I believe. They're together somewhere +nearly every evening.--But why--" + +"Really! That relieves me--knowing your serious interest in that affair. +I was beginning to fear Donald might be wandering a little in his +affections." + +"Wandering? No--how do you mean?" + +"Well, he has seemed quite attentive to your pretty cousin of late, +don't you think?" + +Then the Secretary turned her head again, sharply. And it hardly +improved Charles Garrott's frame of mind to perceive that, of all he had +said in the strangely talkative drive, this alone had really touched +her: this, which affected her personal purposes, her Own ambitions. + +"Angela? Why, not that I know of! I didn't know he'd seen her at +all--except one casual meeting, perhaps!" + +"I've happened to see them driving together from tune to time, as I plod +about on my rounds. But no doubt it's all quite casual, as you say, +since you've heard nothing about it." + +"You have? But please tell me!--where have you seen them together--and +when?" + +He cited particulars from his collection, damaging ones, though perhaps +not so damaging as he could have made them had not self-interest +restrained. Still, something in him was not displeased as he saw his +old friend's concern steadily deepening. + +"I'm surprised, and--frankly, I 'm sorry," she said slowly, at the end. +"Of course Angela's a dear girl, very sweet and attractive, but--I +shouldn't like Donald to see too much of her--in view of my other hopes! +I've had good reason to think that he's really interested in Helen, and +she in him.--Well!" she went on, after a small pause, "this seems to +require some diplomatic management. Donald has engagements for every +evening this week--but--" + +"It's in the daytime that he meets Miss Flower. At least, I don't think +she takes the Fordette out at night." + +Beside him on the padded seat, Mary sat silent, a little pucker between +the dark brows which set such a question-mark in her colorless face. +Considering her formidable strength, it was odd how all but ethereal, +how sincerely girlish, she could look at times. + +"Well, Donald's going to New York on Friday," she said, thoughtfully. +"He's had a fine offer from Blake & Steinert--to go into the firm, had +you heard?--so fine that I think he'd have taken it, and thrown over +Wyoming, if I had let him! He'll be gone nearly a week. Then, about the +time he comes back, I've arranged to have him invited to Creekside, the +Kingsleys' place at Hatton, for a week-end party. Helen's to be +there--I've really been hoping great things of that. Meantime," she +rounded up efficiently, "there are the afternoons. Perhaps I could start +him to playing golf, or something of that sort.... I suppose, of course, +you're too busy to--" + +"I?" said the young man, hastily. "Oh, I fear I can offer nothing to +rival Miss Angela's attractions just now." + +"Does it look as serious as that? Well," she said, with a sort of +determined friendliness, "all the more reason that I should like to have +your help." + +He hardly repressed a sardonic laugh. "Are you asking me to help _you_?" + +"What's so extraordinary about that?" + +"Not a thing, of course. I wasn't certain I'd understood you, that was +all." + +But it appeared that the idea of helping this young woman had ceased to +have the smallest pulling power now. Rather, there was bitterness in the +thought that she still seemed ready to use him when she could. + +He said, with savage urbanity: "Perhaps you might get Donald a +motor-cycle, and encourage him to practice up as a Speed Demon." + +The remark was received in entire silence. It was probably true that she +literally did not understand him. All the same, his displeasure grew. + +"But really," he continued sweetly, "if these two young people are so +strongly attracted to each other--love at first sight, who +knows?--really, is it judicious to interfere? Don't you believe in +elective affinities at all?" + +"As a matter of fact, you know, Donald was greatly attracted to Helen, +at first sight. And as for Angela, I'm certain--" + +"You see," he interrupted, stung beyond all calculations, "my personal +idea is that Miss Angela would probably make him a more suitable wife." + +That unwisdom made everything worse at once; for Mary, after one glance +at him and a stare out the window, said in a changed, "diplomatic" tone: +"Well, I mustn't let you misunderstand me, at any rate. You know, I've +agreed with you perfectly, all along, that she's thoroughly charming.... +And, by the way, she likes _you_ so much, too!" + +Charles froze instantly. + +"In fact, she thinks you're much more attractive than Donald--or did, +just a little while ago. I have her word for it. So if she's seeing a +good deal of Donald just now, I don't believe it's from affinity, +necessarily!" + +"Indeed?" + +"She was inquiring about you the last time I saw her--saying that she +never saw you now, asking if you ever spoke of her to me, and so on. I +told her, of course, you did, and repeated some of the compliments you +paid her--" + +Again he interrupted her, now with some slipping of his mask. It was +true, to be just, that Mary Wing knew nothing of his long struggles to +elude the Fordette. Nevertheless, her patent desire to hand him back to +it, merely by way of furthering a little her plans for Donald, seemed +somehow the last straw. A friendly reward for magnanimity this! And it +may be some touch of purely male chagrin enhanced the philosophic anger, +that any woman should be thus eager to pass on him, Charles, to another. + +"I believe my remark was that I considered Miss Angela a suitable wife +for Donald. So far as I am aware, I do not come into the conversation at +all. If your suggestion is that I should step in and take her off his +hands--in order to help you--may I beg you to put such an idea from your +head, once and for all?" + +It was clear that he astonished her: made her indignant as well. Her +scrutiny of him was direct and sharp: but she did not speak at once, as +if weighing her words or firmly counting ten, and when she did speak, +her manner bore evidences of strong control. + +"You are rather puzzling to-day. I should like to know what you have on +your mind. 'Take her off his hands!' Do you really think that's quite +the way to speak of a girl who--" + +"I don't, indeed. But the idea was your own, was it not?" + +"Mine!--why, how can you! I only--" + +"Then why not let things take their natural course, as I suggested?" + +On that, turning her head away from him, she said quietly, too quietly +in fact: "I'm afraid you wouldn't understand now, if I were to tell +you." + +That seemed to bring the conversation to a natural _impasse_. And +then--as if no touch were to be wanting from this embittering hour--at +just this instant, as Eustace slowed down to make his curve into Olive +Street, the two estranged friends in the old lady's limousine found +themselves looking together into the eyes of their common and particular +enemy, Mary's former principal at the High School. + +Mr. Mysinger, her conqueror and his own, no less, was approaching down +the sunny promenade. He gave the two in the car just one full surveying +stare; then casually moved his gaze a degree or two away. But, as he +dropped back out of the range of vision, Charles could have sworn he saw +a smile springing under the glossy mustache he had once pledged himself +to pull off. + +But this time, he felt no such bitter hostility toward the victorious +foe as had shaken him on that other remembered occasion. There was a +transient flicker of the Old Blood toward his temples, a brief iciness +within, and that was all. Recalling the childish folly of the setting-up +exercises, he experienced a cold mirth: "Why, of course, she'd say she'd +have licked Mysinger herself, if she'd considered it worth the trouble!" +And, at his old friend's side, Charles had the most disloyal thought of +her that had ever knocked at his mind. Was Mysinger, perhaps, so +entirely to blame for the ancient friction? Had he, Charles, been +principal of the High School, did he think he would have found Mary so +acceptable, so perfect, a subordinate?... + +Assisting her to alight at her door, the young man inquired politely if +she had yet found a tenant for her flat. Mary replied, quite distantly, +he thought, that the John Wensons were going to take it. His comment was +that old Jack should make her a fine tenant. He courteously sent his +regards to her mother; he amiably wished her a good-afternoon. + +And then he shut the limousine door on himself so hard that the glass +shook. + + + + +XVIII + + +Finding himself unable to reflect with pleasure or pride upon this +interview, Charles resolved, within the hour, not to reflect upon it at +all. For the fourth time--or was it the fourteenth?--he determined to +think of Egoettes no more. At least, he had given his warning, +unthanked, and that ended it. He might rest upon the ground that the +match would really be a very suitable thing; or, conversely, he might +argue that Donald was just amusing himself a little with Angela, at odd +times, while at heart perfectly true to Helen, etc. But chiefly he stood +upon the warning which made all this Mary Wing's concern henceforward, +and no longer his. And, bent upon bringing his last relation and duty in +the case to a clear, honorable conclusion, Charles sallied from the +Studio next morning with the new "Marna" tucked under his arm. + +But there seemed to hang a curse over everything connected with this +unhappy book. Because he had brought it with him to-day, the azure +heavens became overcast at noon; at two o'clock, it was drizzling +dismally; and all that afternoon, and all the next day, the cold rain +poured in torrents. To call in such home-keeping weather would be a +wanton provocation: Charles hung off, yet again. The third day proved +well worth waiting for, a brilliant, blue, and tingling day, gloriously +inviting to all owners of vehicles. And now a new plague befell. When +Charles emerged from Miss Grace's on this day, his face firmly set for +his duty, the Big Six wasn't there. + +The discovery was most disconcerting. The young man stood irresolute on +the Choristers' steps, "Marna" clutched in his hands, gazing up and down +the street. + +Unfortunately, Eustace's habits had not been kept completely virtuous by +his light duties with his mistress's tutor. The grinning black rascal +had got himself pleasantly illuminated the first day, and had remained +in that state with considerable consistency ever since. However, being +kept excellently tipped, he had never failed to meet an appointment +before; and Charles, eyeing the spot where Jehu should have been, but +wasn't, was most unpleasantly struck with his own sense of helplessness +ensuing. It really appeared that soft custom had made him as dependent +on the limousine as if he lacked the means of locomoting for himself. + +He scanned the horizon. Many vehicles rolled up and down Washington +Street, but his own swift chariot was nowhere among them. + +Then, while he irritably hesitated between telephoning to the garage, on +the off chance that Eustace might be there, and tamely abandoning the +enterprise once more, a third alternative, ingenious in its way, quite +unexpectedly offered itself. Down the street came jogging a carriage for +hire--empty. Providence seemed to be directing straight at him, Charles. +And, by chance, he knew this old carriage well; Walter Taylor's +carriage, it was; many and many a time had it driven him forth to +parties when he was young and gay. + +On the first quick impulse, Charles went springing down the Choristers' +steps. + +"Walter!... Here, you old rascal! Where're you going?" + +"At libbuty, suh!" cried Walter Taylor, drawing rein with alacrity. +"Whar mout you wish to be druv, Mist' Garrott?" + +"Well!--Perhaps I'll let you--" + +The young man hesitated, fractionally, struck with the rattletrap's +supreme lack of dignity. Then, with decision, he plucked open the +weather-beaten door. + +"One seven East Center. And look sharp now!" he ordered, stepping +in--"I'm in a hurry. Mind you don't stop for anything!" + +"Yassuh! Sutney, suh!" said Walter Taylor, with great enthusiasm, and +gave his old nag a prodigious wallop. + +So it fell out that, for his first call at the Flowers' since the +bridge-party--his party-call, his book-call, and his call about the +Kiss--Charles Garrott fared forth in a closed livery hack. + +Inside the hack, Charles laughed briefly; and then at once began to +react. In the fine afternoon, numbers of people were abroad. Strangers +seemed to look with surprise at the apparently able-bodied young man who +liked thus to trot around in a hack; chance acquaintances were seen to +smile in passing; more than one called out derisive remarks. Charles +himself questioned whether his employment of the hack was quite +reasonable.... Seemed inconsistent till you stopped to think. Inasmuch +as he was going straight to see Angela, why, it might be asked, all this +elaborate precaution in advance? Well--there was really no inconsistency +there; no, none at all. He was _not_ going to see Angela; he was only +going to pay The Call, while she was out in her Fordette--a totally +different matter. But this raised fresh questions of consistency: how +was he going to hold his position that Angela was just the wife for +Donald, if he himself would only go to see her in a hack?... Well, the +answer to that was simple enough, too. Donald was a marrying man, while +he, Charles (though probably still liked best) emphatically was not. +Moreover, Donald was a primitive male, while he, Charles, was a +modern.... Or, no, perhaps he wasn't a modern, exactly--but--yes, he +_was_ a modern, a true one, while others he could name were only +self-centered extremists.... + +At Gresham Street, the hack turned south, at Center it turned back west. +Walter Taylor, up aloft, began to look for his street-number. And then, +while Charles still argued uneasily about the spiritual differences +between Donald and himself, his eye all at once fell on Donald in the +flesh, close by--striding up Center Street homeward on his way from the +office he left so early now. + +The sight of the youth at this moment was unwelcome to Charles. +Instinctively, he sat far back in the hack. But Donald, unluckily +turning at the sound of wheels, had caught sight of him; and he stopped +stock-still on the sidewalk at once, staring with unaffected interest. + +"Well, I'll be darned!" he said, as the carriage came up with him. +"Whither away in the sea-going, old top?" + +Unwillingly appearing at the window, Charles said: "Well, Donald.... +Just driving around." + +"Driving!--Thought you must be going to a funeral, at least," said +Donald, stepping along to keep up. "Here! Stop the blamed thing! I want +to look you over." + +"You don' want me to stop, does you, Mist' Garrott?" bawled down Walter +Taylor from the box. + +"No, I told you! Go on!" + +Walter cut his nag a mighty crack, and with the same movement drew rein +sharply. + +"Here's yo' number, suh!" he cackled, with great merriment. "One seven, +like you said! Yassuh!" + +So the hack halted, and the fare reluctantly discharged himself. His +friend, having come up, halted, too, a few feet away; it was noted that +his gibing expression had suddenly altered. And then Charles understood +instantly that this fool's destination was no other than his own. + +"Oho!" said Donald, slowly and suspiciously. "So this is where you were +driving around to?" + +Controlling an immense complication of sensations, Charles said coldly: +"You mean you're going to--the Flowers', too?" + +"You've guessed it!" retorted the engineer, with a slight touch of +consciousness. And he added, assuming an indifferent air: "Just got to +stop by and leave a book Miss Flower lent me." + +And then, for the first time, Charles noticed the volume in a gaudy +wrapper protruding beneath Donald's sturdy arm. The coincidence was +remarkable, to say the least of it. It was also exceedingly annoying. + +"Time, too," quoth the primitive male. "I've had it since before I went +to Wyoming." + +On Angela's sidewalk, the two young men stood gazing hard at each other. +Whatever the argument in the case, it was surely Charles's higher nature +that spoke at last, icily but firmly:-- + +"I am going here to return a book, and also to pay a call--on the +family. If you wish, I will return your book for you." + +"Couldn't think of troubling you, Charlie, old top." + +"As you like, of course--" + +"But as I'm going in, anyway, why need you stop at all? Glad to take +charge of your book for you. Save you a little hack-fare." + +To this, Charles disdained reply. So the two members of the coterie, +with their books to return under their arms, stepped up the bricked +walkway side by side. + +Charles rang the Flowers' loud little bell. Having done so, he turned on +the shabby verandah, with the intention of looking Donald hostilely up +and down. But he found that Donald was already looking him up and down, +in the most hostile manner conceivable. Then the youth's dullness, his +grotesque conception of a male rivalry here, his impervious blind +asininity,--all this acting upon the original concern about the Call, +produced a sudden infuriation. Speech flowed from Charles:-- + +"Of all the laughing jackasses that ever broke loose from a zoo, I do +think you take the cake, Manford. How you keep from falling off bridges, +or butting out the pan where your brain ought to be on stone-copings, +passes all understanding. If I didn't have you to look at, I wouldn't +believe it possible that an ordinary well-meaning chucklehead could +deteriorate so horribly, just in a week or two." + +Donald seemed slightly nonplussed by this attack. All that he could +muster in reply was some very poor childish stuff, introduced by +shakings of his head and "significant" tappings of his forehead. + +"So that's why they sent him around here in a closed carriage--oho! Old +Doc Flower's an alienist--forgot that! H'm! Funny how it runs in the +family. First old Blenso, now poor Charlie-boy ..." + +Then a servant opened the door, and relieved the high tension instantly +by saying, in reply to two simultaneous questions, that Miss Flower was +out. + +Donald looked slightly crestfallen. Charles's look was the opposite. The +youth's presence here had strongly suggested that Angela was known to be +in, despite the fine weather. When the Flowers' servant--answering +Donald's "Oh, she's out, is she?"--said further that Miss Angela had +gone driving with a genaman, his relief rose to genuine thanksgiving. +And then Donald cleared the air completely by cavalierly handing in his +book, with only his card for acknowledgment, and clattering away down +the steps. Evidently, he sought a little amusement here, and nothing +more. + +Charles himself hesitated on the veranda. The thing was over and done +with. The Call was formally and honorably paid. Perhaps he only wanted +to do something different from Donald; perhaps he thought to mark +signally his revised good opinion of Angela; or perhaps mere revulsion +of feeling swung him into exuberant excesses. At any rate, in the very +act of extending his book, he recalled a long-forgotten promise, and +said suddenly, but tentatively:-- + +"And Dr. Flower? I suppose he's out, too?" + +"Him? Naws', he's in," said the slatternly and ill-favored woman. + +"What!--he is? Are you sure?" + +"Ef yo' want to see him, walk in." + +"Ah--well, I'll just stop and see him for a few moments. That is, _if_ +he happens to be at leisure." + +So the hack waited in front of the Flowers', and Charles stepped (for +the first time on his own motion) over the threshold of Angela's Home. + +He felt that this was a superfluous proceeding; it turned out +considerably worse. Having entered the Home, he found himself abruptly +plunged into the middle of it, as it were. In fact, the impromptu +extension of the Call to Dr. Flower, besides everything else that could +be said against it, proved as inopportune as could well have been +imagined. + +The _contretemps_ indicated was due to the servant (Luemma, in short), +who apparently did not believe in announcing visitors, or perhaps had +never heard of the civil custom. She merely stood by, in a disapproving, +suspicious sort of way, while the caller deposited his book on the +hatstand beside Donald's, and removed his overcoat and gloves. And then +she said, with a manner no whit better than her appearance:-- + +"Walk this way." + +Charles, necessarily assuming that this was the rule of the house, +walked that way. + +The hall of the Home was narrow and dark, the pervading atmosphere noted +as somewhat cheerless. It was not lighted and decked for festivity now, +as on the famous night of the bridge-party: parlor and dingy little +dining-room, glimpsed in passing, wore (to the author's sensitive eye) a +depressing air, vaguely suggestive of failure, incompetence and the +like. But that, of course, is the front that poverty so commonly wears: +all the more reason that a hard-worked Temporary Spinster, or vicarious +Home-Maker, should wish to get out sometimes, and go and meet her +friends.... + +However, Charles also was conscious of a wish to get out. Why was he +doing this, exactly? Really, now, what was the sense of it? + +The black worthy was leading him toward a shut door in the dusk beyond +the dining-room: the office, clearly, of that patientless provider, +Angela's father. Now the young man was aware of voices behind that door, +or rather of a voice. It was a woman's voice, pitched in rather a +complaining key, and for the first second Charles thought, with a start, +that it was Angela's. It wasn't, of course; but his steps instinctively +slackened. + +"Ah--the Doctor seems to be engaged--after all," he threw out, in +lowered tones. "Perhaps I'd better come another day." + +"Naws', he ain't engaged. Just him and Miz' Flower talkin'." + +Charles, truth to tell, was scarcely reassured by that assurance: he did +not like to run in on a strange couple this way, in particular when the +lady was speaking in that tone. But his sour guide had not paused. And +now there came a different voice through the thin door: a man's voice, +faintly humorous, faintly sarcastic, and considerably weary. It was +recognizably the voice of the esteemed Doctor, and it said, with fatal +distinctness:-- + +"Is it possible you forget, madam, that you're speaking to your husband +and the father of your children?" + +If the feet of the reluctant caller had lagged before, they now stopped +short. One of his overminds perceived instantly that the strange words +he had had no business to hear possessed a sort of distorted +familiarity, like a horrid parody of a sentiment known and established; +but as to that, there was not time to speculate now. What was only too +plain was that something like a domestic scene was afoot in the office +of the home, making the intrusion of a stranger peculiarly inapropos. + +"Don't!--I'll not stop now!" he murmured hastily and sharply. "Just take +these cards here, and--" + +But the maladroit blackamoor was already opening the door; and the young +man's last stand against the Call was put down with a brief and surly:-- + +"Genaman to see Doctor. Walk in." + +That settled the matter, beyond any undoing. Charles Garrott was a +caller now, whether or no. With an embarrassment such as none of his +many calculations about this hour had anticipated, he stepped blundering +in upon Angela's unwitting parents. + +Dr. Flower's small office was dark; its light came only through a single +window from a narrow air-well. Hence, the forms of the lady and +gentleman in it were at first but dimly apprehended. Having turned in +their seats at the sound which disturbed their privacy, they seemed to +be peering together, in silent inquiry, at the intruder. It was the +intruder's move, obviously; and, being in for it, he did his hasty best +to pluck a hearty calling manner over his decided malease. + +"Oh!--good-afternoon, Dr. Flower! It's Garrott, Charles Garrott--perhaps +you may remember--" + +Now the dim forms were rising together, the tall Doctor's with a jerk:-- + +"Ah, yes! Howdo, Mr. Garrott! Quite--" + +"I hope I'm not interrupting! I stopped to return some books, +and--ah--finding that Miss Angela was out, I thought I'd take the +opportunity--" + +"Quite so--very kind! Come in! But I'd better make a light? Take seat, +sir. Mrs. Flower?" + +The Doctor's manner, of course, was natively too queer to betray +anything, even astonishment at the Call. But it was not observed that +Angela's mother bore any of the marks of a lady surprised in the middle +of a "scene," and this was a relief, unquestionably; the parents didn't +know him for an eavesdropper, at any rate. Agreeably accepting his +introduction of himself, Mrs. Flower was bestowing upon him a dim but +comforting smile, and a limp hand to shake. + +"I feel that I already know you, Mr. Garrott. I've so often heard my +daughter speak of you," she said, in the slightly plaintive voice he had +heard through the door. "She'll be so sorry to miss you...." + +The hearty Charles spoke his little mendacity. + +"But a friend of hers from Mitchellton is here to-day to see her--Daniel +Jenney--and Angela has just taken him out for a little drive in her car, +to see the town. I feel sure she'll be in soon, though." + +Mr. Jenney's presence in the city was the best news heard by Charles in +many a day. All in all, things weren't going off so badly. And, if he +knew Angela in the least, she would not be in soon, either; he had +thought of all that on the verandah. + +Then the Doctor's match caught the gas with a faint _pop_, and the +little room filled with a high white light. In the sudden brightness, +the caller's eye noted two unrelated matters almost together. One was +merely an ash-tray upon the mantel. The other was Mrs. Flower herself, +and her unexpected resemblance to her pretty young daughter. Line for +line, the two faces were different enough, no doubt, and this one was no +longer young. But to a stranger's eye, the general likeness was rather +remarkable; Charles was much struck with it. + +"Sit down, sir," said the Doctor, and contributed his match to the +ash-tray. + +"Ah, thank you." + +But of course he could not sit down while Angela's mother remained +standing and conversing with him; and she did so stand and converse a +moment or so, rather idly, seemingly uncertain whether she intended to +stay or go, and trying to make up her mind. Once or twice she glanced at +her husband undecidedly, as if he might have something to do with the +matter; and no wonder. But her final verdict was that she was to go; and +Charles was rather glad that it worked out this way, though why he +hardly knew. + +Mrs. Flower's decisive remark was that she must get on with her +household duties. She gave Charles her limp hand again, again mentioned +her daughter's distress, if she missed him; she bestowed upon him +another pretty and somewhat significant smile; and then faded out of the +Call, leaving behind a vague impression of feminine inadequacy and a +button missing from her black waist. + +So the young man was left with the worthy Doctor, who could speak so +sarcastically to a defenseless woman, his wife. And for a space he found +the tete-a-tete heavy going, indeed, and was more oppressed than ever +with the essential meaninglessness of it all. + +Angela's father did not look like a brute, but only dryer, queerer, +shabbier, than before. He jerked his neck more, looked more unrelated to +his environment. He was very civil, but he cocked his eye too much +toward the ceiling, felt too little responsibility as to keeping a +conversation going. Charles's efforts (hearty enough, despite the +counter-feelings going on within him) seemed to bound off dead from that +juiceless, withdrawn manner. Having refused a cigar (there was a little +talk about smoking, but he couldn't keep it going), he proposed for +discussion the Doctor's son Wallie, his education, abilities as a +chemist, skill as a lamp-repairer, etc. The topic promised well, and did +well for a couple of minutes, but petered out mysteriously and beyond +resurrection. The Doctor's work out at the Medical School yielded almost +nothing; the weather enjoyed but a brief and fitful run. Presently, +Charles found himself fairly driven to Mary Wing, and her imminent +departure to lead her own life; and this subject won a real success, +though not of a sort he could take much satisfaction in. It quickly +developed that Angela's parent held ante-bellum views on Woman, which he +put forward with some dry zest, in the strange backhanded fashion noted +by Charles in their previous meeting. After a very few exchanges, the +old eccentric was delivering himself of paragraphs like this:-- + +"Ah, you throw out that suggestion? An interesting idea!--quite so!" +(Charles had thrown out no suggestion of any sort.) "Your observation is +that the Lord has formed woman specifically for the needs of family and +the home--quite so!--and that efforts to change her destiny seem to +result in constitutional perversion? Well, sir, I dare say the +physicians would support your contention there, too. Who knows?" + +Even "Marna," even Mary Wing, had never made Charles so conservative as +this. Oddly enough, he found the Doctor's criticisms unwelcome; it was +his turn to let a subject die from malnutrition. In the pause, he +considered whether he had not called long enough now. About to rise, he +chanced to note a worn volume of Henderson's "Stonewall Jackson" lying +open on the table, and asked, with little hope, if the Doctor had read +it. The old codger replied: "I am reading it now for the seventh time, +sir." And to the young man's agreeable surprise, he at once uncocked his +eye from the ceiling (where he seemed to have meant to leave it +permanently), and began to talk along almost like a regular person. + +During the remainder of the Call, conversation flowed very +satisfactorily. It appeared that the War was one of this old codger's +subjects, even as Woman was Charles's; and he talked well, too, now that +he cared to, criticizing strategy as one having authority, revealing, +behind that spare, intensely conservative manner, flashes of broad +outlook and incisive speech which might have helped to explain why the +Medical School had been glad to draw this man from Mitchellton to its +staff. But the truth was that Charles Garrott heard scarcely a word of +this excellent discourse. Once he had got Angela's father fairly going, +he became captured and fascinated by a totally independent line of +thought. + +In short, the young man's gaze had returned to almost the first thing he +had definitely noticed in the Home, to wit, the ash-tray on the Doctor's +mantel. + +The ash-tray was really a large saucer, or small plate, and the +intriguing and really exciting thing about it was that it contained the +remains of scarcely less than a dozen cigars. Just before he made the +lucky remark about Henderson's "Life," the caller had inadvertently +discovered two more cigar-ends, poised perilously on the mantel's edge; +this it was that had started him reacting yet again. For, considering +that the Doctor was out a large part of the day, lecturing, it appeared +incredible that he could have achieved such astonishing results since +morning. Rather, the mantel had the air of having stood undisturbed for +some little time.... + +"If those men," he was saying, "had but shot another way, that night at +Chancellorsville--" + +"Ah, sir! the vast 'ifs' of history. And none bigger than that, it may +be. Yet, as I say ..." + +From the large heaped saucer, with its ring of spilled ashes, the +detective eye flitted over the room, briefly, somewhat guiltily, yet +uncontrollably. It received an impression of dust on the table, dust on +the bookshelves, disorder pervasively, and a waste-basket brimful of +trash. Finally, the eye rested anew on the Doctor himself, with his +frayed collar and joyless mien. And all the time, under the mask of the +caller, a question was irresistibly rising and thrusting itself upon the +attention of the authority: What housekeeper had charge of this untidy +little room, what home-maker was in the business of supplying beauty and +charm to this jaded gentleman? + +Unaware that he was being thought of in these terms, Angela's father +reverted austerely to the Seven Days' fighting around Richmond.... + +The scientific inquiry had a perfectly proper answer, of course. In the +truest sense, Mrs. Flower was the housekeeper in question; that faded +belle, with the button off her waist, owed the beauty and charm due in +this quarter. Not for nothing did she have that distinctly inefficient +voice. And the moment Charles thought of that voice, his mind, with a +sort of jump, made a link, and he understood at once why the Doctor's +strange speech, eavesdropped by him outside the door, had seemed to have +the quality of a parody. Of course! This dry husband, with the +sick-man's face, had merely been giving back, in a masculinized version, +a reminder not infrequently heard on the lips of womanly women, when +married. Before he had invented that ironic retort, how often had +Angela's father heard it said: _I'm your wife, and the mother of your +children...._ + +"And what," the civil caller said, "do you think of Mary Johnston's +picture of Jackson? I assume, of course, you're familiar with--" + +"A brilliant achievement, sir. Indeed, astonishing--for a woman," said +the conservative Doctor, jerking his neck; and resumed. + +But the young authority found his reactions oddly and increasingly +disturbing, and shortly rose to go. He had become certain, abruptly, +that he had party-called long enough. + +His eccentric host, who had appeared so dryly indifferent to his coming, +seemed, on the whole, to regret his departure. And Charles, perceiving +this, found himself feeling rather sorry for him. But he showed his +sympathies, not by offering to stay longer or to come again, but by +inviting Angela's father to lunch with him at Berringer's, one day very +soon at his convenience. + +"I feel that we should further the acquaintance," he said, as they shook +hands, "because of--ah--my long friendship for your--that is, for your +wife's cousin." + +And then he had a new surprise; for, though the Doctor's lips twitched a +little at his correction, showing that he was not altogether devoid of +humor, it was with instant seriousness that he said:-- + +"I do insist upon the distinction, you allege? Well, I'm free to say to +you, sir, that I have but scant sympathy with these fantastic modern +notions. If all women did as my wife's young cousin does, what, pray, +would become of the Home?" + +"Ah, what?" said Charles. + +And as he thought of Mary Wing's charming and beautifully kept +sitting-room, he seemed to feel his head going round. Surely, he had +never before seen conservatism so magnificent as this. + +"Meanwhile, come in again, sir, when you find time. I have few callers, +and have appreciated your visit--" + +"Yes!--thank you!" + +"My daughter will be sorry--" + +And then, as the Doctor opened the door, and his lusterless eye looked +out, he added with an approach to grave pleasure in his voice:-- + +"Ah, here is Angela now--just in time." + +The caller's eye went slipping down the hall; and so it was. In the +light of the open front door, her rural swain behind her, the young +home-maker stood by the hatstand, examining the two returned books she +had just found there. What chance had brought her back thus early, +cutting off his retreat? Had she passed and seen his hack standing +there, and wondered? + +But, curiously, Charles's bachelor shrinking from this re-meeting seemed +suddenly to have vanished. All his determined championship of the Type, +dating back to the Redmantle Club, all his personal sense of honorable +obligation, had mysteriously thinned to nothing in half an hour in Dr. +Flower's office. In some way that defied analysis, the interior of the +Home seemed to have wiped out Angela's girlish claim, the ash-tray had +overcome the Kiss. And Charles, bidding her father farewell, went +walking down the narrow hall with a tread firm as a soldier's. + +Angela had turned at the sound of voices; she stood gazing somewhat +uncertainly into the dimness (for she was a little short-sighted without +the opera-glasses, and perhaps this was only a patient). The instant of +recognition of her friend was marked with an exclamation, almost a cry, +of pleasure; and she started toward him with the happiest surprised +welcome. + +The re-meeting was effected by the hatstand, where Charles had stood on +the day he had borrowed the book he now came to return. Water had flowed +under London Bridge since then. Mr. Jenney, owner of the celebrated +ring, was presented. He was a long-legged, gangling, curly-headed youth, +with a face that was beautiful in its way, no less; and it must have +been a frank face, too, since Charles, the observer, immediately had the +fellow's whole secret. Here was Mr. Jenney's fair ideal, his high star +and lady of dreams; and his full reward for his pure devotion was to be +kept hanging on, a masculine anchor to windward--just in case, as they +say. Still, he might prove the _deus ex machina_ of the issue yet. + +At the moment, however, little was seen of Mr. Jenney, since, almost in +the first breath, his star said: "Oh, Dan, father's in now, and he'll +want _so_ to see you!"--and Mr. Jenney straightway withdrew obediently. +One gathered that obedience was his fatal quality. + +Thus the unheroic Charles confronted his Temporary Spinster at last, in +her dark home-hall. And she, not guessing the new philosophic resistance +within him, said, with the gayest confident air, and no little archness, +too:-- + +"Well, Mr. Garrott!... Did you decide to pay your party-call?" + +Charles smiled. + +"I've been promising myself to come in for some time," he said +pleasantly. "I had several excellent excuses, you see. For one thing, +there was your book, which I've appropriated all this time--" + +"Oh, that! I just saw it there--and thought I must have missed you! That +would have been too mean, after all this time!" She glanced toward the +hatstand, adding: "And--Mr. Manford gave you that other one to bring +back, I suppose?" + +"No--ah--we came together, but, of course, he left when he found that +you were out. I wanted especially to pay my respects to your father, +so--" + +"I'm awfully glad he kept you for me.... How are you now? You don't know +how I've missed you, since you had to stop walking entirely!" + +"I've been extremely well, thank you. Or--at least--I've been pretty +well--" + +"Oh, I know you haven't been well!--you just try to make light of it! +Mr. Manford told me you were breaking yourself down from overwork--you +oughtn't to do it! And then that night when I phoned, and your Secretary +said you were sick from not taking any exercise, I was worried, truly I +was! I wanted to write you a little note--but--" + +"A mere temporary indisposition, not worth a moment of your thought," +said Mr. Garrott. He was wholly recovered now. + +"I'm so glad. You really do look well! It's been ages since I've seen +you! But why," she said, laughing up at him prettily, "am I keeping you +standing at the door like this! Come in the parlor." + +"I'm sorry, but I really can't, thank you. I must be going." + +She stopped in complete surprise. "Going! Oh, you mustn't go +_now_!--when I've just come in! Why, you _couldn't_!--" + +"My time's up, you see, and more. Writing," said Charles sententiously, +"is a dreadful taskmaster. But I've explained all that--" + +"I know!--but you're here now! You can surely take a _little_ time, Mr. +Garrott--when I haven't seen you for days and days--" + +"I've already overstayed my scant allowance, you see, with your father. +But I'm glad to have had a little glimpse of you, at any rate." + +On the whole, he had sought to speak in his usual voice and air; but now +he saw that his new power of firmness had disclosed itself to her not +too sensitive ear. The liquid eyes under the becoming new hat regarded +him with sudden inquiry, puzzled and speculative.... + +To think seriously ill of this girl, because, perhaps, she was not an +enthusiastic cleaner of the parental home, was not in Charles, the man, +whatever the authority might have to say. Her soft and unlessoned +youthfulness, confronting him, disarmed all criticism. But the chance +resemblance to her plaintive mother had seemed, oddly, to strike him +much deeper. Looking down at this virginal sweet freshness, by the +hatstand and the books, the young man had been full of the elusive sense +that as the daughter looked and charmed now, so the mother had looked +once; and beyond her present air of alluring femininity, he seemed +persistently to be seeing Angela at fifty, sitting idle in an unswept +room and continually reminding a worn-out husband of her sacrifices and +her service.... Pure fantasy, was it, a fiction-writer's imagining born +of a superficial likeness? Or was there a deeper, a more romantic, +kinship between the girl who set so naive an estimate on the value of +her kiss, and the woman who would plume herself through an indolent +lifetime on the ancient history of her maternity?... + +The girl opened her mouth to speak: but there came a welcome diversion. +A step was heard on the wooden verandah, and the two young people, +turning their heads together, saw a liveried servant at the still open +door, bowing, speaking:-- + +"Miss Flower, marm?" + +"Yes--I am Miss Flower." + +"Fum Mr. Tilletts, marm," said the servant, extending a note. "And he +say please don't you trouble to write, if you'd kindly send an answer by +me, marm." + +"Oh! All right." + +Having said, "Excuse me, Mr. Garrott," Angela opened and glanced +through her note, and then remarked: "Mr. Tilletts wants me to go to the +theater with him to-night. How nice!" + +Her back to the servant, she made a little deprecating face at Mr. +Garrott; but her voice seemed pleasurably stirred all the same, and her +answer to the chauffeur was:-- + +"Thank Mr. Tilletts, and say Miss Flower'll be very glad, indeed, to go, +and will be ready at quarter past eight." + +Charles wondered afterward if the opportune Tilletts had not subtly +assisted his own withdrawal; but for the moment it rather seemed +otherwise. While Angela spoke to the servant, he had turned hastily +toward his overcoat; and now her hand fell upon his arm, with just a +touch of the spoiled darling air, or at least with that added confidence +which comes to a girl with these concrete evidences of her success. + +"No, you mustn't! Don't go yet. _Please!_" + +"I'm compelled to, unluckily. I very rarely allow myself the pleasure of +calling at all, you know, and--" + +"But you _have_ allowed yourself the pleasure, now, Mr. Garrott! +Oh!--don't be so _firm_! Come in--for only a minute! You can surely +spare me a minute--when I ask you to specially--" + +"It is literally impossible." + +Angela had extended her small hand to lead him into the parlor. Now she +let it fall at her side, and stood looking at him with a conscious +expression on her face, a pretty expression, but one that he scarcely +liked. Of course both of them knew that it was by no means literally +impossible for Mr. Garrott to come in, for only a minute. But doubtless +a womanly girl could be trusted to find an explanation for his peculiar +speeches that plucked their stingers from them, as it were. + +"You're so strange. You're displeased with me, I can see that. +Why?--because I wasn't in when you called? Why, I'm nearly always out on +fine afternoons!" + +"I know that," ventured the young man. + +"If you'd just told me in advance.... Don't you know I'd never have +gone out with Dan Jenney, if I'd dreamed you were going to call?" + +He knew this also, only too well; but this time he only said: "A caller +must take his chances, of course. By the way, let me thank you very +much, again, for lending me that book. I found it immensely +interesting." + +"Oh!--'Marna'? I didn't want you to come just for that.... Did she make +you think of Cousin Mary at all?" + +He smiled distantly, turned away, and put on his overcoat. + +This was done in entire silence; Angela urged him to stay no longer. But +when he turned, hat in hand, to say good-bye, she stood confronting him +again, very near. There was a faint flush on her smooth cheek; her +woman's eyes were very bright; her look upon him was sweet, +self-conscious, and wistful, oddly appealing. Rarely had he seen her +look more girlishly desirable. + +"Mr. Garrott, why have you always been different to me since that +night--of my bridge-party?" + +"Different?" queried Mr. Garrott. + +"Oh, you know you have! You know you've never really got over what I +said to you--and all that dreadful misunderstanding!" + +And he knew then that this nice girl would go to her grave thinking of +him as a lover whose confidence in his suit had been reft from him by a +too sharp rebuke. Well, so be it. He was content that she should have +that satisfaction: let that stand as a further liquidation of the old +obligation, a bonus payment on the esteemed Kiss. + +"You know you've never forgiven me!" + +"I've never had anything to forgive you, Miss Flower." + +"Then you've never believed I've forgiven you! I've tried to show you +that I have, that I've truly appreciated all the nice things you've done +for me--but you've still been different." + +It was doubtless his imagination, but she seemed to be a little nearer +as she said, with a pink and winsome hesitancy:-- + +"Can't I make you believe that I--I've really always been the same?" + +Extending his hand, the voluntary celibate replied, with cheerful +reassurance: "I believe it now, Miss Flower. Absolutely. Positively. And +now I must run." + +Angela did not seem to see the hand he offered. She continued to look at +him, and something seemed to die out of her face,--a momentary +expectancy, was it, or the mere native optimism of youth? Her gaze +turned away from his face, turned back again; and then she suddenly gave +a little laugh, an odd laugh, half angry, half sad:-- + +"Oh, I do think you're absolutely--_obtuse_!" + +And Charles then knew that, whether she realized it or not, Angela was +giving him up. + +But still she did not see his farewell hand. Her eyes, going past him +again, had become fixed with a new expression, arresting him, and now +she said, in another tone, what he found perhaps the most interesting +remark in the duologue:-- + +"Here's Mr. Manford back!" + +Charles wheeled, with a little jump. + +And sure enough, there, beyond the glass of the door, was the form of +the young engineer, incredibly returning. Yes, there he came back again, +poor, vain, grinning, flattered fool, who only the other day had said: +"Charlie, she worries me." + +With one last look at Mr. Garrott, Angela turned to open the door for +Mr. Manford. The greeting smile succeeded the good-bye reproach. And +even in this disturbed moment, the writer's mind was subtly struck with +the symbolism of that gesture: and once again this girl was a type to +him, sister of a million sisters. Even so, must the womanly Spinster, +through all her seeking days, turn from the man who does not desire her +little offerings of beauty and charm, to the man who--well, possibly +may. And it really wasn't right, wasn't fair.... + +"Old Sherlock!--sees the Fordette outside--guesses who's at home now!" +the man who possibly might was saying, with a tone of buoyant intimacy +and a repellent smirk. "I thought you weren't going to forget me +altogether!... Oh! And there's Charlie-boy, too! Feeling better, old +top?" + +Charles looked through him in silence. + +But when Angela drifted by them into the parlor--for she avoided any +formal farewell with her former principal friend--and he was passing +Donald to the door, he bent and flung into the youth's long ear one +futile taunt:-- + +"Fool, I suppose she lent you the sequel!" + + * * * * * + +Before the dingy little house of the Flowers', there stood a line of +waiting vehicles. The passer would have said that a reception, or +perhaps a wedding, was going on within. + +To the left, Mr. Tilletts's shining sedan still stood at the broken +curb. The driver, having paused to exchange badinage with Walter Taylor, +was just mounting to his seat. Full in front of the house stood a +conveyance more in character with the unpretentious street: Charles +Garrott's aged hackney-coach, in short. On the other side, at the nose +of the hack-horse and properly leading the procession, stood the stout +little Fordette, resting now from its labors. There only lacked a +bicycle for Mr. Jenney, and something--a donkey, let us say--to stand +for Donald Manford. + +And Angela, indeed, had accomplished this; here was her true creative +work, here her self-expression made visible. She it was who, poor and +obscure, with nobody to help her, had drawn these vehicles and these +gentlemen thronging about her door. + +"Where toe, suh?" cried Walter Taylor, flourishing his whip. + +"Number 6 Olive Street." + +The fare spoke all but automatically, out of his new genuine disquiet. +However, he corrected himself at once: "No--wait a minute." + +If his position that she was just the wife for Donald lay silently +abandoned somewhere behind him: if the business could no longer be +viewed as Donald's idle-hour amusement, but all at once had come to look +decidedly serious: still, what under heaven was the use of giving Mary +another and more rousing warning? He had warned Mary once, and what was +the result? Two calls from Donald to Angela in the course of a single +afternoon. No; if the labor of taking off was now to follow "putting +on," it was clear that some hand far subtler than the too manly Mary's +would have to do the job. And he knew whose hand was plainly indicated, +too.... + +And then the young man remembered, with a surprising uprush of relief +and freedom, that this day was Friday, and Donald was off to New York +to-night, within an hour or two. And the foolish youth would be gone a +solid week, too, with Mr. Jenney and Mr. Tilletts left in possession of +the field. + +Thus, Walter Taylor, on his box, received a small surprise. Instead of +giving him a new number, Mr. Garrott unexpectedly produced a dollar-bill +from his pocketbook, and tossed it up to him with a sudden laugh. + +"That's all, Walter. _I'll walk!_" + + + + +XIX + + +Donald Manford's absence in far-away New York saw the calendar into +February. It was a month which for some time had held a fixed place in +Charles's thought, as Mary Wing's last month at home. Now the days had +brought him this new concern, by no means unrelated to Mary's impending +departure. That Donald was his concern now, as well as hers, he had +acknowledged, once and for all, in that moment of pause by the hack: and +none saw more clearly than he that the acknowledgment was a damaging +one, opening long vistas of annoying possibilities. Well it might be +that all he had once planned and worried for himself, and much more, he +would now have to plan and worry for his weak and amorous friend. And +suppose Mary Wing went off, leaving the whole business still unsettled? + +However, there was no use in borrowing trouble. For the present, +Donald's well-wishers enjoyed an interlude of complete repose. And on or +about the day of the simpleton's return to the danger-zone, it was +recalled, he was to be whisked off again to the Helen Carson +house-party, where all might end happily yet. Mary deserved her tittle +of credit for that arrangement, at any rate. Charles, making the most of +these peaceful days, reconsecrated himself to Letters and the finding of +his Line. + +Donald himself remained pleasantly unaware of the difficulties created +by his unreliable antics. The youth was known to possess a common +combination of characteristics: he had a novel-hero's chin and an +underlying soft streak. Donald was a little ease-loving; he +unconsciously slanted to the line of least resistance. As to work, Mary +Wing, who had caught him young, had pretty well ironed out his softness; +yet it seemed to persist even there. Witness his dallying for a moment +with an "office proposition" in New York, at whatever emolument, when +far larger professional opportunities awaited him in a Wyoming camp. As +to getting himself married off, Donald's traits were obviously at once +an advantage to his friends and an added risk: they seemed to indicate +clearly that he or she who had his ear last, and took the strongest hand +with him, would win the day. Doubtless his truest friends were most +resolved that such hand should be theirs. + +At any rate, the young squire's presentation of himself at the Wings', +on the afternoon of the day he got back from New York, was by +appointment strictly. It was Friday again, a week to a day from his two +calls upon Angela. Donald "stopped by" Olive Street on his hurried way +uptown. Having had a very strenuous part of a day in his office at Hoag, +Hackett & Manford's, and having a number of things still to do before +five o'clock, he designed to give, say, ten minutes to his call upon his +more than sister. He gave thirty minutes, and emerged into the sunshine +with a sobered face. And, on leaving Mary thus, almost the first person +he saw next was Mary's special friend, Charles Garrott, bowling by. + +The eyes of the young men met and Donald nodded gloomily. Charles, as it +happened, was but taking a last use of his car, prior to the old lady's +return on Monday. But Donald did not know that, and he thought, +absently, what a fool old Charlie was to ride around this way all the +time, when he had legs and could walk like a man. At the same moment, +Charles, inevitably, was thinking what a fool Donald was, for exactly +the opposite reason. Never again, it might be, would Charles Garrott see +a bachelor walking Washington Street alone, without some vague sense of +circumambient peril. + +Charles had not expected to take up the new worries until after the +match-making house-party; but the sight of Donald unprotected out there +made an irresistible appeal to his higher nature, especially as no +trouble to himself would be involved. Accordingly, he answered Donald's +distrait salute with demonstrative smiles and signalings, and +immediately fired an order through the speaking-tube. And the engineer, +surprised, saw the splendid car of the old lady stop with a jerk, back, +wheel, and come sliding up to his side at the curb. + +"Well, old fellow! Glad to see you back!" said Charles, hospitably +swinging open the door. "Hop in and let me drive you up! I want to hear +about your trip." + +Donald was faintly pleased by this unusual attentiveness. He was one of +those extraordinary persons who never ride when it is possible to walk; +on the other hand, he seldom turned away from the chance of a good talk +about himself. And he was very short of time now, too, owing to his +detention at the Wings'. + +So he stepped into the limousine, his manner abstracted and distinctly +consequential. + +Charles, smiling slightly to himself, gave the address, and prompted:-- + +"You're just back, aren't you?" + +"And off again at five twenty-two. And I've got two hours' unpacking and +repacking to do before then." + +"You _are_ a traveler these days! What's this," inquired Charles, +innocently--"another business trip?" + +"House-party at the Kingsleys', down at Hatton. Tell your boy to skip +along there, Charlie. I'm in a rush." + +Amiably, Charles spoke into the mouthpiece: "Skip along there, Eustace. +Mr. Manford's in a rush." And resuming he said, with an air of honest +envy: "At the Kingsleys'! By George, that sounds pretty good! Congenial +crowd, winter sports, dancing every night--you're in luck! Who's going +along?" + +Donald named the guests. It did not escape the observant Charles that he +named Miss Carson last, after a perceptible pause and in a manner +clumsily careless. Nothing escaped Charles, not Donald's sober face, +certainly not the fact that he had just come from the Wings'. Now, with +a thrill of satisfaction, he understood that Mary had been talking to +the young light-o'-love at last, giving him to understand plainly where +his duty lay. And this look of Donald's was precisely the right look, +too: just the intensely self-important, nervous, faintly complacent, +highly worried look of a man who has suddenly learned that he is going +to be married directly. + +He gave the strong Mary another large credit-mark, and continued: "Three +days with that crowd!--how I'd like to get in! As for poor old +Talbott--ha, ha!--he'll foam at the mouth when I tell him about this." + +"What's he got to do with it?" + +"Why, I thought you'd heard! Miss Carson knocked him flat with one +look--that lunch of mine! He can't see anybody else since, poor chap. +But he admits he doesn't make any time at all." + +"She's not the kind that takes to any whippersnapper that comes along." + +His odious smugness delighted Charles. So did his fidgeting about, his +hasty glances at his watch, his long solemn stares at himself in the +little mirror. + +"Poor old Talbott swears she must be interested in somebody else," +laughed Charles. "But he confessed he couldn't think of a man he knew +who'd be at all likely to interest a girl like that--I either." And +then, not to overdo it, he said interestedly: "But, Donald, what about +Blake & Steinert?" + +"Oh, I turned 'em down," said the coming fiance, and briefly expanded. +Of the fine old firm, he said: "They were associated with me on Hog Bay +Breakwater." Old Blake was a prince; Steinert a crackerjack. They had +raised their offer, so eager were they to get him, and insisted on +leaving it open for him. He had seen all the shows, lunched at five +clubs, "closed up several important deals," etc., etc. + +Dipping up his watch again, Donald said suddenly: "Seen Mary lately?" + +This being none of his business, Charles replied with a monosyllable. + +"Anything wrong between you two?" + +"Not that I'm aware of.... Great heavens! I'm a worker, my good fellow! +I haven't time to fuss around house-partying--pop-calling--all the +time!--Not, of course, that I don't wish I were going--" + +"Well, you won't have much time to be pop-calling on Mary," reproved +Donald, with his new responsible soberness. "Drop around this afternoon, +Charlie, after your lessons. See if you can't cheer her up a little." + +The limousine reeled off half a block before Charles answered: + +"Seems I'm behind the times again. What does Miss Mary need to be +cheered up about, exactly?" + +"What d'you s'pose now, Charlie? Going off to New York to live, herself; +me off to Wyoming for two years at least; Aunt Ellen moving to North +Carolina; home broken up--why, I tell you the thing is the worst kind of +smash-up! I've just been with Mary--never saw her so blue in my life." + +Charles said, after another silence: "But she understood all that from +the beginning, didn't she?" + +"Understood--what's that got to do with it? Besides, you never +understand things till you get right down to 'em. Take me," said Donald, +recurring to his favorite subject with a frown. "I hadn't an idea how +much I was going to mind this business--ending it all here, moving off +to the back side of nowhere to--" + +"Well, don't be sentimental about it, for pity's sake! This is a +realistic story we're living, or I miss my guess entirely.--When does +Miss Mary leave?" + +"Oh, about two weeks, I believe, but--" + +"Two weeks!" + +"Wensons want the flat around the 20th, I understand. We didn't speak of +that just now--Mary'll tell you about it. Let's see," said Donald, +fidgeting about and looking first out one window, then another. "Going +to your mother's to-morrow, I suppose? Drop in this afternoon, +Charlie--or to-night. And that's so!--you can take around a package for +me, things I bought for Mary in New York--oh, neck-fichus, silk +stockings--that sort of stuff." + +But the thought of himself as Mary's cheerer-up at this juncture in her +Career was bitterly ironic to Charles, and, answering curtly that he +would be too busy to run errands this afternoon, he changed the subject +at once. In short, when did Donald go to Wyoming? Unable to resist the +opening, Donald said that he would probably start on March 15th; and so +began to talk fitfully of himself. At the other window, Charles relapsed +into thought. He did not speak again until the car rolled up to the +entrance of the showy apartment-hotel where Donald lived. Then, rousing +himself abruptly, he said, with a well-done air of negligent +sprightliness:-- + +"Oh, by the by, Donald--heard anything from our little friend in the +four-wheeler, as you call it? I haven't laid eyes on her since that day +you and I marched up like little soldiers to give back her books. Funny, +that was!--ha, ha!" + +Donald's face of a young man about to be married changed perceptibly. He +answered, quite stiffly:-- + +"I fail to see anything funny in it. Miss Flower's perfectly well, I +believe." + +"Good!--glad to hear it. She needs her health, all the driving about she +does.... Why, where'd she see you to-day?" + +"I didn't say I'd seen her to-day, that I remember. By Jove, I don't get +a minute to see anybody or anything, rushed about this way all the +time!... Well! Obliged for the lift." + +"And how do you know she's well, then?" + +"Because she told me so over the telephone, if you give a darn! What's +this about, anyway?" + +"Why, not a thing! Why, my dear fellow! Of _course_, I understand +perfectly! You don't suppose I suspect you of being old Tilletts's +rival, do you? Not likely--ha, ha! No, I think it's awfully nice of you, +old fellow, knowing as I do that you don't admire her particularly. +That's what I wanted to say," proceeded Charles, laying his hand +affectionately and detainingly on Donald's arm. "Of course you know she +doesn't have much of a time--attention and all that--oh, I see through +you perfectly! It's just Talbott and the Oldmixon girls over again--" + +"Oh, she told me about _you_!" said Donald in a blustering manner; and, +snatching his arm away, he sprang out upon the sidewalk. + +His remark evoked curiosity; but Charles's overweening interest was not +in Angela now. And he was thinking intently: "He's not engaged to Helen +Carson yet, by a long shot. He's not even at the station--that's a +mile--on Washington Street. I'd better keep an eye on you, my buck ..." + +Aloud he said: "She did?--nothing good, I fear. Here!--wait a minute! +That package for Miss Mary, Donald--I expect you'd better leave it for +me to take, after all. I'll find some way to get it around to her--" + +"All right--" + +"You bring it by as you start for the station, that's the best way. Then +we'll drive down together," said Charles, fixing his friend with a +compelling gaze. "I've--ah--got some things I want to talk to you +about." + +"I'll bring it by," said Donald, non-committally, and rushed away. + +He went up seven floors, telephoned for the "staff valet," and proceeded +to business. There was a period of the wildest activity. At the end of +it, the hour being then too late for hope that any expressman would make +the train with the trunk, Donald engaged the valet to secure a +carriage, take down and check the baggage, get him a ticket and a seat, +and be waiting for him with these things at a given point. In such +slapdash, inefficient fashion this young man conducted all his personal +life. + +"And mind you see the baggage on the train," he warned the fellow. "This +is an important trip." + +He shot down again, dressed to "kill" the house-party, but lugging a +large box, and strode out into the fading sunshine. Before the hotel +door, to his surprise, stood Charlie Garrott's borrowed car, empty, and +before the car stood Charlie Garrott's borrowed driver, greeting him +with all his teeth. + +"What're _you_ waiting here for?" said Donald, staring. + +"Goin' to drive you an' Mist' Garrott to the deepo--yessuh! Mist' +Garrott tole me to wait right here an' bring you round, suh!" + +Donald again was rather touched by the thoughtfulness of his friend. +Take him all in all, old Charlie was a pretty good fellow. However, he +would have ridden down in the hack with the valet, if he had wanted to +ride. Of course, he might send the box around by this fellow--but no, if +old Charlie was expecting him, that would seem pretty short, +particularly as Mrs. Herman's was right on his way. + +"I'm much obliged to you--er--Eustace--but I'll walk, I guess. I haven't +had any exercise to-day." + +"Boss, he say you mout not ketch yo' train if you was to walk." + +"Oh, I've got plenty of time for the train--plenty!" said Donald, +hastily, and shifted the box to look at his watch again. "I'll leave +word for Mr. Garrott myself." + +"Suh! Thank you kindly, suh!" + +Donald swung off toward Mrs. Herman's, but three blocks distant. Behind +him, unobserved, trailed the old lady's limousine, very slow. When he +was still a block from his destination, the hurrying young man was all +at once struck with an annoying recollection. "Curses!" he groaned. "I +forgot my sweater!" That meant that he would have to go back, without +doubt: for the sweater was a brand-new one, of brilliant Australian +wool, and specially purchased in New York for the winter-sports. Donald, +accordingly, felt unable to linger over his good-bye messages to +Charles. He said hurriedly to Mrs. Herman, who opened the door for him: +"How-do! Please give this box to Mr. Garrott, and tell him I decided to +walk. He'll understand." And on that, he sprang away down the steps, two +at a time, and started swiftly back to the Bellingham. + +But just as he reached the corner, he was suddenly arrested by the sound +of his own name, rolling loudly after him down the street. + +"_Donald! Hi, there! Stop!_" + +Donald halting, looked upward and all about him. Presently, through the +top branches of an intervening tree, he descried Charles Garrott leaning +far out of Mrs. Herman's third-story window. "Well?" called Donald. + +"What's the matter? Where're you going?" demanded Charles in a voice +that broke easily through the tree. "I said we'd drive down together!" + +He was heard continuing in another tone: "_No!_ Stop, Eustace! Don't go +away--I want you!" + +"Much obliged," shouted Donald, "but I'd rather walk." + +Charles said something out the window, which Donald failed to catch. + +"What say?" + +"You come back!" cried Charles, beckoning, while passing pedestrians +craned their necks upward. "Wait for me--just a minute--I'm all ready! +And I've got to speak to you--about several things! About the package!" + +But Donald, objecting to the attention they were attracting, shook his +head decisively. "Haven't time now. Forgot something ... back to my +rooms." + +"If you haven't time to wait, you certainly haven't time to walk back to +your rooms! You're going to miss your train with all this walking!" + +That was pointed enough to cause Donald to pause again, and look at his +watch for the twentieth time. He found that he still had twenty-five +minutes, time enough, of course, but then he might have to hunt for the +sweater, and there was the business of the luggage at the station, too. + +Down through the branches boomed the strangely insistent voice of +Charles: "Why, by George! You've only got twenty minutes. Here, take my +car there, quick! You can barely make it, driving fast ..." + +And in a lower voice he said: "After him, Eustace! Get him to the +station as fast as you can. Don't fail this time." + +Donald was hesitating, struck as Charles meant him to be, with the fear +that his watch might be slow. He now called, with evidences of ill-humor +and disturbance:-- + +"All right, then! But I can't stop for you." + +"Oh, that's all right, old fellow--my matters can wait! I'll look out +for the package! Just you catch your train, that's all!" + +Continuing to lean out of the Studio window, Charles watched the dullard +step into the old lady's tightly closed car, and whirl away--safe at +last. As the car shot round the corner, he suddenly laughed aloud: a +triumphant laugh, but charged with irritation, too. + +Then Charles, aloft, drew head and torso back into the Studio, banged +shut the window, and found Mrs. Herman just plumping the large white box +of things for Mary down on his writing-table. The spectacle brought +forward the other matter instantly. Of course, he had agreed to receive +the box purely as a means of keeping an eye on Donald. + +"Oh, yes--as to the package, Mrs. Herman, perhaps you wouldn't mind +taking it down as you go, and just leaving it on the hall table? +I--ah--shall probably call a messenger to take it--a little later." + +"Certainly, Mr. Garrott," said Mrs. Herman, picking up the box again. +"And oh, would you mind telling the Judge I'd like to speak to him a +minute before he goes out?" + +"Certainly, Mrs. Herman." + +The landlady, lingering, said: "He seems in poor spirits, don't you +think so, Mr. Garrott? His appetite is not what it was. And he goes out +and takes these long walks, alone, day after day, or sits here by +himself in the Studio. I don't think it's good for him. I think he +broods." + +"It's nothing serious, Mrs. Herman. He's annoyed with me, I fear, for +giving up some physical culture exercises which he hoped might make a +man of me yet. Also, for being such a continuous failure as a writer." + +"But it's not your fault, Mr. Garrott! You do the very best you can, I'm +sure. The Judge is unreasonable--that's what I say. Oh, I could coax him +into a good humor easily enough, but I scarcely ever see him nowadays, +except at meal times. I can't very well offer to go with him on his +walks, can I?--but I'm sure the solitude is bad for him." + +"Ah, you should get yourself a little Fordette, Mrs. Herman." + +"And what is a little Fordette, Mr. Garrott?" + +"Oh--simply a sort of wheeled device for going with people on their +walks. I'm explaining it in a story. But," said Charles, "I won't fail +to give the Judge your message." + +Left alone, the young man stood for a space in the middle of the floor, +gazing intently at nothing. Then he seated himself at his table and +produced manuscript from the drawer. Then he put the manuscript back in +the drawer, and stared at nothing again. Finally, he rose, opened the +bedroom door quietly, and said:-- + +"Judge, I find I have to go out for a little while." + +Judge Blenso, in the bedroom, received the friendly information, and +then his message from Mrs. Herman, with only a cold "Very well!" He +stood at a long board, balanced on two distant chair-backs, listlessly +pressing the trousers he didn't have on; his instrument being a patent +electric-flatiron, which consumed quantities of current, which indeed +fairly gave the measure of his landlady's adoration. Catch Mrs. Herman +letting Two-Book McGee use so much as an electric curling-iron in the +Second Hall Back! + +"And Judge," added Charles, conciliatingly, "please don't bother to take +that manuscript to the express-office--I mean 'Bandwomen'--unless you +really want the walk." + +"Very well! I hear you! Good gad, very well!" said the Judge. + +Charles shut the door, regretfully. It had been like this between them +for some weeks now. Even his generosity in quietly yielding the name of +his own only novel produced no softening effect on his secretary's cold +bored disapprobation. + +He put on hat and overcoat, descended two flights, picked up the box of +things for Mary, and went out upon his errand. He walked slowly, down +Mason Street to Olive, and at Olive turned south. + +For the second time, Donald had contrived to force his hand in regard to +Mary: he was conscious of resenting that. Still--of course he had never +meant to let the old friendship end in estrangement, and doubtless the +casual pretext of the box was better than the formal "call" next week he +had had in mind. To appear as Mary's cheerer-up now was, indeed, +considerably beyond him. Nevertheless, he was well aware that what +Donald had told him in this connection had made an instant difference in +his feeling, made him readier to be friends again. If only she had felt +and realized all this in the beginning, if only she had showed him so +that day over the telephone.... + +Still, feeling wasn't enough, unfortunately. There was this whole +business about Donald, for instance. In one way he could think of that +almost pleasurably. Mary seemed to suppose that if she but arranged a +house-party and gave Donald a sound talking to in advance, the whole +thing was settled, down to the orange-blossoms. It required him to +revise her crude plannings, put in the omitted _finesse_, and deliver +Donald safely at the station. But Charles, pacing gravely toward the +unpremeditated meeting, large box under his arm, found his thought of +the episode continually seeking deeper levels. If, two weeks from now, +Donald was still not engaged to Helen, whose was to be the +responsibility of pushing him on? Not Mary's, evidently. Was not this +youth, in fact, but one more of those countless intimate obligations +which strong women must "hack away," when resolved to lead their own +lives? Donald was the apple of Mary's eye. Normally speaking, she was +ready to do anything for him. But it seemed that even Donald, if he +crossed the trail of the Career, would have to look to himself. + +Or, more probably, he, Charles, would have to look out for him. + +At the corner of Washington Street, pausing, the meditative young man +consulted his watch; he shifted the box for the purpose just as Donald +had done a few minutes earlier. It was quarter past five, exactly. +Donald would be at the station now, without doubt, safe on the train. +Well, here was one thing he had done for Mary, at any rate, as he should +not fail to indicate to her. And thus, insensibly, his thought slipped +into the pleasurable vein again, the superior, masterful vein, and his +mind composed the light ironic sentences with which he should make known +to Mary her remissness and his own subtle services. + +Stepping down from the curb in this brown study, he all but walked into +a motor-car whirring by: a car that was stealing the wrong side of the +street, and cutting close to the sidewalk at that. Charles stopped and +stepped back, just in time. And then, all in the same breath, his ears, +his eyes, and his nostrils telegraphed his brain what car, and whose, +this was. It was the Fordette, none other, going at an unprecedented +speed, now curving back dangerously to the side where it belonged. On a +cloud of the dark smoke it sometimes emitted, Angela's girlish laugh +came floating back to him distinctly. But Charles's gaze was fixed on +the figure of the man who sat at Angela's side and held the Fordette +wheel; and his eyes all but started from his head as he perceived that +it was Donald.... + +Yes, it was poor Donald fast in the Home-Making conveyance: Donald, +snatched, she alone knew how, from his wedding-coach. + + + + +XX + + +The famous Secretary sat at her desk in the well-kept sitting-room. She +sat in the midst of documents and letters; large white sheets of her +Education League writing-paper lay before her, the topmost sheet nearly +filled with her neat chirography. Oblivious to small happenings in the +world without, the Secretary was deep in her distinguished +correspondence. But her desk, as it happened, stood in the window, and +the Secretary, after all, was not so immersed in her affairs but that +she looked out into the Park now and then, sometimes for whole minutes +together. She looked, too, into the quiet street before the house. And +so it was that her eyes, in time, fell upon the familiar figure of +Charles Garrott; striding all at once into her range, turning swiftly in +at her door, vanishing again into her vestibule, scarcely five feet from +where she sat. + +Though thus aware that she was about to have a caller, Mary did not at +once spring up to go and welcome him. She sat, entirely motionless, her +permanently questioning gaze fixed on the spot where the caller had +passed from view. The ringing of the bell scarcely seemed to penetrate +her consciousness. But then, in a moment, she dropped her pen quickly, +and rose. Standing, she locked her two hands together before her, very +tight, released them again, passed out into the hall, and opened her +front door. + +"Good-afternoon! This is an unexpected pleasure," said she, in her +natural voice, or very near it. "Come in!--or can you?" + +Her visitor looked full at her from the vestibule, unsmiling. + +"Oh, certainly--if you're not too busy! It's what I am here for. How do +you do to-day?" + +"That's nice! You don't often honor us, and--I feared you had merely +stopped to leave that package." + +"Ah, yes!--the package! Some things Donald got for you--I suppose you +know? He asked me--" + +"Oh! I'm afraid that was very much of an imposition--and I was really in +no hurry for them at all." + +She thanked him, relieved him of the pretextual box, laid it on the hall +table, and, with inevitable but extreme infelicity, continued:-- + +"You saw Donald to-day, then?" + +A small silence preceded his controlled reply "Oh, yes!--I saw him." + +"I've just packed him off to a house-party at the Kingsleys'--to make +love to Helen Carson. But perhaps he told you?" + +In the large mirror overhanging the table, the eyes of the once +excellent friends briefly encountered. She was puzzled by the quality of +his grave gaze. + +"He did mention a house-party, I believe. But--" + +Turning away toward the sitting-room, Mary filled the pause with a +little laugh: "But you think he won't make love to Helen, perhaps?" + +The grave young man, following her, did not burst forth, even then. His +restraint seemed curious, even to himself. Crossing Washington Street +just now, he had been full enough of plain speech, for this young +woman's good. "I've had quite enough of this!" he would say to her. "I +can't and won't give up my afternoons, my life, to playing nurse to +Donald. If you are satisfied to have him marry Miss Angela, well and +good. If not--" and then a last warning, far sharper, far more direct, +than the other. But then as he waited upon her steps, and then as he +looked at her in the door, the springs of this trivial anger had seemed +mysteriously to subside and dry up. No doubt the Career-Maker's own look +had something to do with that. Her face in the afternoon light was seen +to be thin and tired; he thought he detected faint circles under her +eyes, a slightly pinched look about her nostrils. But beyond all that, +beyond any question of "sympathy," or cheering-up, it seemed that the +affair itself had suddenly shrunk in importance. Donald's folly, +Angela's little foibles, seemed to matter less to Charles as he found +himself looking again at the departing heroine of his write-ups. + +So he discharged his bolt with restrained formality: "It isn't that. I +was only wondering whether or not you had packed him off, as yet." + +"Oh!--but haven't I?... I don't understand." + +"I happened to see him a minute ago, driving on Washington Street with +your cousin--Miss Angela." + +It was clear that the topic had lost no interest for Mary, at any rate. +She stopped short in the middle of the floor, utterly taken aback. + +"_Donald!_--as you came here?" + +And, instantly recovering from mere astonishment, her capable gaze flew +to the little watch on her wrist. + +Charles reassured her, as dryly as possible: "However, they were headed +toward the station, and going as fast as they could. I think he will +make his train." + +"But--it's not possible, I'm afraid! His train goes at five +twenty-two--it's just that now!... Ah, how _could_ he!" + +Producing his own valued chronometer, the young man compared it with the +educator's small trinket. + +"I believe you're a little fast, aren't you? I'm five-eighteen. And it +was just quarter past when I saw them, for I looked to see. That gave +him seven minutes--" + +"Yes--well!--but Angela's little car is so slow--" + +"Oh!--it can go fast enough for practical purposes--I've observed. +Besides, Donald may have telephoned and found that the train was late." + +"Yes--that's true." + +Mary Wing looked toward the window, characteristically composed again, +but evidently concerned enough. + +"Well, I hope so. It would be too stupid of him to miss it, after +all ... I can't think how he happened to be with Angela--at the last +minute this way." + +"How, indeed? But sit down, do, and I'll tell you why it seems +particularly--mystifying to me. I hope," the formal caller added, with a +glance toward the busy-looking desk, "I'm not interrupting?" + +The General Secretary said no, with some brevity. + +In sentences less copious and biting than he had sketched out on the +corner, Charles recited the history of his futile afternoon. He could +not, indeed, believe it possible that Donald, having donned the solemn +bridegroom look for Helen Carson, would deliberately throw it off again +for the sake of a short drive in the Fordette: which, to say the least +of it, could be had at any time at his desire. Nor was Donald really a +born fool, who would miss a train through sheer childish carelessness. +The inference was that, encountering Angela, accidentally (more or +less), just after his second start, the youth had calculated that he +still had time to spare; and so had consented to exchange the speedy +limousine for the Fordette: quite probably in no spirit more serious +than that of a venturesome lark. Charles's remarks, at least, took these +generous grounds, reassuring as to the moment. And still a tinge of +exasperation crept into his account of his wasted labors. And still +something in him seemed to require that he should bring these small +responsibilities home where they belonged, for once: leaving them on her +doorstep, as it were, for her to jump over when she went away. + +But his story, inevitably, was one of ungallant efforts to evade +impending pursuit. And when, to point up his lesson, he guardedly +suggested a connection between the natural ambitions of Miss Angela, and +the two complete transplantations of her family, Mary Wing seemed to +gather more of his purely private thought than he had intended. One of +her intent interrogative stares brought him to an unintended pause. And +she commented quietly, but rebukingly, he considered:-- + +"You seem to have changed your opinion of Angela since last week." + +There, of course, he hardly cared to justify himself. He could not well +explain what Angela's resemblance to her mother had signified to him, +and why he considered poor Dr. Flower the most magnificent romanticist +in the world. + +"I merely suggest," he said, with stiffening dignity, "that she does +seem to be much interested in Donald--and he in her--now. I happen to +know that he called on her twice the day he left for New York, and +talked with her over the telephone this morning. But you mistake me, if +you think I mean to criticize your cousin--personally. I hope I +understand better than that how--all this--is as logical and +mathematical as a natural law. How far in the other direction the +education of women ought to take them ... that, of course, is not for me +to guess.... My point is only that these--these perfectly logical +ambitions--are strong enough to be taken seriously by those who mean to +oppose them." + +"Do you doubt that I take this seriously?" + +"I have doubted it, I must admit.... Suppose this house-party comes to +nothing, what do you mean to do?" + +The former heroine of the write-ups did not answer him at once. She sat +in a straight chair, half-sidewise, a considerable distance away; her +arm was laid along the chair-back, her cheek sunk upon her hand. +Something in the pose made the caller think of Donald's exaggerated +statement, that he had never seen Mary so blue in his life. + +When she spoke, it was not again to suggest, offhand, that he should +save Donald by stepping in. + +"You are right, of course," she said with a certain dignity herself. "I +haven't been thinking of it as seriously as I should--evidently. Now--if +this doesn't come to anything--I'll need some time to plan about it." + +"It's going to be rather troublesome, I'm afraid. And you--I--" + +"I'll make it my chief interest, you may be sure." + +Then the stiff caller, examining his shirt-cuff as if he had never seen +such an object before, released his logical comment: + +"But I'm afraid you haven't left yourself a great deal of time, have +you? Two weeks may prove rather a small allowance--for a difficult +matter like this." + +"Oh, I--hope there will be time enough. Meantime, I--" + +"I hadn't realized you were going so soon, you see. That will add to the +difficulties, I'm afraid. Donald says you expect to leave on the 20th." + +He meant his rejoinders to be unanswerable, and she seemed to find them +so. Glancing up from his cuff in the silence, Charles found his famous +friend's eyes fixed upon him in a strange gaze, which her lids and +lashes veiled at once. Had that look struck him from any other eyes in +the world, he would have labeled it reproachful, without the smallest +hesitation. But Mary was never reproachful: she scarcely thought enough +of him for that; and, besides, the shoe was on the other foot, as she +should know very well. + +"I did say something of the sort last week, I believe--though no day was +really settled on. But it was very nice of you," she went on naturally +enough, but with too evident a wish to shift the conversation, "to take +so much trouble about it to-day. I do appreciate all your interest in +it--and I do believe it's going to turn out right, too. Donald certainly +left me with that feeling, this afternoon. So don't let's bother about +it any more now," said Mary. "I'd much rather hear--some more about your +writing. I hope you've gotten the book well started now?" + +But Charles, unique among the writers of the world, did not want to talk +about himself to-day. No, he had found the topic for him now. + +"No!--I haven't, I'm sorry to say. Your arrangements are all made, +aren't they? Judge Blenso tells me you're going to live with Sophy +Stein, who used to run the Pure Food laboratories here?" + +Again her brief look seemed to thrust upon him like a hand, and again +her reply glanced off:-- + +"Yes--I was planning to live with her. You knew her, didn't you, when--" + +"I was going to say--if everything is arranged, perhaps you wouldn't +need to start so early.... Of course, the idea of your friends here +would be that you should wait till the last day." + +As she neither approved nor rejected this amiable suggestion, Charles +said: "How does that idea appeal to you?" + +To his surprise, instead of answering his question, Mary rose abruptly +and went over to her desk. He then assumed that she wished to show him +some letter bearing on her arrangements for her new life. But it seemed +that her movement had no such object. She merely stood there a moment, +fingering her papers in an irresolute sort of way; and then, without a +word, she moved a little farther, and stood, looking out of the window. + +He said, at once with bewilderment and with increasing constraint: "Or +possibly you don't wish me to know when you are going?" + +Then Mary Wing turned in the dying light, and said, not dramatically at +all, but in her quietest everyday voice:-- + +"No, I don't mind your knowing. I'm not going." + +And still the authority on women did not understand. + +"Not going--when?" + +"I've decided not to accept the appointment." + +And, sitting down, suddenly and purposelessly at her desk, the young +woman of the Career added in a rather let-down voice: "I haven't told +anybody at all yet. I just decided--last night." + +Then came silence into the twilight sitting-room, surely a silence like +none here before it. In the Wings' best chair, the caller sat still as a +marble man, while the little noises from the street grew loud and +louder. And then, quite abruptly and mechanically, he began to rise, +exactly as if an unseen spirit were lifting him bodily by the hair. And +he could feel all the blood drawing out of his face. + +"Not going to accept the appointment," he echoed suddenly, in a queer +voice. + +And then, as if so reminded that his tongue possessed this +accomplishment, he all at once burst out: "Why--but--why! You _have_ +accepted it! It was settled!--long ago! _Not going!_--what do you mean? +Why, what's happened?" + +The young woman seated so inappropriately at the desk, gazing so +meaninglessly into pigeon-holes, made no reply. And now Charles Garrott +was walking toward her, walking as the entranced walk, fascinated, +staring with fixed eyes that had forgotten how to wink. + +"What're you talking about? I don't know what you mean! Why, what's +happened--what's gone wrong?" + +Mary Wing grew restless under his questionings; she spoke with obvious +effort: "Nothing's happened--nothing's gone wrong. I say, I simply +decided that I wouldn't--take the position, after all. I decided I would +refuse it. So I was writing to Dr. Ames--to explain ... That's all I can +say." + +But the man standing over her looked more spellbound than ever. + +"Explain!--explain what?... Why--you can't put me off like this--can +you?" said he, all his stiffness so shattered by her thunderbolt, all +his struggle but for some effect of poise. "You _must_ know--I'm +tremendously interested. And--I'm obliged to feel that something pretty +serious has happened to make you--" + +"No!--nothing has happened at all, I've said. I assure you--nothing." + +"But ... You can't imagine how absolutely in the dark ... Do you mean +you've found something else you'd rather do--here?" + +"I suppose that's one way of putting it--yes.... Why, I simply say that +when the time came--I wasn't able to do it, that's all.... No, I didn't +want to do it--that must have been it. Of course, people always do what +they really want most." + +"You didn't want to do what?... You know, that's just what I don't quite +understand." + +"But I've just told you," she protested; and there stopped short. + +She had overcome the brief weakness which had seemed to seize her when, +for the first time, she heard her intention declared aloud, the spoken +word, it may be, imparting to it the last irrevocable stroke. She, the +competent, would not be incompetent with her own great affair. And now, +as if she reluctantly acknowledged some right he had to understand, she +seemed to force herself to speak again, in a voice from which her +self-control had pressed all tone. + +"I mean that, when the time came, I couldn't pick up and go away--for +good--no matter what was at the other end. I mean I wasn't willing to. +I'd rather not." + +She took a breath; and then tone came into her sentences, but it was +only a sort of light hardness. + +"I suppose it all came down to this--that I wasn't willing to leave +mother--in the way I should have to leave her. I didn't want to. It was +not possible ... And I'm afraid that's all I can say." + +"But of course I understand you now," said the young man instantly, in +the strangest mild voice. + +"Then, if you will--please me--let's say no more about it." + +To that stanch speech he made no reply: perhaps he did not hear it. +Winter dusk had crept quickly into the pretty sitting-room. The tall +figure motionless by the little desk grew perceptibly dimmer. + +That understanding Charles spoke of had come upon him by successive +shocks, each violent in its way. His had been the mere mad sense of a +world too suddenly swung upside down, of the individual himself left +standing brilliantly on his head. That had been just at first; and then +perception had slid into him like a lance, and his feet had struck the +solid ground with a staggering jolt. It was as if, at a word, all the +supporting fabrications of his mind had turned to thin air, and out he +fell headlong, at last, upon the real and the true. And this real and +this true was Mary Wing, nothing else, standing where she had always +stood; Mary, his best old friend, whom he had given his back to, +belabored with harsh words, while she struggled at the crossroads of her +life--to this. Now contrition, now humbleness had shaken the young +authority, a poignant conviction of his failure, in understanding and in +friendship. And then she spoke again, making it all quite perfect with +simple words that he himself, in a dream, might have shaped and put into +her mouth. _I wasn't willing to leave mother._ And after that, it seemed +that nothing about himself could possibly matter in the least. + +"You know," he said, quite naturally, out of the small silence, "I think +it's beautiful that a girl like you can feel this way--a girl with your +abilities--your usefulness and splendid success--and now this +magnificent oppor--" + +"Don't!--please don't! I hadn't meant to speak of it at all. I--we +won't discuss it, please." + +She spoke hastily, pushing back the papers she had been pretending to +arrange, starting to rise. But that word or that movement seemed to +galvanize the still Charles into the suddenest life. + +"_Discuss it!_" he cried, in a new voice. "Why, we're going to have the +greatest discussion you ever heard!" + +For perhaps the strangest part of this destructive upheaval was that it +seemed to leave every idea he had ever had about this Career completely +reversed. One word from Mary Wing about not leaving her mother, and +nothing seemed to matter but that she, in her fine recklessness, should +not be allowed to sacrifice her triumph and her life. + +"No!--please! It's settled now. And it only makes--" + +But her friend, the authority, had flung himself into the chair beside +her, like an excited boy, and he seized her wrist on the desk-leaf in an +arresting grip. + +"No, it isn't settled till it's settled right!--don't you know that? Is +this your letter to Ames here? Let me tear it up for you now! Refuse the +appointment! Why, Miss _Mary_! You can't think of such a thing! You!--a +worker with a mission--and this your great call!--your big +opportunity--your _duty_! Yes, your--" + +She interrupted his flowing modernisms to say, quite patiently: "You're +hurting my wrist." + +"Yes, and I'm going on hurting it till I see that letter torn up! Now, +Miss Mary!--listen to me--for once--I beg! You won't suppose I don't +understand--now--what made you sit down to do this, and I--I needn't +say I admire you immensely for feeling so. But--don't you see--if life's +hard, it's not your doing, and if it's hardest on mothers, you can't +change the conditions by a hair's-breadth, no matter what you do.... +Why, if you were going to marry Donald, and go off to Wyoming, the break +here would be just as bad, but you'd never think it wasn't right--you'd +know that these were the terms and conditions of life. Oh, you know all +that as well as I! You know the duty isn't from children to parents--no, +I swear, it's from parents to children, every time. And your mother'll +be the first to say so--you know that, too! You know, when you tell her +you're thinking of doing this, she'll go down on her knees to beg you to +take your youth--and your life--and be free--" + +He was deflected by one of Mary's normal level gazes, turned upon him. +She said steadily:-- + +"How long have you been feeling this way?" + +"Ten years! And then--for about five minutes." + +"I had understood somehow--I don't know how exactly--that you always +thought I should stay here." + +The young man felt a flush spreading upward toward his hair, but would +not lower his eyes. + +"Perhaps I did have some such feeling--in a sort of--personal, illogical +way. But if it's the last word I ever speak--you've destroyed the last +shred of it." + +He rose abruptly, without intention. Nothing in the world was clearer to +him than that he and his reactions mattered little to her now; yet the +desire mounted in him to explain how it was never the thing itself, but +always the feeling about it, that had seemed so important to him. +However, the school-teacher, with a little definitive gesture of the arm +he had released, spoke first:-- + +"Well, never mind! Don't argue with me, please. It's as over and done +with as something last year--" + +But Charles, upon his unimagined task of persuading Mary to act as the +Egoettes act, cried out: "No!--no! Argue! Why, d'you think I'll stand by +and hold my tongue, while you sacrifice the great chance of your life, +your particular dream--for a mere notion of _duty_! I say, and I've +always said, that freedom--and the right to do your work--belong to you, +if to anybody in the world! You've--" + +"Do you really suppose I've lain awake all these nights without learning +what my own mind is?" + +Having stopped him effectually with this dry thrust, she went on in +another manner, not controversial at all, rather like one speaking to +herself. + +"And as for my freedom--that's not involved at all.... I was thinking +just now that maybe this is just what freedom--responsible +freedom--really is--means. It's having the ability and the desire and +the fair chance to do a thing--_and then not do it_." + +And then Charles Garrott knew, quite suddenly and finally, that this, +indeed, was no talk in a book, but the realest thing in the world; that +this incredible had really happened: that Mary Wing, the "hard" +Career-Maker, was tossing her Career away.... + +He stood quite silenced, while she spoke her last decisive word. + +"So you see you have a wrong idea of--what I'm doing, altogether. I +appreciate your--being so interested--I value it, you know that," said +Mary Wing in a controlled voice, hard even. "But I can't leave you +thinking that I'm simply sacrificing myself--to my mother, for instance. +It isn't that way at all. Of course, I'm no more to mother than mother +is to me. It's not a sacrifice.... Or, rather--I'm in the position that +people are always in--more or less. Either way, I've got to +sacrifice--and this is the way I choose. But it's getting very dark. I +must light the lamps." + +She rose as she spoke, and having risen, bent again, to snap on, +superfluously, her little desk-light. And as she so stood and bent, the +large hand of Charles Garrott reached out suddenly, and began to pat her +shoulder. + +She seemed but a slip of a girl, no more, that he, Charles, could have +tossed upon his shoulder, and so walked out upon a journey. But here, in +a wink, she had shot up so tall upon his horizon that he himself, beside +her, seemed to possess no significance at all. She might be right, she +might be wrong: but, to him, the authority, this crashing negation of +the Ego was the flung banner of a splendid trustworthiness, a fitness to +lead her own life, indeed, such as should not be questioned +henceforward. Never had this woman's independence of him spoken out to +him with so clarion a voice as now. And still, over and through her +unemotional firmness, the sense of what a giving-up was here swelled in +him almost overwhelmingly. It was the brilliant prize of ten years' +checkered struggle that his old friend to-day so stoically threw away. +Here was a refusal which would touch every corner of her life to its +farthest reaches.... + +So Charles Garrott's warring sensations, his humility and his pride in +her, had instinctively expressed themselves in the awkward mute gesture +of his sympathies. + +By chance, it was Mary's more distant shoulder that his novel impulse +had prompted him to pat and go on patting: so, from the accident of +their positions, an eye-witness might have been with difficulty +convinced that this man's arm was not actually about the slim figure of +his friend. But a jury, without doubt, would have accepted the friend's +attitude, her entire indifference to what was going on, as fair proof +that this was purely a modern proceeding, and no caress. To ask why he +did this clearly did not enter Mary's head. Had she been a man, indeed, +or he her father, she could hardly have seemed more unaffected by +Charles Garrott's unexampled ministrations. + +With what speech he meant to accompany and justify his pattings, Charles +had not stopped to think. He had, in fact, himself just become conscious +of them, when Mary, straightening up, said suddenly in her normal +voice:-- + +"There's the telephone ringing. Excuse me a minute." + +She gave him a brief look in passing, which may have been intended as +some sort of courteous acknowledgment of the pattings after all. And +then she disappeared into the hall, putting an end to talk: +inopportunely he felt; leaving him with, a vague sense of inartistic +incompletion.... + +The young man stood still in the silent sitting-room, in a duskiness +just punctuated by the small green glow of the desk-lamp. + +One of those many minds of his, which are at once a writer's genius and +his curse,--that completely detached, cool overmind which never sleeps, +never ceases to scrutinize and appraise,--was quite conscious that Mary +had held him off with a hand firmer than his own. There was a tremendous +lot that he really needed to say, it seemed, in sheer admiration, sheer +feeling; and, the truth was, she didn't wish to have him say it. No; her +strength, though so far finer and more sensitive than the strength of +the Egoette, was, indeed, not "soft." She would not sentimentalize even +her own suicidal renouncing. As for weeping--he himself had seemed +rather nearer tears than his iron-hearted friend.... + +But the intense thought of the central mind, of the net Charles, had +never wavered from its great stark fact, that Mary Wing was going to +stay at home--and be a school-teacher.... And why had he, who thought +himself as observant as another authority, been staggered so by the +revelation? Had not he himself divined just this subtler quality in her +long ago, when he found and named her as the best type of modern +woman?... But no, even in "Bondwomen," he had had reservations, it +seemed; open doubts in the write-ups. + +And now, Charles the author, in his turn, abruptly collided with a +strange discovery. He stood rigid, startled.... This strength and this +surrender, this power to act, this power to feel, this freedom fine +enough to accept the responsibilities of freedom, and to have no part +with that hollow Self-Assertion which traded round the world in +freedom's name: what was all this but the rounded half of that true Line +which, in the Studio, had so long eluded him? What had he wished to say +about freedom so much as just this? And why need he search in his fancy +now for his wholly Admirable Heroine?... + +Mary Wing appeared suddenly in the door. Unmoving, the young man stood +and gazed at her; and so vivid had his imaginings become that his stare +was touched with no greeting, no recognition even. And then, even in the +dusk, he seemed to see that she, his Heroine in the flesh, brought back +a face more troubled than she had taken out, eyes colored with a fresh +anxiety. + +He spoke rather confusedly: "What was it? Is anything the matter?" + +"Dr. Flower's very ill," she answered hurriedly. "He's had a stroke, or +something. I'm afraid it's very serious. I must go there at once." + +All the small fret of the earlier afternoon, every thought and +association with which he had walked into this room just now had receded +so fast and far that re-connection, all in a moment, was not easy. +Charles, staring, seemed to say: "And who, if you please, is Dr. +Flower?" And then his mind replied with a flashing picture of Angela's +father, as he had last seen him, sitting forlorn among his cigar-stubs: +and at once he touched reality again. + +"Ah! I'm sorry!" said he; and then: "You must let me go with you." + +"Well--thank you--if you like." + +And Mary, already moving away toward the bedrooms, added then, in a +colorless sort of way:-- + +"Who do you suppose telephoned me from there?" + +"Who telephoned?--I don't know--" + +She paused, half turned, looked back at him, hesitated, and then spoke +but a single word:-- + +"Donald." + +Brief though the reply was, it was sufficient to plant Charles Garrott's +feet permanently upon the earth. + +After an interval, with movements purely mechanical, he sought for his +watch. It was quarter past six. And he understood everything then. + + + + +XXI + + +Charles thought that he understood everything now. In so far as he +built a theory on the cold Argument from Design, he understood, of +course, nothing whatever. The truth was that Angela had had other things +than Mr. Manford to think of to-day. That she had gone out in her +Fordette at all was only by the merest chance. + +Trouble had come into the little house of the Flowers. As early as one +o'clock, Dr. Flower had preempted the family attention. Coming in from +the Medical School half an hour before his regular time, he had shut +himself in his office, without explanation; and there he sat all +afternoon, declining dinner with a shake of his head, and otherwise +strangely uncommunicative and withdrawn. Reminded that this was Friday, +which meant another lecture at half-past two, he only said in his +puzzling way: "Quite so. I have no stomach for the small talk to-day." +Mrs. Flower, stealing now and again to the dark office, doing her duty +as wife and mother, returned each time more concerned by her husband's +remoteness, less reassured by his grave statements that he was not sick, +in stomach or elsewhere. The two women spent a long and uneasy +afternoon. And at the critical moment of it--the moment when, a mile to +the west, Charles Garrott leaned out of his third-story window--Angela +sat anxious in her mother's bedroom, discussing whether or not they +should take the responsibility of calling in Dr. Blakie, on the next +block. + +But Angela did not think that her father was ill, exactly: it was more +as if his increasing queerness had reached a sort of climax. And now, by +chance,--or was it destiny, in this its favorite mask?--he quite +suddenly got over his mysterious attack; and the deepening worry lifted +from her young shoulders. Of his own accord, her father emerged from the +office and his unusual aloofness together, and came walking upstairs to +the bedroom, speaking with his own voice--speaking, indeed, more freely +than was his wont. He said at once that his headache was better now: +this being his first reference to his head at all. As if struck by his +daughter's troubled expression as he entered, he smiled at her and +patted her cheek in the kindliest way; and then, becoming thoughtful, +unexpectedly produced a two-dollar bill from his trousers pocket, and +handed it to her with some characteristically strange words about her +dowry, words which afterwards she could never quite remember. There +followed some commonplace family talk, entirely reassuring. + +And it was only then, in the certainty that everything was all right +again, that Angela allowed herself to recall her own affairs once more. +It was only then, with the thought that her recovered father very likely +wished to talk alone with her mother, that she left the bedroom and her +two parents together. At the door, she mentioned that probably she would +go out and get a little air, before it was time for supper. + +The old clock in the dining-room downstairs had then just struck five. +However, very little more time could have elapsed before the relieved +young girl, hatted and coated, issued hurrying from the kitchen door, +toward the garage that had once been a shed. Yet another minute, and she +was rolling from the alley-mouth. + +To snatch Mr. Manford from his wedding-coach: was this the calculation +that sent Angela forth in the fair eve of the disquieting day? Perhaps +such a raid and capture would not have seemed quite a crime to her, or +to any woman that ever lived. But nothing, of course, was further from +her thoughts. That she might conceivably meet Mr. Manford while she took +the air, and even exchange a few words with him, Angela did, indeed, +think, and hope. But this mild maidenly fancy was as innocent as it was +rightfully hers. Good reason she had to know that a little chat in +passing, if so be it should come about, would be no less acceptable to +Mr. Manford than to herself. Had he not told her by telephone this +morning that if he could find so much as a minute in this rushing day, +he would spend it in calling on her? + +On the eleventh floor of the Bellingham, Donald stood hastily rolling +his new sweater into a brown-paper parcel. Now into Washington Street, +the little Fordette came curving and snorting toward him: toward him, no +doubt, in a spiritual, as well as a geographical sense. And still the +full depth of the young girl's design was simply this: that her new +principal friend, going off for a gay week-end among maidens more blest +by opportunity than she, might go with a last pleasant thought of her. + +For Mr. Manford was Angela's principal friend now; there was no longer +the smallest doubt of that. On that day of culminating results last +week, when the unusual line of vehicles had stood before her door, the +stalwart engineer had definitely moved up to first place in her +thoughts. Not only had Mr. Manford called for an hour and three-quarters +that day, while Dan Jenney cooled his heels in the office, and then went +off for a walk alone: but then also he had first shown, by unmistakable +signs, that he was truly interested in her. Moreover, in the very same +moments, by a strange and rather exciting coincidence, she found herself +becoming almost certain that she was truly interested in Mr. Manford. +She must have been pretty certain, even then, for it was that night +after supper, just before she started off to the theater with Mr. +Tilletts, that she had told Dan Jenney in the parlor, sadly but firmly, +that it could never be, and given him back his ring. + +And since then, the shy girlish surmise had been further fed. One +pleasant happening continued to lead to another. When she had asked Mr. +Manford, half-jokingly, to send her some picture post-cards from New +York, for her collection, it was--again--purely from the instinctive +wish to know that she remained in her new admirer's thought, even when +he was far away. But he had sent her not only stacks of the loveliest +post-cards, showing the Flatiron Building, the Statue of Liberty, and +other well-known sights, but also the most beautiful book, called +"Queens"--a book of gorgeous pictures of American girls, all in color, +by one of the most famous artists in Chicago. Of course, common +politeness demanded that she should thank him--for "Queens," if not for +the post-cards--just as soon as he got back. And the resultant talk, +quarter of an hour over the telephone, had been just as satisfying as +possible.... + +Thus it was nothing less than a complete realignment of the coterie that +had taken place, this week. For if Mr. Manford had advanced rapidly in +the young girl's thought, even more rapidly, of course, had her old +principal friend dropped backward out of it. After the unattractive way +he had showed his pique that day, Angela had thought about Mr. Garrott, +indeed, only long enough to take a final position about him. That +position came simply to this, that if he was the sort of person who +expected to take liberties with you all the time, then he was not the +sort that she, Angela, cared to have anything to do with. She recalled +now her early premonition, that Mr. Garrott was a man of low ideals. And +she was glad to remember how she had put him in his place, the night he +had showed his real nature, and positively refused to compromise her +standards, simply to keep him on, as so many girls would have done. + +Now, in the tail of the complicated day, Angela thought only, and with +right, of her engineer. Rapidly up the Street of the Rich she drove, and +alert she kept her eyes. But, in truth, the hope in her heart had been +but a slim one; and now, with each passing block, she felt it growing +slimmer. When she got as far as the Green Park, and saw the time by the +church-clock there, it dwindled away blankly to nothing: the worry about +her father had kept her in till too late, just as she had thought all +along. In short, her mind's eye was picturing Mr. Manford already seated +in his train, when he suddenly made her start and jump by appearing at +her elbow. + +The meeting was his doing altogether. The maid scanned the sidewalks as +she proceeded; the man in a closed conveyance came skimming down the +middle of the highway. Nothing on earth could have been easier than for +him to skim on by her unseen, and nobody a whit the wiser. On the +contrary, he must have given the order to stop with instantaneous +alacrity. The very first Angela knew of Mr. Manford's nearness at all +was the sight of his head sticking out the door of a great car, just +ahead of her. + +The door was open; the car was coming to a standstill; Mr. Manford was +signaling. Nimbly, with an inner leap of happiness, the girl complied +with his obvious wishes. + +The two self-propelling vehicles, the big one and the little, stood side +by side in the middle of Washington Street, while passing chauffeurs +detoured around them with looks that cursed as they went. Between the +vehicles, on the asphaltum, stood Mr. Manford, dark head bared, speaking +sweet, hasty parting words: explaining what a terrible rush he had been +in since eight o'clock this morning, saying (and looking) how sorry he +was not to have been able to call. Eager manly words and self-conscious +manner, he was all that a girl could have wished. But then he stopped +himself, quite abruptly, as if he had recollected something, and put out +his hand with the solemnest look. "_Good_-bye!" he said, and seemed to +sigh, as if he never expected to see her again. + +But Angela did not take Mr. Manford's hand. Possibly these two minutes +should have filled the round of her expectancy; possibly not. Now there +rose in her a graceful thought which the sight of her admirer in a +conveyance of his own had momentarily rolled flat. + +Lifting her soft eyes to his, she said: "I wish--is there time for me to +drive you to the station? Or had you rather...?" + +"By Jove!" said he, staring. "That _is_ an idea!" + +The two normal young people gazed at each other through five seconds of +intense silence. When the man's gaze broke, it was only to fling it upon +the watch he had hurriedly jerked out. And that movement seemed to +settle everything. One glance was enough to satisfy the young +bridegroom that there was time. He so announced, and proceeded +accordingly. + +Thus, for the second time in fifteen minutes, Eustace and the Big Six +were sent empty about their business. And Donald, dressed to "kill" the +Carson house-party, sprang to the wheel of Angela's Fordette. + +"I'll hop her along," cried he, laughing with the excitement of the +thing, as he made the turnabout, "till she won't believe it's _her_!" + +And so he did, as old Charlie Garrott, passed unnoticed on the next +corner, could have testified, and did. Ten full blocks Donald proceeded +toward his train at a wholly honorable, indeed dangerous, celerity. And +then his single-mindedness began imperceptibly to yield. + +It was, indeed, touch-and-go with Mary Wing's male cousin, here at the +turning-point of his life. Had he not forgotten his sweater--well, who +knows? Now as the station grew steadily nearer, now as the pretty and +familiar voice spoke at his side, one thing was leading to another, and +his nervous fidgeting increased. + +It occurred to Donald, not for the first time, that he was being rushed +about a great deal here lately, with never a minute he could call his +own. Managed around all the time--that was about the size of it, here +lately: railroaded along into things, with no chance at all to stop and +think quietly what he wanted to do.... Then, in a quiet stretch before +the turn at Ninth Street, he looked down at the beguiling soft creature +beside him, whom he had come to know so easily, so quickly, and so well. +His gaze rested upon the rounded girlish bosom, rising and falling with +tender young life, at the neck fair as a lily where the V of the thin +white waist liberally revealed it, at the big eyes of a woman looking +back at him so dark and sweet. And he was surprised at the sensations +the look of these eyes now had power to draw up out of him. How? Why? +Had absence made the heart mysteriously fonder? Or was it something in +the intimacy of this swift adventure together--her sharing his dash for +the train like some one who belonged to him?... + +"I wish I didn't have to run off this way," he muttered, restively, +after a long silence. + +"I'll miss you," said she, and the dark eyes fell. + +He found the simple reply oddly stirring, arresting, and significant. He +was going to be away only three days, and she, this dear, different +fellow-being whose gentle weakness already seemed to depend on him, was +going to miss him. At some risk, for they now bounced through the +traffic of Center Street, he looked down at her again. And once again +the sum of all Donald's observations was this, that Angela was a +Woman.... + +No jawing here about the isms of the day, Browning--Tosti--no, +Tolstoy--those chaps; no arguing back at you over things a man, of +course, knows most about. No; this girl was all Woman.... + +"I suppose," said she, all at once, "there isn't a train just a little +later you could take?" + +By singular chance, the thought of the later train had that second +knocked at Donald's own mind. Marveling at the coincidence, he +hesitated, and answered weakly:-- + +"Well, there's sort of a train at 7.50--a local. But--this is the train +they're expecting me by." + +She made no reply. Glancing down, he got no answering glance: she was +looking, large-eyed and wistful, into empty space. Her silence, that +look, seemed in some subtle way to lay hold on whatever was best in the +young man, compellingly. Beyond his understanding, they seemed to +envelop Donald with a sudden profound pressure, immensely detaining. + +Now, over lower roofs, the station clock-tower, two blocks away, shot +suddenly up into the fading sky before them. They saw together that it +was twenty minutes past five. + +"Oh, hurry!... You've caught it, haven't you?" + +The speech, for some reason, pressed more than the silence. He answered, +shortly: "Remains to be seen." Down the long hill, the little Fordette +raced and rattled. The young man's hard breathing became noticeable. And +the broad entrance of the station was but half a block away when, with +abrupt violence, he threw out his clutch and jammed on his brake. + +"I've missed it!" said he, in a voice that brooked no argument. + +Tommy's valuable gift had stopped with a hard bump. Angela did not mind +the inconvenience. Her eyes were rewarding her principal friend. Her +heart seemed to turn a little within her. Into her cheeks flowed the +sweet warm pink. + +Together, the two normal young people laughed, suddenly, a little +unsteadily. Then, with gayety and some suppressed excitement, they sat +discussing an important point, viz.: what to do with their two hours' +holiday, before the later train? + +It was quickly decided that they should go home. Angela's Home was the +one intended; Donald it was who decided the point, as befitted the man. +He flung out a commanding hand to notify whom it might concern that he +purposed to face about, yet again. And the faithful Fordette, which had +set forth with so frail a hope, turned and snorted homeward with the +great victory of its career. + +Angela sat with shining eyes. She would not have been a woman, she +would not have been human but a plaster saint on a pedestal, if her +natural happiness had not had the added poignancy of a triumph among her +sisters. Just how far Mr. Manford considered himself interested in Miss +Carson, she had never yet been able to determine exactly; but that +beautiful damsel's position in the scheme of things she, of course, +understood perfectly. If her own intuitions had lacked, there were the +plain hints Cousin Mary had given her only the other day. Hence, since +last week, it was impossible to view Miss Carson other than as a rival, +an enemy almost, and one possessing all the odds. For Miss Carson was +rich and prominent, with powerful family connections behind and around +her, and every possible opportunity and advantage: while she, +Angela,--as we know,--had practically not a single rich relation on +earth, and not one soul to help her but herself. And still--here was Mr. +Manford at her side. + +They stepped up on the verandah of the home; and the girl remembered the +anxiety of the afternoon. But, listening as she opened the front-door, +she heard from above the distinct murmur of her mother's voice, talking +to her father, and knew again, with fresh relief, that all was well. Mr. +Manford having accepted an invitation to stay to supper, she disappeared +briefly to confer with Luemma--bribing Luemma with the promise of her +old black skirt, in short, to go out and purchase certain extras, in +honor of the guest. Returning again, she found her guest standing in the +dark hall exactly where she had left him, motionless, a strange absorbed +look on his masculine face. And as he met her eyes, there in the dimness +by the hatstand, some of the fine color seemed to ebb from his cheek. + +They went into the parlor, and sat down on the dented sofa; and her +conquest, still, was but part of a day that had belonged to another. But +now it quickly became clear that matters had taken a headlong jump, +beyond all calculation. + +It was, indeed, as if the man himself was profoundly reacted upon by +those proofs of his own interest which had so stirred the maiden. +Unknown to any one, he had missed his train and important engagements +for nothing else than to be here with this girl: and it was as if the +fact of itself thrust her far forward in his imagination, wrapped her +about with a new startling significance. Men didn't do these things for +any girl that came along. Or, possibly, the heady sensations were but +the cumulative results of a slower process, and the friendly vehicle now +resting at the door had done its decisive work before to-day. At any +rate, Angela soon observed that Mr. Manford's behavior was quite +embarrassed and peculiar; and of course, in the womanly way, his +manifestations reacted instantly upon her. The more peculiarly +interested Mr. Manford showed himself to be in her, the more peculiarly +interesting she found him. Stranger still, the more she found him +advancing, the more it was in her mind to retreat. Or, no--not in her +mind; it was, of course, much deeper than that. This reluctance could be +nothing else than the ancient virginal recoil, somehow remembered, +strange latter-day reminiscence of old flights through the woods. + +Instinctively, Angela talked commonplaces. The man's replies showed that +he hardly listened to her. As she recounted how her father had missed a +lecture for the first time to-day, he interrupted brusquely:-- + +"What's that ring you're wearing?" + +Oh, that; oh, an old family ring, she explained, that her mother had +given her on a birthday once. He must have seen it a dozen of times. Mr. +Manford said, on the contrary, that he had never seen it before in his +life. So--was it the voluntary lingering, perhaps, a backward look +through the leaves, as it were?--Angela lifted her hand for him to see. +The hand was tightly clasped at once. "Where's that other ring--the one +you were going to wear till--you know?" Oh, that one? She had given +that one back to the person it belonged to. When? Oh, last week. Why? +Because she knew then that she could never care for him. "Does that mean +you know somebody you--you care for more?" She said that _that_ wouldn't +mean anything so very much; and thereupon made an effort to withdraw her +hand. + +"There is a time for lighting a fire; there is a time for leaving it to +burn of itself." Put otherwise, Angela saw that Mr. Manford wasn't even +glancing at her ring. However, her proper gesture to recover it +accomplished no more than her commonplaces. For the cells and tissues of +the gentleman, too, harbored ancestral memories, masculine recollections +of agreeable old captures. And the touch and cling of the warm soft +_her_ had seemed to set them all to singing, drawing him, drawing him. +So far from recovering that hand of hers, in fine, the fleeing maiden +abruptly lost possession of the other one. + +Thus in the storied way, there approached the second Occurrence on a +Sofa. It may have been only the last recoil; it may have been that that +other occurrence, fruitless contact with the low ideals of man, had +permanently injured the womanly trustfulness. There was, at least, a +kind of terror among the mingled sensations, as Angela beheld the second +event resistlessly approaching. + +"Oh, please!... You mustn't ..." + +And--so sardonically does life twine joy with sorrow in its willful +tangle--it was as she spoke these words that Mrs. Flower, standing at +the head of the dark stairs, first called Angela's name. However, that +call died unheard. The mother's voice was low, the daughter, for her +part, could be conscious of nothing but that this dear and imperious Mr. +Manford was a very difficult person to resist. Perhaps something in her +had been against resistance from the first; but now, over his +inconclusive endearments, the pardonable inquiry sighed from her:-- + +"Oh, why do you do this? Tell me." + +Angela's mother stood two steps farther down: "_Angela!... Angela!_" + +But Angela, deep in her great business in the world, once again failed +to hear the alarmed low summons. Now sweet nearer speech filled her +woman's ear. For Mr. Manford, it is welcome to record, did not run, as +the cads run, from that artless challenge: he met it ready, like a +soldier and a gentleman. That touch of lips softer than a flower had +taught this young man, once and for all, what it was he wanted; huskily +his voice came from a swelling chest. "I love you!" said Miss Carson's +anointed, unmistakably. And then, indeed, the maiden, unaware of all +else, let her conquered cheek rest upon her victor's breast: still and +awed with the discovery that she loved, and in the same breath thrilled +with the knowledge that she was a Successful Girl. + +For our ruling passions are strong in death: more particularly, of +course, when the death in question is not our own.... + +Yet her moment of exquisite peace was brief enough, poor child. Scarcely +had the dearest words been spoken, scarcely had she known her awe and +her thrill, when all was snatched from her. That other voice outside, +more insistent, struck suddenly in to her unsteadied mind; too quickly, +the surrendered cheek lifted. There was a swift upstarting, the abrupt +parting of lovers: and after that fear descending, precipitate and dark +as a cloud, over the new great joy. + +The course of the succeeding hours was never clear in Angela's memory. +There was a rush of unfamiliar and frightening activity. Donald was gone +at a run for Dr. Blakie. She herself fled for Mrs. Doremus, on whose +judgment her mother much relied. Mysteriously, Mrs. Finchman and poor +Jennie appeared, tipping up the steps. Then Mr. Garrott stood suddenly +in the hall, with Cousin Mary and Mrs. Wing, all very grave and +breathless, they had come so fast. Mr. Garrott must have left very soon; +there was nothing for him to do; but Cousin Mary, who had once meant to +be a doctor, took charge of everything from the start, and was very +helpful. She slept that night in Wallie's room. + +At ten o'clock, Donald left her to take Mrs. Wing home; but he, her new +comforter, returned directly, in the sweetest way, to say good-night. +Earlier in the evening Donald had dispatched a telegram to Mrs. Kingsley +at Hatton, in which he said: "Serious illness in my family prevents +coming." The due excuse was strong enough, in all conscience. But the +matter had gone beyond illness now. + + * * * * * + +Thus it was that the strange day, already memorable to Charles Garrott, +memorable, too, to Mary Wing, turned past all counting into the +unforgettable day of Angela's life. Thus, into the little house in +Center Street, life and death came stepping side by side. + +After this day, there came another, and another and another: and still +it seemed that death overshadowed life, and joy was overwhelmed in +grief. The shadow of this first final parting seemed to close down on +the young girl's happiness like a cover, and for a space her engagement +was less real to her than the shut office downstairs, the empty seat at +the table. + +But youth, after all, is made for life, and thereby equipped with a +merciful resilience. The passage of time, mere use, worked wonders. And +Angela's blessing it was, no doubt, that from the beginning she had +others than herself to think about, and the need for much activity. +First and foremost, there was Donald, who was with her morning, noon, +and night, whose first sight of her in a black dress had moved him +almost to tears. It was not fair to the man who had won her that she +should give way to a limitless melancholy. Beyond that, loomed the +sudden colossal fact of the wedding, which would have to take place +almost immediately; for her duty now was to her future husband, and the +demands of his work must overcome her girlish shrinkings from such +unwonted haste. And a wedding must mean clothes, at all times, and +clothes, even at the plainest and simplest, must mean some thought and +some diversion. + +Insensibly, death turned back to life again. The great confused day of +Angela's life was a week old; it was two weeks old; it was three. And +winter now was fading from the softening air... + +They were the quietest weeks imaginable. Except her mother and her +_fiance_, Angela saw no one for days together, not even Mary Wing. For +Mary, as it happened, was sick at this time--her first illness in five +years, so Mrs. Wing said. She had caught cold, it seemed, in the wet at +the funeral, and the cold had developed into quite a serious attack of +bronchitis, which kept her in bed two weeks or more. Thus the young +couple, in their mourning, were left completely to themselves. In their +isolation, in the still little parlor, they were planning at great +length about their future, going over and over their new common problems +from every possible angle. And the more Angela's fatherlessness was +accepted as a permanent fact in the order of the future, the clearer it +became that this fact must color and affect everything else. + +In chief, this question of the girl's came more and more to the front +of the loverly discussions: How could she go off to wild remote Wyoming, +now that her mother was a widow? + + + + +XXII + + +It was March now, the mild March of an early spring. There came new +days, zephyrous and sweet. All the world seemed to love a lover. But +other matters were afoot in the world, too, necessarily: afoot even in +the old coterie itself. + +Charles Garrott, descending Miss Grace's steps on an afternoon that +looked like April and felt like May, thought not of young Romance. What +with the groom's absorption, and Mary Wing's unprecedented illness, the +old principal friend had, indeed, heard little or nothing of the happy +pair through these days. He had accepted the event, long since, once and +for all, with fatalistic philosophy; and though the nuptials were now +but six days distant, they were far from his mind in this moment, as, +his hated tutor's stint done, he turned his long stride hurriedly toward +Olive Street. + +Charles, as we know, was not a caller. It was true that he had hardly +seen Mary Wing since the day when she, the heroine of his write-ups, had +so suddenly indicated herself as his larger heroine as well; true also +that, in the engrossed and very fruitful solitude of the Studio +succeeding, he had thought of her much, bookishly and otherwise. But +these facts had not changed the essential nature of Charles. Still he +was not a caller; still when he rang people's door-bells, it was morally +certain that he had definite matters to urge upon their notice. + +And so it was to-day. Charles, in a word, had conceived a new plan for +helping Mary. + +That she, the admirable, by way of reward for her smashing denial of the +Ego, should find herself fixed for life as a grammar-school teacher, +"demoted" and disgraced: this state of things had naturally seemed +unendurable to Mary's good friend. That Mary did not need his help, that +he recognized her now as competent, in the finest sense, to manage her +own affairs henceforward, seemed to have little or nothing to do with +the case. Hence, while she lay withdrawn from the battle of life with +bronchitis, the helper had been elaborately at work on new lines: +stalking School Board members for Mary, in fine, with great cunning. But +this plan, unluckily, his fourth and most troublesome, had lately +collapsed about his ears. It had cost the young man much valued time, +and not a little money for lunches; and the net practical result of it +had been to leave him angrily conscious of "influence," mysteriously +pervasive, and by no means possessed by him. A friendly disposition +toward Mary, personally, seemed to be everywhere joined to an unshakable +conviction that she could not hope to get back to the High School before +the fall, if then. Such was the fruit of five diplomatic conferences: +the sixth had stopped Charles short. Young Dr. Hazen, who was almost as +much Mary's representative on the School Board as Senff was Mysinger's, +informed him that Mary herself had already canvassed over the Board with +him, Hazen, and abandoned all hope in that quarter. + +What, indeed, could he do for Mary Wing that she could not do better for +herself? + +The fifth plan concerned Public Opinion again, and a new use of the gift +he had. It inspired less confidence in its author than any that had +preceded it. And it was to submit it, in advance, for Mary's discussion +and approval, that Charles now presented himself at the Wings' front +door. + +However, he met with a disappointment. Mary was out. She had gone to the +Flowers' soon after luncheon--unexpectedly, it appeared--and, at +half-past four, was not yet back. That seemed more or less surprising. +Mrs. Wing, who had answered his ring, looked somewhat concerned, he +thought. However, as it was agreed that Mary could not remain with +Angela indefinitely, the caller decided, after brief hesitation,--for +the Studio allured in these days as never before,--to wait for her. + +So he came again into the sitting-room, and Mrs. Wing sat to keep him +company. Naturally, there was but one subject for their conversation. + +Charles liked Mrs. Wing. She always began every conversation with him by +asking: "And how did you find your dear mother on your last visit?" +Mary's mother had never seen his mother, and possibly never would, but +(being a frightful sentimentalist) she assumed that all mothers are +dear. It was next her habit to inquire whether Charles had written any +stories lately, and why they never saw anything of his in the magazines. +Such things tended to create a bond. And recently the tie had been +strengthened by an unusually intimate talk on the subject of Mary, whose +surrender of her great prize had, indeed, upset and distressed her +mother even more than Charles had predicted. + +To-day, again, Mrs. Wing appeared somewhat unlike her usual calm self. +She omitted her inquiry about Charles's writing altogether (thus denying +him his chance to mention the recent rather gratifying acceptance of +Dionysius, no less), and the flattering things she kept saying of Angela +had, to his ear, a faintly tentative ring, requiring his confirmation. +But his first vague wonder, whether anything could have happened, was +soon lost in other reactions. Thus, he had to wince a little in +agreeing, once more, that Donald's future wife was a thoroughly "womanly +girl." Few authorities enjoy denying the ripe sum of their own best +thinking. But a later remark of Mrs. Wing's took a much deeper twist in +his mind. + +"Really," she said, slowly and dubiously, following a pause, "I have but +one fault to find with Donald's choice, and that is--well, frankly, +Angela seemed to care so little for Paulie and Neddy Warder.... And +Donald was such a goose over them, dear boy." + +As he did not see his way clear to replying to that, "I hope you're +mistaken, ma'am," Charles merely smiled vaguely, and said nothing. But +what he thought, on the delicate implication, was nothing about Angela +at all--only that Donald had been rather less of a goose over Paulie and +Neddy than Mary Wing had been.... + +Then the sitting-room clock ticked for a space, while Mrs. Wing communed +with herself. And Charles, gazing out into the park, waiting for his +friend, thought how it was that a young woman's work--even an +extraordinary young woman like Mary--always subtly lacked just that +ultimate touch of grim seriousness which justified the "fierce hackings +away" of a man. For, as an abstract truth, there was positively no such +thing as a Permanent Spinster: and women who were not spinsters, and +normally desired Paulies and Neddies of their own, could not possibly +fulfill their longings without serious complications to themselves, then +and thenceforward. It was no human or escapable "tyranny" that had made +Woman, to this degree, to her glory or her disaster, forever the victim +of her sex: and, by the same token, fixed the final responsibility for +the economic support of the family upon the shoulders of the predestined +and uncompromised provider, Man.... + +Yes, then and thenceforward ... Could you, for example, imagine Mary +Wing--who had had chances to marry before now, who might reasonably +marry at any time--could you picture Mary packing off her three little +darlings to a creche every morning, that she might go and grow her soul +at a desk somewhere? Maybe so; but he wondered.... + +He was thinking whether he could contrive to discuss the creche and +endowment arguments in his novel--for of course you could make a story +carry just a certain amount of "solid stuff," and only dreary prigs of +readers would lie still while you tried to feed them forcibly with a +spoon--when all at once Mrs. Wing, near by, was heard to strike her +hands together, with a little ejaculation. + +"Oh, Mr. Garrott! I do believe Mary's at the High School all the time!" + +That made the thoughtful visitor turn swiftly enough. + +"At the _High School_?" + +"It's so stupid of me!" she explained, with some relief, it seemed. +"I've just remembered. You know, she never cleared her papers and things +out of her office closet there, and it got on her mind when she was +sick. And to-day, when she came in from school, she told me she had +arranged with Mr. Geddie over the telephone--the man who has her office +now--to go and attend to it this afternoon. Yes, that's it--I'm sure!" + +"Oh!" said Charles, not a little perplexed. "And then, you mean--she +decided to go to the Flowers' instead?" + +"Well, to go there first--I suppose. Donald came in just as she finished +lunch--to talk with her about something. Then, when he had gone, Mary +told me she was going down to see Angela. It was all rather +unexpected--and somehow the High School went out of my mind completely." + +"But I hope nothing's happened?" he said quickly. + +"Well--I don't know that there has." + +Perplexity passed at once into the certainty that something had +happened. The instant thought in the young man's mind was: What's Angela +done now? Having risen, he gazed with direct inquiry at his elderly +friend. But her eyes glanced away from him; and she put him off further +by repeating: "It was stupid of me to keep you." + +Mrs. Wing added that Mary was certainly at the High School now. Charles, +turning disturbed away, remarked that perhaps he would still be in time +to help with the office cleaning, and she said that was very kind of +him. + +"She'll be glad to see you, I know. Indeed, she has appreciated all +you've done for her--those beautiful articles, for example--more than +you quite realize, perhaps." + +But the young man shook his head, and said with a kind of bitterness: +"I've never done anything for her in my life." + +And then, as he took the lady's hand to say good-bye, he asked abruptly: +"But why shouldn't I know what's happened, Mrs. Wing?" + +"Oh," said Mary's mother, and hesitated. + +"Yes, why shouldn't you?" said she, and hesitated again. + +"Well," she began again slowly, "it's nothing so serious, as I +said,--just a fresh disappointment for Mary,--that is really all it +amounts to with me. Very likely Donald has intimated to you that he was +not going to Wyoming?" + +The caller stared at her dumbfounded. + +"Not going to Wyoming! Why!--why not?" + +"Well, he feels, in his new circumstances," said Mrs. Wing, uneasily, +"that it would be more suitable to accept the position in New York. +But--I really had little opportunity to discuss it with Mary. She +seemed--to be frank--much disturbed, she had so set her heart on this +work in the West--" + +"More _suitable_!... How?" + +"Well, for one thing--it doesn't seem fair to separate Angela so far +from her mother, as would have to be the case in Wyoming." + +But into Charles's mind there had suddenly popped back a stray remark +let fall by Donald, in the only talk he had had with him for weeks: "I +tell you, Charlie, it's pretty rough on a girl to be dragged off to live +in a shack nine miles from nowhere!" A mere passing observation, that he +had paid no attention to at the time--but was that it? Was that the +reason why another of Mary Wing's most cherished plans must suddenly +cave in? + +He stood utterly dismayed. + +"So Mrs. Flower," he asked, with some want of composure, "is going to +live with them in New York?" + +"Oh, no,--not for the present, I believe. She feels, and so do I, that +young couples should be left to themselves to make their start. But +they will be so near that they can visit back and forth--which would be +impossible if Donald--" + +"But Mrs. Flower can't live here by herself?" + +"Well, no," said Mrs. Wing, and fussed with books on the table. "That +has been the great problem, of course. Dr. Flower's death has +complicated the situation sadly. I believe the present plan is for +Wallace--the boy, you know--to come back and live with her--just for the +next few months, while Donald and Angela are finding themselves." + +Charles stood without a word. But perhaps his look betrayed what he +felt, for Mrs. Wing threw out her hands with a helpless gesture, and +cried: "Well, he is the man of the family now!" + +"However," she added, turning away, "perhaps Mary will be able to hit +upon some other arrangement. That is what she went there for--to talk +the whole situation over with Angela." + +But Charles, who had always thought of Angela as "soft" and Mary as +"hard," seemed somehow quite certain that that talk had accomplished +nothing. With brief speech, he moved toward the door. Doubtless struck +with the fixed gravity of his look, Mary's mother, who had been an +old-fashioned girl herself once, said with an effort, and yet firmly +too:-- + +"It is life itself that is hard. Marriage means--readjustment. That is +the only comment to make." + +It was precisely the point on which the silent young man did not agree +with her. To him, as to her, all the sharp force of this tidings was, +indeed, in Mary's new overthrow. And yet for the moment there seemed to +be room in him for nothing else but comments on the vast void in Mary's +so different cousin. + +Angela was wanting in the responsible qualities of a full-grown human +being. Her fatal lack was in human worth. It was the sum of all he had +thought about her since the day he had called upon her poor father. It +was the cap and climax of all he meant to say about her in his New +Novel. + +So Charles took his leave with an abstracted face. + +In the drawer of the Studio table, there was growing now, night by +night, a fresh stack of manuscript, steady and firm upon a new Line. +Mary Wing had straightened out this Line for Charles: Mary who had +taught him once and for all that a woman could be finely independent, +and still uphold the interdependence which held the world together. Yet +Mary, the admirable, was after all but his "contrast" and his foil: it +was for the peculiarities of her opposite that he had finally whetted +his pencil. And, in the intense and retrospective thinking which went +along with the best writing he had ever yet done, the young man +considered that he had got to the bottom of Angela's case, and her +sisters', quite thoroughly explored the souls of the Waiting Women of +Romance. + +But this news of her, these final touches as to the Nice Girl's brother +and her future husband, seemed to fling at him, as it were, a last +conclusive chapter for his "Notes on Women." That marriage meant +readjustments he, the authority, doubtless understood as well as +another. That this marriage might make it necessary for Wallie Flower to +be readjusted out of his education: even that was allowed as +conceivable. But that the very first act of Angela's new life should be +to influence her husband in the direction of his weakness, and, as it +seemed, of her own good comfort--what was this, indeed, but a brilliant +certification of all the grounds of his own attack?... + +The author's face, the author's swift feet, were set toward the High +School. His errand--now--was to cheer up Mary Wing. "Make her look on +the bright side": so her mother had urged at parting. That necessity +remained as a soreness and dull anger through all the young man's +consciousness. And yet, in nearly a mile's walk, he hardly thought of +Mary once. + +He was surveying, as if from a new peak, the unhappy situation of +Home-Makers with their Homes yet to seek: the considerable army of the +involuntary spinsters of leisure. And more than ever now, perhaps, he +saw these sisters as a Type, pathetically marked: the innocent +creatures, the helpless victims, of a dying ideal of themselves. + +Here was poor little Angela, his Novel's case in point. She was born a +human being, she was born a being with sex. And in twenty-six years' +contact with the rich and human world, she had gathered nothing to her +sum beyond what tended to enhance her sex's attraction. So selecting, +she had permanently lost the fullness of her double birthright: all in +nice, unconscious and inevitable response to an environment which +continually assured her that being a woman was enough. + +If life had been real and bright and turbulent around her, and she sat +within and polished her pink nails, it was because she was a woman. If +she was given no education beyond the demands of provincial parlor-talk, +no training for her hands, no occupation for her head, if no one ever +thought of her as a full-statured being who must pay her way in +substantial coin; this, again, was because she was a woman, and a woman +(if any one bothered with argument at all) some day might--or might +not--be the mother of children. Surely it had not been Angela's fault if +she was early apprised, though through a sweet mist, that she had but +one faculty of any value in the world's market; not her fault if, amid +general approval, she innocently spent her youth and idleness in +tricking out her value, and bringing it steadily to the attention of the +only beings who could have a use for it. Least of all was it her fault +if her peculiar business, and her odd specialized training, were +bounded, not by marriage, but only by a wedding-day. For the final +unnaturalness, the crowning wrong in her situation was exactly this: +that, being told that she must be a wife or nothing, she was +coincidently told that being a wife was a matter which a nice girl did +well to know nothing about.... + +The author, sharpening his phrases, walked in angry abstraction. He +passed old acquaintances as if he had never seen them before.... + +Oh, it was true (he conceded), a thousand times true, that many women of +this crude bringing-up did develop, when their time came, a splendid +competence over all their special field. But it was a little too much to +assume that every creature in the female form could be counted on to +perform such a feat of pure character. And Romance, which gallantly or +indifferently made these exact assumptions, defending and cherishing the +queer but comfortable orientalization with the cloak of false +"womanliness," scarcely pretended to believe its own agreeable fictions. + +Here was Angela again, his little case in point. Angela was reasonably +good-looking, adopted a flattering attitude toward eligible young men, +knew her place, and kept no opinions on matters of interest to her +betters; hence she was called a "womanly" woman. Being womanly implied +the possession of certain home-making virtues, present and to come; +hence it was assumed, and she inevitably and naively assumed, that she +possessed these virtues. Odd as these deductions sounded, he himself, he +could not deny, had swallowed them once,--that night at the Redmantle +Club,--romantically accepting the appearance for the reality, willfully +investing the humdrum commonplace with the full beauties of the ideal. +But for him, at least, all obstinate optimisms concerning La Femme had +exploded with a bang in a party-call. You did not gather figs of +thistles. And now it was no longer conceivable to him that she who in +quarter of a century had developed no human interests, tastes, resources +at all, who seemed to lack even an average interest in Paulie and Neddy +Warder, should all at once blossom marvelously into the responsible and +"justified" matron. No, for him, Angela at forty, having "let herself +go" now that nothing more was expected of her, sat forever in a room +that she had not swept, plaintively reminding a fatigued Donald of the +priceless gift of her Self. + +And Donald, though his interest in exploring the creature once so +elaborately mysteried was long since utterly exhausted, would probably +take that argument amiss no more than Dr. Flower had done. Romantic +males, with their poor opinion of the worth of a woman, might hope for +true domesticity, true maternity: but in their hearts they had thought +all along, with a wink, that "possession" was enough. It was "what a +woman was for." + +But in that they were mistaken. Possession was not enough. Being a +female was not enough. Great heavens!--thought Charles Garrott, and +muttered as he strode.... What a shame, what a staggering waste of rich +human potentiality, to classify and file away one half the world as only +"_marital rights_!" + +Wasn't it about time to stop all this? Wasn't it time for modern writers +to pull away the rosy veils and let the Angelas meet themselves--while +they could still do something about it? Didn't it lay up needless future +misery to go on deceiving helpless women into putting a preposterous +overvaluation upon the mere possession of their sex? Lastly, and above +all, wasn't it a colossal libel on all womanhood to accept the strut and +mannerism born of this deception as the true essentials of +"womanliness"? + +_Womanly!..._ Why, womanliness was a prime human quality, integrally +necessary to the work of the world--a great positive quality, not a +little passive one, productive, not sterile, of the spirit, not of the +body. Womanliness was the mother and guardian of great social virtues: +of a finer and deeper emotion, of more sensitive perceptions, of a +subtler intuition of the sources of life, of an all-mothering sympathy, +a more embracing tenderness. Womanliness had no more to do with the +light bright plumage of the mating-season than a waxed mustache had to +do with being a soldier. + +There was a time, he understood well, when the fact of womanhood had +implied substantialities: when being a wife meant also being a domestic +factory superintendent, not to mention being a continuous mother. That +time was gone forever. You might argue for the passing, you might argue +against it: meanwhile it had happened. Inexorable economics had dried +the heart from the old tradition; and in the sudden vacuum thus created +there moved and thrived anomalous little creatures who never knew that +they had lost all touch with reality. Untroubled by a rumor of change, +Angela held contentedly to the remnant, a low ideal of herself. But it +was not so with her finer sisters. For the passing of the old +womanliness of four walls and dependence had flung a window wide to a +nobler prospect and a vaster horizon. And already the woman of to-morrow +was rising in her lusty strength to prove her fundamental racial virtue, +her womanliness, upon nothing less than the world. + +Well, hadn't he told Mary long ago that the object of all this was only +to make women more like themselves? In that, he would stake his life, he +had been exactly right. + + * * * * * + +A concrete High School smote across the vision of the seer, and the +cloud-stepper's feet trod but the hard sidewalk again. + +Groping for truth upon his favorite subject, he had been briefly lost to +the issues of the practical: he had a power of concentration, as he +would have been the first to admit. But the flight of his rhetoric was, +after all, only an incident of his indignation and distress; which +sentiments, he knew all the time, yet had to be faced on their own +account. And now, as he rounded his last corner, and his destination +rose abruptly before him, Charles recalled for what he had been walking +so fast and far. + +Or, no ... What was he coming for exactly? + +It was all very fine and easy, as a writer, to polish up demolishing +phrases for poor little Angela. But what did he, as a man and a friend, +have to do for Mary Wing? + +The helper crossed the street in the lingering vernal sunshine. Here was +the great building where Mary had once held an important place, where +she came to-day, by special permission only, to remove the last traces +of that association. Now that plan with which he had set out to-day +looked back at the young man with rather a small face, and wry. He had +never thought much of the plan: only to persuade Mary to let him make +public the facts about her rejected honor from the Education +League--legitimate news for the papers, fine peg for a new publicity +campaign, etc. But all at once he knew that he wasn't even going to +mention this to Mary now. With what words, then, did he rush to her in +her fresh disaster? Doubtless to say, "I'm awfully sorry." A stirring +exploit. Hadn't she shown him on that other day that she, the strong, +had no desire for his fruitless sympathies? + +The truth was, and he had known it from the beginning, he rather shrank +from seeing Mary at all now, in the stress of this final defeat. Final, +yes: for while Angela was attaining success to the full limit of her +small conceptions, every aspiration that Mary had cherished, literally, +had one by one gone down. And if this last was not the worst, perhaps, +neither was it the easiest to bear. No, if anything on earth was +calculated to harden and embitter a woman who could not easily yield, +surely it must be her own so easy overthrow by pink cheeks and soft, +empty eyes. + +And these white-stone steps Charles now ascended had for him a +reminiscent power, by no means comforting. The last time he had trod +these steps, he had sworn, in anger, that he, single-handed, would force +the School Board to bring Mary Wing back here, without delay. Mary would +have a right to smile, if she ever heard of that. She had been thrown +out of this building only because she was a woman: under all the +argument, that was positively the reason. And now three months had +passed, and he, her helper, came to say, "Well, I'm very sorry...." + +Charles pushed through the tall bronze doors of the High School, where +he had seen Miss Trevenna one day, strode long-faced into the dim spaces +of the entrance hall. It was five o'clock: the whole building seemed +silent and empty. A rare sense of impotence within him, troubled also by +a secret shrinking, the young man went stalking across the corridor +toward the stairways. But just here he encountered a brief diversion. + +A glazed door at his left, at which he happened to be looking, came +suddenly open. The door was marked, in neat gold letters, PRINCIPAL'S +OFFICE. And reasonably enough, the jaunty figure that came stepping out +proved to be none other than the principal himself. + +Always a hard but uncomplaining worker, Mr. Mysinger was evidently just +leaving for the day. Light overcoat on his arm, stick and gloves in his +hand, he whistled blithely to himself, to the tune of labor done. But at +the sight of Charles Garrott here on his domain, he checked his gay air, +stood still in his official door. + +Over half the corridor, the two men gazed at each other. And Mr. +Mysinger's specious face, after the first surprised stare, assumed the +smile of amity and pleasure. + +"Ah, Garrott! Well met!" + +Charles had halted, too, without premeditation. The chance meeting here +was natural enough. All that gave it the force of coincidence was that +he had in that instant been thinking, not for the first time, of Mary +Wing's old saying of this man: "If he let either Board know that he +wanted me back, it would be done to-morrow...." + +"I've wanted to see you for some time," said Mr. Mysinger, smiling and +easy--"about a certain matter of common interest--" + +On the great stairway the sound of descending feet was heard, those of a +belated teacher, doubtless. But neither man looked to see. And within +the sedentary Charles there was slowly spreading a vast iciness, akin to +a bodily nausea. + +"Can't you step into the office half a minute?" + +"Certainly." + +Mary's former principal stood aside from his door, bowing, with +elaborate welcome. Charles, advancing, passed through it, passed through +the anteroom, stepped silent into an office large as a magnate's. Here +he stood, just inside the door. Mysinger, following with his faint +swagger, went by him toward his handsome flat desk. + +"Have a cigar?" + +"Thanks, no." + +The good-looking principal leaned against his desk, facing his visitor +with the same air of too good-humored assurance. + +"Garrott, let's be frank," said he. "You feel that I am hostile to one +of your friends, and stand in the way of her advancement in the schools. +You are really mistaken in that. So far as my personal opinions might +carry weight, I am anxious for her--for all the teachers--to go forward +just as fast as their abilities would justify. But as you know, Garrott, +the Board and the Superintendent settle all these matters, and I myself +am only one of the teachers under their direction." + +He paused encouragingly. But the young man at the door only continued to +look at him with the same lidless fixedness. + +"At the same time," said the principal, a rather more resolute note +tingeing his voice, "you appreciate as well as I that teachers +can't be picked up and moved about like chessmen. We must have +some--permanence--some constancy--to insure efficiency. And frankly, my +personal judgment--after fifteen years' experience, and considering the +brilliant work of Johnson Geddie--is that you could hardly hope to see +your friend promoted--well, immediately." + +"So you would advise--?" + +Mysinger's eyelid seemed to flutter a little: he really did have a +purpose, it seemed. + +"I am told--ahem!--that your friend has recently received a most +flattering offer--from elsewhere?" + +How had he known this? "Well?" + +"Well, the party in question," said he, with his set smile, "seems to +have a certain prejudice against me. She refuses to speak to me, in +fact,--why, I cannot imagine. All the same, I am, and always have been, +her sincere well-wisher. And after earnest thought, I honestly feel sure +that her friends would make no mistake if they urged her not to let slip +this--ahem--well-deserved promotion. I thought," he added, his gaze a +threat now, "I'd better bring the point to your attention." + +Charles's fixed eyes did not waver. But before them there unrolled a +thin gray mist, briefly shutting the principal from his sight. The mist +queerly turned red, and became shot with fiery sparks. Then all cleared; +and, behind him, the young man's hand felt for, and touched, the open +door. Gently, moving only his arm, he shut it. And it seemed to him that +he must be turning white inside. + +"You," said he, "are more used to insulting women than I am." + +Mysinger flung up a deprecating hand. "Tut, tut, my dear sir! Talk of +that sort does no good whatever, I assure you. You would do well to look +at the matter in a sensible way, and believe that I speak--_Here! +What're you doing there?_" + +The principal had suddenly heard a strange sound: the click of his own +key in his own lock, in fine. At the same time, his visitor was observed +to be regarding him with a new and peculiar intentness, arresting and +significant. And his only reply to his host's indignant inquiry was to +drop the key in question in his coat-pocket. + +Now Mary's old conqueror, and his own, had straightened from that +lounging swagger. His voice rang more angrily: "You--! What do you think +you're up to, anyway--?" + +"I think I'm going to beat you to a pulp," said the author,--"_you +puppy_!" + +And he started forward with a kind of bound, like one who goes to fill, +at last, a long-felt need. + + + + +XXIII + + +Mary Wing was considered a reliable person. When she announced that she +would clean out an office closet on a certain day, you could make your +plans on the thing's being done. And to-day--if her usual principles +might have weakened a little--Mary was further bound by the definite +engagement she had made. As Charles had reflected, a demoted +grammar-school teacher could not walk in and out of a principal's office +like one who had some rights there. + +Mary had not remained at the Flowers' interminably, after all. She had +entered the High School before Charles Garrott had arrived at Olive +Street, and had been upstairs for half an hour, when Charles, following +on to help her, strode through the great bronze doors. Nevertheless, she +was a full hour behind the time mentioned to Mr. Johnson Geddie over the +telephone, and this increased her hope that her only too obliging +successor would not be found waiting for her. However, Mr. Geddie was +found waiting for her; very much so, in fact. Nothing could have +exceeded the exuberance of his courtesy, and nothing could have been +less welcome. + +The new assistant principal was a plump, white person, in whose face a +reddish mustache and gold-rimmed spectacles--his own personal addenda, +as it were--were the only salient features. Not brilliant, he was rising +by character, evinced in an unconquerable optimism. "Keep a-smiling, +brother--it costs you nothing!"--so Mr. Geddie's roguish eyes seemed +continually to say. But perhaps they seemed to say it more than normally +to-day, by way of striking a happy average with the quite unsmiling late +incumbent. + +Mary, during her brief tenancy, had stored here a long accumulation of +printed matter, chiefly duplicate files of "The New School," with sundry +assorted leaflets of the Education Reform League. Her task to-day was to +go through these files, destroy what was no longer useful to her, and +pack the rest for removal. Her successor had thoroughly prepared for +her. There on the floor was the packing-case, there on the floor was a +table to sit at, there against the wall stood a stepladder. But Mr. +Geddie would not weary in well-doing. The moment he understood what the +proposition was, as he termed it, he said that, of course, he would help +Miss Wing. Refusals drowned in a sea of smiles. Allow Miss Wing to climb +that rickety ladder, and lift down those heavy stacks of magazines? +Positively, she must not ask him that. Trouble? A pleasure, Miss Wing; a +genu-wine pleasure. + +He had his way, as people of strong sunny character always do. Mary, +having overcome the impulse to make an excuse and abandon the +enterprise, sat at the little table. Kind Mr. Geddie went up and down +the ladder, fetching her dusty armfuls to sort over. In the intervals, +for he had the shorter end of the job, he was down on his knees beside +her, brightly stacking discarded "New Schools" into piles against the +wall. + +The work went forward steadily, on the woman's part almost in silence. +That, however, made no difference. It was the man's power to be able to +talk more than enough for two, and he did. As the old assistant +principal grew steadily more quiet, the new one seemed increasingly +buoyant. And it seemed to Mary that she had been listening to his +conversation for a long, long time, at the moment when she heard him +suddenly exclaim, from the ladder:-- + +"Well, well! Look who's here! Come for the spring-cleaning, Mr. Garrott? +Ha, ha!" + +She, in her inner absorption, had failed to hear the approaching feet. +But at that she raised her head, with a kind of jerk. + +"Don't mind the dust, Mr. Garrott--it eats all right! Ha, ha! Walk in!" + +Mr. Garrott stood silent in the office door, looking at Miss Wing. The +eyes of the old friends briefly met. Something in the young man's +appearance vaguely arrested Mary Wing. She had noted, as her glance +lifted, the torn glove on his right hand. Now she was remotely aware +that the face looking back at her so intently appeared somehow subtly +changed: there was something faintly wrong with it, it seemed. But such +details Mary's consciousness hardly registered at all. All in one flash, +she wondered how he happened to be here, thought how good it was of him +to come, and knew that she had never been less glad to see anybody in +her life. + +"Good-afternoon," said she. + +"How'do, Miss Mary?" said Charles; and then started forward. "How are +you, Mr. Geddie? I seem to be rather late to help with the good work." + +"Yes, sirree!--Can't come in at the eleventh hour and take our credit +away! Can he, Miss Wing?--ha, ha! All over but the applause!" + +However, Mr. Geddie did not know himself for a tactful man for nothing. +Observing that Miss Wing continued to drop magazines on the floor in +silence, and that her young man there didn't seem to know what to do +with himself, he gracefully adopted a new position. From the third round +of the ladder, he made a roguish address, the meat of which was that +there was a whole corner left of the bottom shelf, and if Mr. Garrott +insisted, etc. + +"I'll relieve you with pleasure," said Charles, coldly. + +So Mr. Geddie lumbered down from the ladder, wiped his hands on his +pocket-handkerchief and re-attached his cuffs. He implored Miss Wing to +make herself absolutely at home in his office, assured her, not once but +three times, that John the porter, on the floor below, would be +positively gratified to do any service for her, however small. In the +moment of parting, he volunteered a new civility. + +"Why, here, Mr. Garrott!" he hastily exclaimed, "your coat's all dusty +in the back! That won't do! Just a minute while I get my whisk--" + +But Miss Wing's young man interrupted him rudely. + +"No, I'm not dusty at all! Thanks--don't trouble." + +Another person who didn't know the value of a smile, clearly. And the +man _was_ dusty, of course. Well, no affair of his, of course. Mr. +Geddie kept a-smiling. + +"Well, good people!" said he. "Olive oil!" + +When he had got a polite distance down the hall, Miss Wing's young man +shut the office door upon him. So at last came privacy. For the first +time, since the unforgotten afternoon last month, Charles Garrott stood +alone with his admirable heroine. + +He moved toward her, deliberating. + +Downstairs there, he had been having five of the most engrossing, the +most completely satisfying, minutes of his life. Being able to come +upstairs at all, he had come in the spiritual state of his stimulating +experience. Over all that was unsettled and unhappy, there persisted in +him a fierce young elation. By the oddest luck, he was not here +empty-handed, after all: he came with something rather better +than a hope to give. And doubtless--since he was incurably a +sentence-maker--there had already come into his head discreet phrases +with which to communicate the hope, at least: phrases which, though +gallantly suppressing his own exploits, might yet be somewhat tinged +with a protector's strength. + +But all this dropped from Charles's mind in the instant when Mary raised +her head over the table, and looked at him. + +He had seen his friend for a few minutes on Friday, her first day up and +about. But that passing glimpse, it seemed, could hardly have counted. +For now her gaze had an unexpected power for him: the sight of her came +on him with a sort of impact, as if this were some one he had heard +about often, but never before seen. Undoubtedly, that small phenomenon +was due to the amount he had been thinking about her of late, behind her +back, as it were. But beyond all this, the particular look of Mary's +face had made him instantly certain that, whatever she had gone to +struggle with Angela about to-day, she had, indeed, been routed. And +that he had not miscalculated the effect of this upon her, he was also +certain from the first sound of her voice.... + +Mary did not look up as her helper advanced, or cease the work of her +hands. But it was she who spoke first:-- + +"How did you happen to come here?" + +"I've been to your house. Your mother told me you were here." + +She said, with a curious stilted politeness: "It was very good of you to +come. But really you must not wait for me, please. I have a good deal +more to do--a great deal more--and it is work of a sort that I have to +do alone." + +"Miss Mary," said Charles, "your mother told me, at my request, what has +happened this afternoon." + +Mary flinched, just perceptibly. But her voice, when she spoke, seemed +harder than before. + +"Well, it's the fact. That's all there is to say. There isn't anything +more to discuss." + +"I don't mean to discuss it, of course. There was just one thing I +thought of--a--sort of suggestion." + +Finding himself neither questioned nor forbidden, he continued: "Do you +think it would be such a bad way out of the--the difficulty, if Donald +were just to go on here for a while?" + +Still Mary waited, hardly encouraging him, examining a "New School," +silently laying it down in the packing-case at her feet. + +"I know you feel," said Charles, inspecting the top of her hat, "that +settling down to this consulting work, in a city that offers so many +distractions all the time, won't be a good thing for Donald--from any +point of view. Staying here won't take the place of the chance with +Gebhardt he's throwing away, of course--that's pretty serious. Still, +there ought to be plenty of good work for him to do here--isn't +there?--for a few months, a year or two, if necessary. That would give +him--and you--a little time to adjust things to--the new conditions. +And then from the point of view of the Flowers, too,--of Mrs. Flower, in +fact,--it occurred to me it mightn't be a bad sort of working +compromise.... What do you think?" + +"I think it is very sensible," she replied, with the same labored +courtesy. "It is what I suggested, too." + +"Oh," said Charles, and paused. "But Donald didn't want to give up Blake +& Steinert, I suppose?" + +"I haven't suggested it to Donald." + +That brought a considerable silence. + +"It's--settled, then?" + +"It was settled last week." + +A curious let-down feeling took possession of the young man. He pressed +his hand to his forehead; and then for the first time was aware that his +head ached furiously. In the same moment, his eye was unpleasantly +caught by his burst-out gloves. Having stared at his hands for a second, +he silently stripped off the gloves, balled them, and pitched the ball +into a waste-basket near by. + +"I'll just have a look into this closet for myself," said he, turning +away. "I don't believe Geddie--" + +"No!--please don't!--don't trouble! I really don't need any help, thank +you. I don't ..." + +Her wish to be alone was all but woundingly plain to him. And still it +seemed to Charles physically impossible to turn now and walk out of the +door. So, not looking at her, he answered in a peculiarly mild manner +that, of course, this wasn't help at all, only a little indulgence of +himself, which she really mustn't refuse him. And while he yet spoke, +allowing no opportunity for such refusal, he hung his hat on Mr. +Geddie's hook, and all the forepart of him disappeared upward into the +closet. + +After an interval rather longer than necessary, he re-emerged to view, a +few periodicals in one hand, a faded bundle of typewritten papers in the +other. + +"Geddie's made a clean sweep. There's hardly another armful." + +His manner was almost as cheery as Geddie's own. His "note" was to go +ahead as if nothing had happened. + +"Put them here?" asked Charles. + +Mary Wing's arms quivered a little on the table. + +"Put them _anywhere_! It doesn't make the _least_ difference!" + +So Charles laid his burden down on the table, and quietly went up the +ladder again. Here, for a space, he pretended to be impossibly busy over +nearly empty shelves. + +And then, out of the silence behind him, he heard his friend's voice, +painfully stiff, somewhat strained. + +"You see--you oughtn't to have come to see me to-day. I--I'm not fit for +society. I tried to warn you. I haven't had time--to get philosophical +yet." + +The helper spoke into the dusty closet: "Well, you don't need to get +philosophical with me. I'm pretty mad myself--as far as that goes." + +"I wasn't prepared for it--at all.... And then I've been beating my head +against it--like a fool--all afternoon." + +Well he knew Mary's horror of weakness, her warranted confidence in her +own self-control. Well he understood her regret for that uniquely sharp +speech of hers. Was it this, a novel impulse to justify herself in his +eyes, that seemed to force her on, beyond his expectation and against +her own will? + +"But don't suppose I went there expecting to have my own way about +everything--manage them around like children. I didn't. I went +respectfully. I went to beg. But it was no use." + +Silence: and then the hard voice went on rapidly:-- + +"She and Donald had talked it all over, and decided that it would be +best for his career to go to New York. She and Donald ... I _did_ think +that, as I was planning Donald's work when she was still in short +dresses, my opinion might have some weight with her. And I thought, just +as you did, that something might be saved if they stayed here for the +present--kept the house and all the rest of it. And then, of course, I +lost my temper--that makes twice.... I reminded her how she had told me +once that nothing could induce _her_ to leave her mother, as a widow.... +What was the use? Of course she only cried, and said it was hopeless to +try to explain to me--how differently a woman felt about all these +things when she was going to be married. I believe she said I was +incapable of understanding the new emotions that came with a great +love." + +That, indeed, seemed a romantic description of the mild, chance product +of the Fordette. However, the replete young authority only said:-- + +"Then I suppose it's great love that taught her engineering so +quickly--and all Donald's little peculiarities?" + +Mary Wing made no answer. Her capable small hands took up the literature +lately provided by Charles. And when she spoke, it was as if his +unaccustomed acrimony had met and destroyed her own. + +"Oh, it's natural that we should see everything differently. She is +really a sweet-natured girl. I'm sorry already for what I said to +her.... And her not wanting to stay here--you mustn't think that's just +a selfish whim--just wanting to live in New York. Of course, what she +wants is to have Donald to herself--to have their young married life to +themselves. And my going there to give advice to-day--naturally that +made her more certain than ever that she could never have that +here--with me just around the corner. She let me understand that, +finally. She intimated that Donald had said as much--he was tired of +being managed.... Oh, it's perfectly natural, perfectly right. +To-morrow, I'll accept it easily enough.... As I say--I haven't had much +time." + +He was more touched by that speech than everything that had gone before, +yet more resolved, too, not to say, "I'm sorry." + +"As a matter of fact," he asked straightforwardly, "what _was_ +decided--as to Mrs. Flower?" + +"It's not decided yet, at all. However, I have a plan--another +suggestion--which it seems to me might meet some of the difficulties." + +"Aren't there friends or relatives here that she might stay with for a +time?" + +"That's it. I think I can persuade her to live with us--till we have a +chance to see how all this--" + +"With _you_?" + +"It's just a hope, as I say. I didn't think of it till just now. Mother +is very fond of her. And Wallie can't give up college, of course. That +would be--quite the worst thing." + +The school-teacher spoke with characteristic matter-of-factness. If she +was adding final touches to the portraits of two women, she did it, +certainly, with supreme unconsciousness. In the brief stillness of the +office, she efficiently neared the end of her task. The top of her table +was almost bare, the litter on the floor was deep. And now she spoke +again, dryly and quite conclusively. + +"At any rate, nothing fatal has happened. Nobody knows that better than +I do--really. No doubt it's personal vanity with me, as much as +anything. And now--" + +"Do you know," Charles Garrott spoke up suddenly, as if he did not hear +her at all--"I think you're the best I ever knew? The best--the +_best_--absolutely the most of a person--" + +She, the strong, seemed to start and shrink; she broke in sharply, with +instant signs of a shaken poise: "No--_please_! You don't understand me +at all. I do--not need sympathy! It's just what I've been trying to +say--" + +"Well, you aren't getting it from me, no fear. Sympathy! If ever there +was honest looking up, if ever--" + +"No!--don't! I didn't tell you about it for that!--only to explain why I +seemed so ... It was due you. As I say, nobody understands better than I +how unreasonable it is--to be so disturbed. And if you hadn't come here +to-day--" + +"Won't you give me credit for some understanding? If you were ten times +as disturbed, I'd think it the reasonablest--" + +"Yes--for a woman. Well, I'm not that kind of woman," said Mary Wing, +with curious agitation, as if she could stand any sort of talk better +than this. "Please don't say any more. I don't tell my troubles to be +comforted--patted on the head. I'm not feminine, I hope, after all these +knocks. You make me--" + +"Thank God, _no_!" said the young man on the ladder, considerably moved. + +And then that connection which he must have been groping toward for a +month flashed startlingly upon him, and he, the authority, blurted out +like a boy:-- + +"No--_you're womanly_!" + +He saw his old friend's face quiver a little as the strange word struck +her: oddly, it seemed to silence her. But it was not possible that she +could be one half so struck with that word as he, Charles Garrott, was. +_Mary Wing was a Womanly Woman_.... And now she could no more have +stopped his speech than she could have stopped a river when the one gate +in the dam, long locked, has suddenly burst open. + +"That's it. Of course.... Funny, I was just thinking over all that as I +walked around here--how different those things are. No, not +different--they don't belong in the same story at all. What's character +got to do with--feathers in the springtime?... Born stupid," said +Charles, in a low, stirred voice--"that seems to explain me. I'd better +have been one-eyed--beat me over the head with it, and still I can't +see.... Won't see. That's it!--it's worse. I'm just an old-line +male--that's what. Just the sort who've taught women not to bother to +try to be womanly when being feminine comes so much cheaper. Why, look +at me, criticizing you in my thoughts, not liking it because you +were--independent. What was that but just pique--don't you know?--just +common ordinary male jealousy--because a woman didn't need my shoulder +to lean on. Manly protector ... seventeenth-century stuff. Well, you've +punished me, don't you worry.... Just standing where you always stood, +just being your Self. Acting straight from your own law all the time, +doing the best sort of things, one after the other--the biggest, +the--the _tenderest_--" + +"Don't," said the grammar-school teacher again, but in the littlest +voice he had ever heard from her lips. + +Rapt as he was, that voice penetrated him. More, it alarmed him: and +with reason, too. Staring down with a new fixedness, touched with a +faint, purely masculine horror, Charles beheld the strangest sight seen +by him in many a day. Mary Wing, the unconquerable, had suddenly put her +face into her hands. + +He had really only been finishing that other talk of theirs, with a +certain sense of right; but of course this wasn't the time for that. He +had been indulging his analytic propensity, his fatal tendency to +comment, at her expense. Hadn't he understood that she feared nothing +so much as his sympathies?... + +His friend, in her arresting attitude, sat as rigid as a carven woman. +The stillness in the little office was profound. Then a voice strained +out, very thin, but still not defeated:-- + +"Don't be alarmed. I'm ... not going to cry." + +And that seemed to settle it. It was as if, in that silent struggle +waged all the way from the Flowers' to now, the speaking of the word +itself was the fatal admission. The school-teacher had no sooner +pronounced it than her arms spread suddenly out on the table before her, +and her head came down upon them. + +Charles Garrott, on his ladder, was heard to take one breath, sharply. +After that, no sound came from him. Quite motionless he sat, in the +chance position in which the sudden disaster had overtaken him: long +arms dangling from his knees, large feet hooked under a ladder-rung, +some distance down. He hardly winked an eye. + +Mary Wing was crying. That painful hard tension had snapped; the +indomitable slim figure drooped beaten, for once. She, also, made little +sound in her peculiar difficulty. But her body shook with a stormy +racking. And it hurt her, he was sure; hurt her physically, as if she +couldn't find tears without breaking something inside.... + +Strange it seemed that once, in this very room, and only the other day +really, he had wanted to see Mary cry. He had thought of it then as a +desirable sort of symbol, hadn't he?--something of that sort. What did +her tears have to tell him now? Then he had conceived himself as +watching her emotion, moved doubtless, but yet with a secretly gratified +masculinity. Now every heave of those slender shoulders was like a +clutch upon his heart. + +And still there was something in Charles that was not distress at all. +He was aware of another and quite different inner sense--peace, the end +of struggle, fulfillment--he could not say what it was. It was strange. +He was not unhappy.... + +There came, after a time, signs that his friend was overcoming that hard +revolt of feelings too much put upon. Even in the beginning she had +never seemed to abandon herself, quite. At length, somewhat +unexpectedly, she moved, turned from her seat under his eye, and, +rising, went away to the office's one window. There she stood, her back +toward him. And presently she began to clear her throat, with nervous +quick coughings. + +Through this, Charles had not spoken, or thought of doing so. To pat +Mary's shoulder, this time, had not entered his head. His instinct +seemed to feel the banality of any intrusion upon her freedom: she +should weep or not weep, just as seemed best to her. Now, as his grave +eyes followed her, it occurred to him that his presence here had been, +and was, a considerable intrusion. And about the time he had reached +this conclusion, Mary spoke, naturally enough, except that a sharp catch +of breath broke her sentence in the middle. + +"I'm giving you ... a pleasant visit to-day." + +The young man stirred on his perch. He answered, oddly, with a sort of +growl:-- + +"That's right! I'm a fair-weather friend. Keep things pleasant for _me_ +all the time--or good-bye." + +His heroine was sniffing repeatedly, in the humanest way. She kept +clearing her throat. Her movements made it clear that she was searching +busily for her handkerchief. However, there lay her handkerchief on the +table, under his eye. And if she, perhaps, hardly wished to turn and +come for it just now, no more did he see his way clear to going and +taking it to her. + +"No--but what's the sense of it? I'm--doing just what I told Angela not +to do. Feeling sorry for myself, that's all." + +"Well, I don't feel sorry for you. Don't worry about that." + +Charles came down the ladder, and stood a moment kicking at the "New +Schools" strewn about the floor. + +"Look here, suppose I save time by arranging about this box now? You +want it to go to your house, I suppose?" + +"No--I'm going to send it to the grammar-school." + +"Oh--all right. I'll attend to it," he said, briefly. "I'll tell the +porter to keep it to-night, and get a wagon to-morrow." + +On which, without more ado, he stepped from the assistant principal's +office, and shut the door behind him. + +Charles's conference with the negro porter in the corridor below lasted +a minute, perhaps. His diplomatic retirement lasted ten minutes, at +least. His surplus time the young man spent in staring out of a tall +window into a white-paved courtyard. But that it was a white-paved +courtyard, or that it was a courtyard, he never knew. The instant he +found that he was staring at it, he jumped a little, and went +upstairs.... + +If he had meant this interval as a punctuation and the turning of a +page, Mary, it seemed, had so accepted it. Reopening Mr. Geddie's door, +Charles saw that his absence had been employed for a general setting to +rights. The table had been moved back against the wall; the books and +globe restored to it, the chair Mary had occupied returned to its place, +the window opened to blow out the dust. Mary herself stood in the +middle of the room, coated, buttoning her gloves. Without looking at her +exactly, he was aware that the white veil which had been caught up +around her hat was now let down. + +Bygones were bygones, clearly: the least said, the soonest mended. +Charles remarked, exactly as if house-cleaning were the sole interest he +knew of here: "Well, you've made a good job of it." + +And Mary replied, with equal naturalness: "I did what I could. John will +have to attend to these things on the floor." + +"Yes--I told him to see to that at once." + +"He ought to give the closet a good cleaning, too. I'd better tell +him--this is just the time." + +"I told him to be sure to scrub the closet. It'll be all right." + +Looking up, she said: "You seem to have thought of everything." + +"Let me get my hat," said Charles. + +But Mary, standing in his way, was regarding him with a sudden +directness he had no wish to reciprocate. And she answered his remark +about the hat with a little exclamation. + +"What's the matter with your eye?" + +"My eye?" said the young man, and involuntarily put his hand there. +Recollecting, he finished: "Nothing--nothing at all." + +The school-teacher came a step nearer, but he went round her as he +spoke, and continued his way. + +"But there's a good deal the matter with it!" she exclaimed, concerned. +"It's swollen--it looks discolored, too.--How did you hurt yourself?" + +"Oh, that? Oh!" said Charles, carefully fitting on his hat, and then +removing it again. "I remember now--it's nothing. Got a tumble this +afternoon, that's all. Stupid thing." + +"You must let me get some hot water down the hall. I'm afraid it's--" + +But he indicated, quite brusquely, that his eye was all right, just the +way he liked it, that having water put on it was, in particular, the +last thing he would ever dream of. + +She said behind him, slowly, after a pause: "If you won't, you won't, of +course.... But it's so exactly like you--" + +"Ready?" said Charles. + +But when he turned he found that Mary had turned, too, after him--stood +facing him anew. And this time the confrontation was too near, too +immediate, to be further avoided. + +He now discovered that the thin veil had not withdrawn his friend very +far. Looking at her for the first time since her cataclysm, he saw that +her delicate face wore that look described as "rain-washed," which +commonly means peace, but peace at a price. The redness of her eyelids +was quite perceptible. What struck the young man particularly, however, +was the look of the blue eyes themselves. More or less irrelevant eyes +he had always thought them, for all the heavy arched brows which so +emphasized their faculty for steady, sometimes disconcerting, +interrogation. That characteristic grave intentness was in Mary's gaze +now: but it was not this that gave her look its power to hold Charles +Garrott in his tracks. + +The peculiar commotion within him gave forth in a short laugh, testy and +embarrassed: "Honestly, if you say the word 'eye' to me again--" + +"I wasn't going to speak of your eye," said Mary Wing, with quite +remarkable meekness.... "I was thinking of that remark you made--about +being a fair-weather friend." + +And then she went on hurriedly, with a rare, impulsiveness: "I've just +been thinking--I don't suppose since the world began there was ever such +another rainy-day friend as you. It's got so now that I never get into +trouble without thinking right away--as I was thinking this afternoon +when I left the Flowers'--that you'll be right there to help me with it. +Yes, I was. And it's so--perfect. Nothing to spoil it ever--not one thing +for you to gain--all just your rather extravagant idea of what being a +friend means. You don't know--how much it means...." + +The strange speech--strange blossom of her disruptive emotion--ended a +little short; but that it ended was the principal thing. Doubtless there +had been a time when words such as these from Mary Wing, this fine frank +expression of abiding friendship, would have been sweet and acceptable +to Charles Garrott, crowning him with a full reward. But it seemed that +that time must have passed, somewhat abruptly.... + +The two moderns stood, gazing full at each other. And now, in the same +moment, a little color tinged the girl's cheek, beneath her veil, and +the young man turned rather pale. + +"Miss Mary, you must be dreaming," said Charles, gently. "I've never +done anything for you in my life. We both know that. Let's go." + +Mary, her eyes falling, had resumed the buttoning of her gloves. She +moved toward the door. The descent of the High School stairs was made in +comparative silence. The chief item of importance developed was that +Mary intended to go home by street-car; she was tired, she mentioned. It +seemed that Charles, on the contrary, had no intention of foregoing his +afternoon constitutional. He said that he would see Miss Mary to her +car, however; and he did. + +So the old friends parted casually on a street corner, as they had done +a hundred times before. + +But in the Studio, there could be no such reserve, no such slurring of +the characteristic services of men. Here combat must have its fair due, +in the moral order of a too sedentary world. Judge Blenso, in brief, +from whom no secrets were hid, had the full facts relative to the +altered eye within ten minutes of Charles's homecoming, an hour later; +and the Judge's cold manner, already somewhat softened by the heartening +acceptance of Entry 3, straightway dissolved in exultation and proud +joy. The reconciliation between uncle and nephew was instantaneous and +immutable, and there followed, by consequence, the most broken, the most +conversational, evening in the history of the Studio. + +Charles was very glad to be reconciled with his relative. He was very +glad to feel that his secretary no longer viewed him with bald disgust. +Nevertheless, there were times, necessarily, when a writer wished that +he had no relative and secretary at all; and this, in a word, was one of +them. Charles did not wish, to-night, to go over and over one set of +primitive facts indefinitely; he did not wish to listen to sporting +anecdote and reminiscence, hour after hour; in chief, he did not wish to +go to bed at half-past ten o'clock. However, he did each and all of +these things, perforce. + +"Always retire early after a fight!--that was my father's rule, long as +he lived!" cried Uncle George, his black eyes dangerously bright.... +"No--let's see. _Before_ a fight--that was father's way! Well, good +gad!--too late for that now! You come along to bed, my dear fellow!..." + +But, in time, a sweet snoring from the parallel white couch indicated +freedom, welcome solitude, at last. And then the young man rose +noiselessly in the dark, and slipped back to the familiar Studio, where +all his personal life had so long had its heart and center. On the old +writing-table, in front of which he had sat and pondered so many hours, +so many nights, the green-domed lamp was set burning anew. However, +Charles did not sit at his table now. Beside the lamp, Big Bill without +surcease ticked off the flying minutes of a writer's prized leisure. But +Charles heeded not Big Bill. Wrapped in a bathrobe grown too short for +his long shanks, he paced his carpet on slippered feet, up and down; and +there was no such thing as bedtime now. For this day the authority had +made the last and the best of all his many discoveries about Woman: and +he did not see how he could ever sleep again. + + + + +XXIV + + +Luemma, the twelve-dollar cook, had never dreamed of having +opera-glasses of her own; hence she looked pleased, for once in her +life, when her departing young mistress unexpectedly presented her with +a pair: old and somewhat shabby, doubtless, but still possessing the +valuable power of bringing distant objects near. And it must be assumed +that the nice man who sold the gasoline was equally glad to have the +Fordette for his own: else he would probably not have fattened up the +trousseau, one day, by purchasing the interesting little vehicle (cheap) +for cash. + +Because of mourning in the bride's family, the Flower-Manford nuptials +would be "very quiet." Invitations were strictly limited to near +relatives of the contracting parties, with a very few of the most +intimate friends. So the social columns of the "Post" had warned and +notified all persons in due season. However, Charles Garrott, reading, +was not cast down. As the groom's chosen supporter in his "most need," +Charles had had his fixed place from the beginning. + +Further, he considered himself fully entitled to be present in the +category of intimate friends, not to mention his peculiar relation as +one who had narrowly escaped a yet closer privilege in the premises. + +Angela's was an afternoon wedding: the hour of "taking place," five +o'clock. At four o'clock on the set day, Charles prematurely snapped his +tutorial watch at Miss Grace (who was still waiting), and rushed away to +his rooms. At half-past four, after scenes of wild haste, he stood out +in the Studio, for final inspection. He was arrayed in what the Britons +like to call a "morning coat": a morning coat new-pressed by Judge +Blenso's skillful hand and patent iron, made glorious by Judge Blenso's +best new waistcoat, especially urged for the occasion. Now the admiring +secretary pinned a white carnation in the morning-coat lapel, as excited +over it all, oddly enough, as if the wedding afoot were his young +employer's own. So dismissed with a blessing, Charles jumped into a +taxicab, at four thirty-five precisely, and shot away to the Bellingham. +Here, in a bedroom upstairs, a brief delay occurred, owing to the +appearance and behavior of the bridegroom. The face that Donald, in his +regalia, turned upon his best man, bursting in, was seen to be a pale +green in color; his voice and speech were highly erratic, his attempt at +a brave smile a sight to rend one's heart. On this pitiful funk, +Charles's gibes, his appeals to the higher nature, had but small effect. +"Here's the ring," said the groom, with a sick croak. "Charlie, hadn't I +better take one little drink?" + +However, the cab was swift. The drive to Center Street was but a matter +of five minutes. Once more the two young men were stepping, side by +side, up the worn brick walkway. It made Charles think of the day they +had come to return the books. But this time the line of vehicles before +the weather-beaten door was conclusive testimony to the triumphant +activity within. + +In the hall, a lady greeted them, a near relative doubtless. A dim +pleased significant hush seemed to emanate from the lady, and pervade +the house. From behind the dark curtains of the parlor, there proceeded +the murmur of assembled persons, waiting. Even the hatstand, though +essentially unchanged, somehow conveyed a mysterious expectancy. + +They were sent aloft to an upper chamber, conceived to be Wallie's. Here +they were instructed to wait quietly till somebody had need of them. + +The waiting was rather trying. Tete-a-tete in the small bare room, groom +and attendant talked but fitfully. Donald seemed to have drawn little +courage from his dram. He sat stiffly on a chair-edge, jumping at each +peal of the loud little bell below. Much more unreasonably, the best +man showed signs of nervousness, too: it was observed that he had +cut himself twice while shaving. And suddenly, jerking out his +watch, he announced that probably he had better step out for a +minute--reconnoiter--see what he could see. + +"They ought to want you now, seems to me," quoth he. "I'll see. You sit +tight, right there." + +"Awright," croaked Donald. + +So Charles stepped out from the nuptial waiting-room, and closed the +door behind him. Having done this, he came to a standstill, abruptly: +for here, in the Flowers' still upstairs hall, he beheld just the sight +he had gone forth to seek. + +At the other end of the hall, in the dimness, stood the bride's +attendant, Cousin Mary Wing. She, too, had just come out of a door, it +seemed; she, too, had stopped and was gazing. And the first look of the +blue eyes, over the space, released in him, the old helper with his +secret help, a vast content; just touched with a subtle sadness that +such a little gain could mean so much to her now. + +He moved toward her in the expectant quiet.... + +Doubtless, it was no small thing that Mr. Mysinger had kept, more or +less, that promise he had made under threat and duress; marvel enough +that he had, in fact, "personally requested" Mr. Senff to "see what +could be done," etc., as agreed. Surely the whole matter had been fuller +of openings for double-dealing than an egg was of meat. And yet, to +Charles, the upshot of all the hoping and planning had been a cruel +disappointment. For Life, alas, still differs from Romance, realities +still refuse to fade like a dream, at just the suitable moment. In +brief, the School Board, by a majority of one, had yesterday ruled that +Mary should have her reappointment to the High School staff, "as soon as +arrangements would permit"; but of the assistant principal's office no +word was said. + +To one who had voluntarily surrendered her great promotion, this seemed +but a scanty recompense. And as for the new plan, his and Hazen's, +concerning the Assistant Superintendency of Schools next year--no +less--("There's really a good chance, now that the Mysinger bunch are +showing a better spirit," said Hazen)--that was much too remote to seem +very substantial just now.... + +In the dark upstairs hall, the friends greeted briefly, in voices +scarcely above a whisper. Mary said hurriedly: "Donald's here? Angela'll +be ready to see him in just a second." + +"I'll produce him--dead or alive." + +The best man laid his hand on the banister. But his subconsciousness +warned him that the banisters were dusty, and he took his hand away. + +"You look happy to-day." + +"Yes--shouldn't I be? Weren't you--pleased, when you read--" + +"They've treated you abominably--no other way to express it." + +She smiled at him, but looked away. And he perceived, or thought he did, +that the memory of their last meeting remained with her, touching her +manner with a faint self-consciousness. + +"You are hard to satisfy," she said. "I've felt like singing all day.... +Will you tell Donald to come now?" + +"Yes. I'm going to see you after this is over?" + +But no, she, the busy, was to stay here for the night, it seemed, +keeping Mrs. Flower company in her daughterlessness. And Charles, having +anticipated this occasion principally as her holiday-time and his own, +turned away with the sense that most of the wedding was over.... + +Yet this, of course, was but the side-play of elders, counting for +nothing. Now the prime action of the day, the culminating hour, was at +hand. + +Donald was whisked away for a brief glimpse at his love. Returning, he +confronted almost immediately the moment of his public appearance and +confession. Word came to Wallie's room that the gentlemen were to +descend forthwith, for better or worse. "Now then!" whispered Charles, +as they started down--"chest out, chin up!" And Donald grinned back +feebly, as if to prove to himself that he still could. Now the dim hush +deepened and thickened, the little house seemed to hold its breath. +There was no music to cover these preliminaries, because of the +mourning. In complete stillness, groom and escort stepped through the +curtains into the assembled company, which, though limited in numbers as +it was, seemed to fill the little car-shaped parlor. Through a narrow +lane between vaguely discerned relatives and friends, the young men +moved to their appointed place. Here they stood, almost stepping on a +stout clergyman, undergoing his frank, interested scrutiny, through a +dreadful pause. Then at last a stir in the company made it clear that +the bride was at hand; and after that Donald could feel that nobody was +paying any attention to him. + +So without great pomp or ritual, fuss or feathers, came the great moment +to which all one woman's life had looked forward, to which, conceivably, +it might all look back. Standing statue-like a few feet from her, the +fingers of one hand feeling in Judge Blenso's waistcoat-pocket for the +ring, those of the other resting lightly on the cold Latrobe, Charles +listened to the beautiful words which converted Angela Flower into Mrs. +Donald Manford. + +Angela "was married in a traveling-suit." She was a little pale, like +her lord and master; her responses were just audible. And never had +Charles seen her look so maidenly sweet, so feminine and engaging and +desirable. Her soft and pretty face, yet unbroken by a line, was +immensely serious. Her look into the beyond was faintly wistful, a +little awed, supremely innocent. A wonder dawned in the great dark eyes. +Here girlhood ended: in great happiness, doubtless, yet in great +mysteries too. Here came change, so colossal that no man could ever know +change in these terms. Where led this unknown parting of the ways, what +was the heart and meaning of Life? + +And Mary Wing's face, glimpsed once or twice over the bride's shoulder, +was surprised wearing much the same look too. No woman, perhaps, even a +fighting educator, listens quite unmoved to these old words. Sweetly +pensive, Mary gazed at her so different cousin. And Charles wondered if +she had got quite philosophical now, and wished that she had something +much bigger to feel like singing about to-day.... + +"I pronounce you _mon_ and wife," cried the parson: and it was not the +first thing he had pronounced loudly, either. + +So came relaxation from the solemn stiffness. There was a flutter of +movement, human speech again, the swift embrace of bride and bride's +mother. Then speech became free and general, and the near relatives +rushed upon the happy pair. + +Charles, having wrung Donald's hand in the approved manner, had his due +turn before the center of the visible world. It was the first time he +had seen Angela, to speak to, since the day of the party-call. But, +though she was naturally a little nervous and staccato in the +circumstances, he considered that she received his felicitations with +dignity and graciousness. + +"Donald and I appreciated your gift so much. I hope you got my note? It +was perfectly lovely. We shall think of you whenever we use it." + +Interesting, indeed, it was to Charles to see these pretty eyes, that he +had once caused to weep, resting upon him with this genuine bright +restless indifference. + +"When you're in New York, you must be sure to let us know. Donald and I +will always be so glad to see you. I hope we'll have a guest-room, and +then you must come to stay with us. I do hope you will have better luck +with your stories, Mr. Garrott. I'll be watching for you in the +magazines--remember! How do you do, Cousin Annie? Donald and I +appreciated your gift so much ..." + +So Charles Garrott passed on, a bachelor still, still thinking about his +"story." + +In the "small reception following"--to quote the "Post" again--Charles +did what he could to make the affair a success, circulating about like a +valued member of the family, speaking winningly to old ladies whom he +did not know, heartening the timid with cake and wine. His own best +moments in the reception were short talks with two Flowers, brothers of +the bride. But Wallie, the chemist and lamp-repairer,--so it was now +written on the stars,--was down for his Easter vacation only: he was +returning to college next week. "The Wings want mother to visit them, +till I come back in June," he let fall, with truly masculine +unconsciousness; and felt no irony in his sister's impending departure +to lead her own life, while Mary Wing, staying at home, took care of her +mother. + +As for the older brother, the wealthy and generous Tommy, it seemed that +he had run on all the way from Pittsburg for the express purpose of +"giving Angela away." A handsome volatile little chap, Tommy proved to +be, with a mustache, a manner, and a worried look in the corners of his +eyes: and Charles, introduced, examined him with unaffected interest. +For Charles had often thought of Tommy, often wondered if Tommy might +not be, at heart, a master humorist. Unluckily, that interesting point +was never settled, the acquaintance being cut short untimely by the +general movement toward the hall. + +The embarkation of Mr. and Mrs. Manford was "very quiet." There was no +hurling of old slippers, no unseemly merriment. They came down the +narrow stairs amid a little rice, a last subdued chorus of farewells. +The bride's pallor was noticed now, her pretty smile was a little fixed. +The groom, on the contrary, affected the hearty, the jovial: his manly +backbone was obviously reasserting itself, now that he was a lawful +protector henceforward. It was observed on all sides that they made a +good-looking and well-matched couple. + +So Angela and Donald went out on their great adventure. And Charles went +with them down the walkway, with a bag or two to carry, doing his duty +as he saw it, to the end. With his own hands he clicked shut the door +of their wedding-coach. (A liveried one it was, the symbolic vehicle not +being available, for reasons explained.) "We'll hope to see you soon, in +our own Home," said Angela, the Home-Maker, the very last thing. And +then the coach leapt away, and he, the old principal friend, stood +motionless, bareheaded in the mild sunshine, staring after it.... + +Stepping up on the verandah again, Charles encountered the relative who +had welcomed him on arrival--Mrs. Flinchman, Finchman, did she say?--and +who now welcomed him anew, beaming. + +"Well, Mr. Garrott!--your friend is a fortunate young man, is he not? I +don't think I ever knew a sweeter, truer, more womanly girl. And you," +she queried, with immense archness, "knew her so very well, too, I +believe?" + +He intimated pleasantly that few, indeed, had known her better, perhaps: +whereon the lady's expression grew more significant than ever. + +"Well, no wonder the men were all flocking about her, I'm sure--a +lovely, old-time young woman! But I understand it was love at first +sight with these two--they simply _flew_ together! Ah," said Mrs. +Finchman (Flinchman?) with a sigh, which, however, did not disturb the +deeply gratified look indigenous to women at weddings--"ah, it's very +sweet! A real old-fashioned romance, that's what I call it, Mr. Garrott! +And now that we've come to the end of the story, who can doubt that +they'll live happy ever after--as you literary men are so fond of +putting it?" + +"Who, indeed, madam? It--all went off very smoothly, I thought? +Well!--" + +"You must be going? Then _good_-bye!--so sorry it's over! Knowing of you +so well as dear Angela's faithful friend, Mr. Garrott, I feel that we +are anything but strangers, and hope so much you will find time to come +in and see us, one evening very soon. We live quietly on Mason Street, +next to the Methodist Church--I and my sweet girl Jennie." + + * * * * * + +He left the house, after all, with Mary Wing, who was going home for an +hour's work on school examination-books, before returning to sup with +Mrs. Flower. This decision she had casually communicated, by the +hatstand just now. So the "holiday-time" came to a six-blocks' walk: and +even that was an after-thought. Truly, if a man had a mind to see this +woman, without definite transactions to discuss, he had need of all his +delicacy and tact. Calls, drives, bridge-parties, going to places, doing +things: she had no room in her life for such as these. Time was more +precious to Mary than to a writer. And she had convinced one writer, at +least, by a moving tribute to his perfect friendship, that she had never +had a personal thought of him in her life. + +But Charles did not despair. He was a young man still. And meantime he +was happy. + +"You should wear a hat like that every day," she said, agreeably, as +they turned into Washington Street. "You look seven feet tall at +least.... By the way, did you feel your ears burning, about one o'clock +to-day?" + +He said no, and smiled a little. Her intention of keeping the +conversation away from certain topics--topics that might have been +uppermost in both their minds to-day, perhaps--had been perfectly +evident to him from the moment they crossed the verandah. + +"I met Judge Blenso as I came home to lunch," continued Mary, "and he +stopped for a talk--purely to tell me what a wonderful person you were, +it seemed. But in that connection, he gave me some exciting news--that +you've just had a very flattering offer for 'Bondwomen'--and refused it! +I couldn't understand why." + +At that, he looked subtly pleased, while affecting but a modest +amusement. The event in question had been, in truth, sweet balm to the +spirit and the confidence bruised in so many rebuffs. Still, his reply +was only that his relative was born for a press-agent clearly. Requested +to explain this dark saying, he gave a light disparaging account of his +only offer, stating that Appleholt Brothers, before accepting his book, +had desired him to rewrite it throughout, completely revolutionizing the +character of his heroine and omitting not less than fifty thousand +words, including the existing plot. + +Mary glanced up at him. "I'm taking this with a little salt--shall I?" + +The author laughed. "Well, it was about like that. Still," he added, as +if there were such a thing as carrying modesty too far,--"of course I +could do what they want easily enough--in a month, I think." + +"You don't seem excited at all. But you aren't going to do it?" + +"On the contrary, I have now formally changed the name of my old novel +to 'Bandwomen,' and--put it in the Morgue." + +"The Morgue?" + +"A repository for deceased manuscripts, recently founded by my +relative." + +"Oh!" said she, slowly. And, after a pause: "You don't feel any longer +that it's good?" + +"I _do_ feel that it's good! I'd swear it--before a publishers' +convention. But--it doesn't happen to be the story I want to write any +more. I'm not interested in it." + +There was another pause. + +"It doesn't represent you now, I suppose? And the one you do want to +write?--you're writing it, aren't you? Judge Blenso says you work till +all hours of the night--and this is going to be your masterpiece." + +"I shall have to caution the Judge about this, I see. We won't have a +friend left, between us." + +"But I'm interested, very much so. I've wondered ... Do you remember your +speech at the Redmantle Club last winter--on work for women? Do you think +you'd make the same speech to-day?" + +"Oh," he said, lightly, "I don't know quite so much as I did last +winter, you see. I'm not in the class with the lady in Sweden any +more.... Why do you suspect my--loyalty?" + +"Suspect?--no. I was only deducing from what you just said. I know +something about the point of view you took in 'Bondwomen'--you told me +once--and now if you're so dissatisfied with it that--" + +"No!--no! It isn't that! My point of view hasn't changed at all. It's +only--" + +He glanced down at her, and away, suddenly struck with hidden +significances, abruptly recalling that this woman beside him had played +hardly less part in the making of "Bondwomen" than in "Bondwomen's" +final consignment to the Morgue.... + +"I--I want to approach the whole question differently--lay a different +emphasis--that's all.... But if I believed in the value of work last +year, as--as a liberal education in responsibility--I believe in it ten +times as much now. Don't you know that?" + +"I'm glad you feel so. And that's what you're going to say in this +book?" + +"Hardly anything else." + +They walked on a little way in silence. The afternoon was fine; the last +flickers of a vernal sun danced along the sidewalks. Many people moved +on the promenade. The passing moderns attracted the favorable gaze of +not a few acquaintances. In appearance, Mary was judged one of the +variable women. She, the worker, with her habitually colorless face and +faintly fragile look, responded remarkably to dress, as Charles had once +before had occasion to note. And to-day, she was dressed as for a holiday +and a fete. However, he hardly looked at her once, throughout the brief +walk. + +"Do you know," she said suddenly, again with some touch of +consciousness, he thought,--"every conversation you and I have had for +months has been about _me_? That came over me, with a sort of shock--the +other day. I feel that there's a great arrears to make up. And I doubt +if you know how much I've wanted to hear about this book--since you told +me you had your 'line' straight at last. See how I remember.... Don't +you mean to give me any idea what the story's to be about?" + +The young man's heart seemed to move a little within him. + +"Can you imagine a writer's turning away from an opening like that?" + +"Well--but when will you?" + +"It's a long story. I don't think I could make it all clear in five or +seven minutes--and that's all the time you have to spare nowadays." + +"Do I seem as bad as that?... But I know literally nothing about it yet, +you see, except what I've just extracted. Idleness is bad for +able-bodied persons, including women. Does that state your point of +view--approximately?" + +"Precisely." + +"And how are you developing it this time? I mean--with a working-woman +as your central figure?" + +"No--principally with a woman who has nothing to do--and reacts +accordingly." + +"Oh!... That's what you mean by a difference of approach, I suppose? +She's married?" + +"No--that's the trouble." + +"You are dreadfully mysterious. How _does_ she react?" + +"Of course, she marries." + +"Then it's not a story of work at all?" + +"Hardly at all. It's an old-fashioned romance." + +"I see--told from a new-fashioned point of view?" + +Charles laughed. "The description was suggested to me--very recently. Up +to a point, it fits. You see, I'm still learning." + +"You know," said Mary, after a step or two, "you like to picture +yourself as one who can't be restrained from talking about himself and +his work, on the smallest provocation. In reality ... Tell me honestly, +do you object to being cross-examined this way?" + +His gaze kept straight ahead. + +"By you?--oh, no. Of course, I ... I've wanted to tell you my story some +day." + +"Then I'll continue my quiz now. I know it's usually a stupid question +to ask--but have you decided on a title yet?" + +But that happened to be the one thing he did not care to tell her now. + +"You can't fix the title till you're done, you know," he evaded lightly. +"A story changes so. But I have a sub-title in mind ..." + +She asked if his sub-title was a secret, and he said no. + +"I'd thought of--'A Comedy of Temporary Spinsters'--something like +that," said the author, and, unseen, colored abruptly. + +"That's _good_!" Mary exclaimed after a moment. "It suggests--so much! +Temporary Spinsters.... Only--I hope you don't mean to be cruel to your +heroine?" + +"Oh, no." + +They turned into Olive Street. + +"And by the way," said Charles, "she's not my heroine--only my central +figure." + +"Oh! Is there a distinction? Then will there be two women in this book?" + +"Of course--a common principle of writing. Your central figure--in a +character story--needs the comment of contrast, you know--of a--a foil." + +"I hadn't thought of that. You had only one woman in 'Bondwomen,' you +see.... And the contrast--she'll be as different as possible--a +working-woman, I suppose?--a Permanent Spinster! That's interesting, I +think--a study in contrasting types. Now--by my catechism--I really +begin to get an idea--" + +"Do you? I don't know. There are points--there are points--which I've +never been able to settle yet, myself." + +Mary began to search for her latch-key. Splendidly competent though she +was, she did not appear to have a regular place for keeping her key, +like a man. And Charles wondered if she had quite forgotten that offhand +remark of his, the day of his luncheon to Helen Carson, that he was +drawing his Line from his life.... + +"But the men in the story," she was saying--rather mechanically, he +thought--"I conclude there must be some, even though you don't mention +them. What type do you make your hero?" + +"Oh!--hero! There isn't any. The hero's the reader." + +"The reader!--I fear that's too technical for me." + +He explained: "My--my study develops by the method of 'progressive +revelation,' so-called--the principal characters being first set out, of +course, with the wrong labels carefully pinned on them. Well, the hero's +just the commentator on this development as it takes place, thinking it +out to save the reader the trouble." + +"But--isn't it the theory nowadays that there shouldn't be any +commentator?" + +"Oh, there may be a _theory_!" he retorted, the artist briefly flashing +in the man. "However, I comment." + +They went up the Wings' three steps, and Mary put her key into the lock. + +"But your hero can't be altogether an abstraction," she insisted, thus +engaged--"else how can there be any old-fashioned romance?" + +The young man's laugh covered an interest in the conversation intense to +the point of physical pain. + +"Really, this won't do. We get it more and more backwards. I haven't +even described the story to you right. It's not an old-fashioned +anything--primarily--it's not a study of types. No, it's--it's an +intellectual autobiography. Do you work on Sundays?" + +The school-teacher wheeled in her open but inhospitable door, with +something like reproach in her eyes, and said: "_No!_" + +"Then you can't escape me. I'll stay in town this Sunday, and you shall +hear it all from the beginning. You--you've brought it on yourself now." + +The two moderns looked at each other. And the young man in the tall hat +was breathing rather hard. + +"But--wouldn't that disappoint your mother? I know--I've noticed--that +you never let anything interfere ..." + +His look changed perceptibly at that. And still, it was not the son, not +the old critic of Egoettes, who answered, slightly chagrined:-- + +"What time have you to give me, then? Some day in the summer vacation?" + +Mary Wing's eyes fell to her hand on the door-knob. "I hoped," she said, +"that you would come in now." + +"But your--your work?" + +"I--thought I would take a holiday to-day." + +So they went into the house. And Charles stood alone in the Wings' +silent hall, slowly pulling off his wedding-gloves. + +In the sitting-room Mary was similarly occupied. Though she was going +back to the Flowers' so soon, she took off her hat. Having done so, she +stood before the mantel-mirror, fluffing up her hair a little, where the +hat had pressed it down. It is the immemorial fashion of women: a +characteristic position, and so an engaging one. Delicately the upraised +arms defined the lines of a graceful figure. + +But when Mary saw in the mirror that Charles Garrott had come into the +room, and had stopped short just over the threshold, looking at her, she +knew only that the moment had come when she must make acknowledgments +due for good aid and comfort received. And in her, the strong, +nervousness spread now like a fear. + +So she plunged hastily, the moment their eyes met: "I know, of course, +there isn't time to tell me about it now. But--I don't seem to get any +picture of your--your man at all.... What sort of man is he, +personally?" + +The author, starting a little, moved forward in the dusky room. + +"Oh, let's not speak of him," he said, with visible effort. "He's only a +writer. That's polite for a poor stick." + +"No--don't! Tell me--in the action of the story--what does he do?" + +"Not a thing--really. Just sits around and thinks." + +Strength came into her low voice: "Why--_why_ do you always belittle him +so?" + +Continuing to look at her, he said, remotely surprised: "Belittle him? +But I don't." + +The school-teacher's fingers closed over the mantel, and the tips of her +nails whitened. + +"Then I don't understand at all," she said, steadily. "I've been +thinking that it was he who almost murdered the villain, and gave one of +the Spinsters her old place back...." + +Charles Garrott stood like a man turned to stone, fascinated gaze upon +the eyes in the mirror: girlish eyes, doubtless, but quite unwavering +now. And then, in an instant, his face was scarlet from neck to brow. +His embarrassment was frightful to see: that of a soul too suddenly +stripped bare. + +"Oh!... So you've been looking through me--all along. I see ... the +Judge didn't confine himself to ... Well, his knowing--was purely an +accident. He had, of course, no--" + +"And why must my knowing be an accident, too?" + +"I--it was simply something you had nothing whatever to do with. And +there was an understanding--the--the matter was entirely private. You'll +please forget the Judge's--small-talk, and--" + +"Not if I live to be a thousand! I'll forget everything--I'll forget my +name!--but that!--no, you ask too much of my feelings." + +That, indeed, checked the young man's horrible self-consciousness. He +saw, with unsteadying bewilderment, that this was no light conversation +of hers, that Mary Wing was more deeply moved than he had ever seen her. +And suddenly he was aware, by some swift flicker of his intuition, that +it was to say this to him, and nothing else, that she had come home, +made a holiday, to-day.... + +"And you told me you had done nothing for me," she said, in the same +passionate low voice--"that day--when you had just done everything--what +nobody else in the wide world would ever have done for me! And you +were--hurt, too...." + +She stopped, abruptly. Her face quivered, just perceptibly, but he saw +it. Strange and incalculable.... Surely he had tried to do bigger and +better things for Mary, than the impromptu display of his primitive +passion.... Was this, also, of the primal and everlasting; did this, +too, touch the immutable and true? + +The helper was making reply, not exactly with _insouciance_: "Why!--why, +but I can't let you think of it--it was _nothing_! I _enjoyed_ it! I +simply didn't think he had behaved to you as he should. Naturally, I +didn't like that...." + +"_You_ didn't--because that's the way you are. You expect nothing--but +give everything. I don't like to hear you make light of yourself. I +don't." + +She turned away, went over to her desk by the window, where the school +examination-books awaited her. But once more it was clear that she had +no purpose here. She moved the piled books on the desk-leaf, half an +inch, perhaps, and went on in a controlled voice:-- + +"But I can't tell you how I felt, and feel, about it. And it's foolish +to--try to say thank you. We must talk of something else.... Sit down, +won't you? I'll give you some light in a minute." + +But the young man in the wedding raiment did not sit down, gave no sign +at all that he had heard her conclusive and hortatory speech. His eyes, +turning, had followed her as she went away from him. And now, as she +ended, he only stood and looked; looked over the familiar room at the +slender figure of a woman which, all so suddenly, had shot up to fill +the world for him. + +Fading light from the Green Park just touched Mary's face, where she +stood. She was a school-teacher, thirty years old. Life had buffeted +her: hard contacts with the real world had left upon her their permanent +marks, traced lines not to be eradicated beside these fine eyes. This +woman's first youth, her April bloom, was gone forever. But to this man +on the hearthside, her presence, her nearness, were charged now with an +intense power over depths in him which would stir to no fleshly +prettiness. + +He had her secret now. He knew her, a Woman revealed. And, standing and +looking at her over the darkening room, he was mysteriously shaken with +a profound emotion. + +This was his best old friend, this was the being he admired most upon +earth. She was his dearest comrade, his work-fellow and his playmate, +his human free and equal. She had a mind as good as his, a spirit whose +integrity he respected no less than his own; hands that were capable and +feet that she stood upon, and did not depend. She had an honor that was +not woman's honor, a virtue and character that had no part with the +business of sex. There was no competence a man had that this woman did +not have: she was as versatile and thoughtful and fearless and free as +the best of them. And, through and beyond all this, there was the +discovered marvel, that she had tilled and kept sweet the garden of her +womanhood. Underlying her rich human worthiness, as the mothering earth +lies under a tree, there was the treasure he had hardly glimpsed, this +store of her secret tenderness. + +So it was that Charles Garrott spoke up suddenly, with a kind of +huskiness:-- + +"No, there's only one thing to talk of now. You will have to hear my +story." + +The grammar-school teacher did not move. The twilit sitting-room was +stiller than a church. The young man went toward her on feet not now to +be stopped. + +"But not from the beginning--no. That doesn't matter. It's the ending--I +have waited to talk with you about." + +He stood now by the hard-worked little desk, an elbow rested on the top; +he looked down at the bent familiar head, the thick crown of feminine +fair hair. Just so, he had stood and looked on that other day, when she +had written upon his heart what freedom meant to her. + +"I wanted to show how one man--got his education in womanhood--learned +how strength is stronger for being sweet--just by coming to see and +understand the moral beauty of one woman's life.... That is my story. +But it isn't enough to end with." + +Some of his dignity, some of his self-control, seemed abruptly to +forsake the hard-pressed young man. + +"You are that woman," he said, hoarsely. "You've educated me. But it +isn't enough." + +She, his only heroine, raised her head, gave him one look from under her +arched brows; a strange look, that might have said good-bye to the +perfect friendship he had forever changed now. And he saw in the dusk +that her face was very pale. + +"You've supposed I want nothing for myself. I am here asking for +everything...." + +Her lashes fell. He was so close to her now that, just by putting out +his arm a little, he could have taken one of the small hands on the +desk-leaf. So he did put out his arm thus. Her hand, possessed, was cold +as ice; but it was not withdrawn. No, Mary's hand seemed to stay and +cling, like a hand come Home. + +And now he heard her voice, as tender as a mother's:-- + +"Ah, have I anything to give, do you think--that hasn't been given? What +sort of ending do you want?" + +So Charles told her then what sort of ending he wanted. And that, and no +other, was the sort of ending he had. + + +THE END + + + + +By Henry Sydnor Harrison + + ANGELA'S BUSINESS Illustrated. + V. V.'S EYES. Illustrated. + QUEED. Illustrated. + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Angela's Business, by Henry Sydnor Harrison + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANGELA'S BUSINESS *** + +***** This file should be named 34297.txt or 34297.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/2/9/34297/ + +Produced by Darleen Dove, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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