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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..45ec7df --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #69035 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69035) diff --git a/old/69035-0.txt b/old/69035-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 48f977e..0000000 --- a/old/69035-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,9731 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Public Square, by Will Levington -Comfort - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The Public Square - -Author: Will Levington Comfort - -Release Date: September 23, 2022 [eBook #69035] - -Language: English - -Produced by: D A Alexander, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by the - Library of Congress) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PUBLIC SQUARE *** - - - - - - THE - PUBLIC SQUARE - - - - - THE - PUBLIC SQUARE - - BY - WILL LEVINGTON COMFORT - - AUTHOR OF “ROUTLEDGE RIDES ALONE,” ETC. - - [Illustration] - - - D. APPLETON AND COMPANY - NEW YORK :: :: MCMXXIII - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY - WILL LEVINGTON COMFORT - - - PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - - - - - TO - DOROTHY MOSHER - - - - -CONTENTS - - - - CHAPTER PAGE - - I. 54 HARROW STREET 1 - - II. THE COLORED MAN 10 - - III. A FISH OMELET 17 - - IV. LAMBILL KNOCKS 23 - - V. LUNCHEON AT SHARPE’S 31 - - VI. ENTER, FANNY GALLUP 36 - - VII. “THE FREEDOM OF IGNORANCE” 47 - - VIII. SOMEBODY’S SHOULDER 52 - - IX. “YOU BOTH HAVE KEYS” 61 - - X. APRIL BREATHES AGAIN 69 - - XI. THE BABY CARRIAGE 75 - - XII. UNDER THE SAME LAMP 81 - - XIII. “MOTHER” 87 - - XIV. ISOLATION 93 - - XV. THE COBDEN INTERIOR 99 - - XVI. DICKY FEELS A SLUMP 109 - - XVII. NEW LODGERS FOR HARROW STREET 113 - - XVIII. AN OUTER CHANGE 118 - - XIX. FANNY DRIES HER TEARS 120 - - XX. THEY WALK IN CIRCLES 124 - - XXI. THE DINNER COAT 129 - - XXII. A LETTER FROM PIDGE 136 - - XXIII. THE RED ROOM 143 - - XXIV. MISS CLAES SPEAKS 149 - - XXV. “BE IT EVER SO HUMBLE” 154 - - XXVI. THE HANGING SOCK 161 - - XXVII. THE MAHATMA AND THE MIRACLE 167 - - XXVIII. THE RACK OF SEX 175 - - XXIX. RUFUS’ PLAY DAY 180 - - XXX. THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE 190 - - XXXI. TWO LETTERS FROM INDIA 194 - - XXXII. FRANCE, 1918. THE YANK 197 - - XXXIII. PARIS, 1918--HADDON AND AMES 202 - - XXXIV. THE HOUSE OF DUCIER 207 - - XXXV. FANNY HEARS THE DRUM 214 - - XXXVI. RUFE HURRIES HOME 218 - - XXXVII. JOHN HIGGINS’ CODE 219 - - XXXVIII. AN OFFICE OF THE WORLD 225 - - XXXIX. SEVEN FLAWLESS DAYS 229 - - XL. THE YANK DEVELOPED 239 - - XLI. UNDER THE MANGOES OF CAWNPORE 246 - - XLII. LALA RELU RAM 249 - - XLIII. HATHIS LAMENTS 257 - - XLIV. THE SLATE AND THE SPONGE 263 - - XLV. AMRITSAR, APRIL 13, 1919 268 - - XLVI. THE HOOKED MAN 277 - - XLVII. IN THE WARM DARK 281 - - XLVIII. “INDIA’S MESSENGER” 288 - - XLIX. PIDGE TRIES GRAMERCY PARK 292 - - L. DICKY’S IDEA WORKS 298 - - LI. “WE LOOK UPON WOMEN AS SACRED” 302 - - LII. THE OLD FACE 309 - - LIII. THE WHITE LIGHT AGAIN 315 - - - - -THE PUBLIC SQUARE - - - - -I - -54 HARROW STREET - - -A GIRL of nineteen had just arrived in New York, with one fat bag. -She turned into the curving silence of Harrow Street, which is only -three minutes’ walk from Washington Square, but some trick to find. -Several times she changed her bag from one hand to the other, sometimes -putting it down and stepping around it, until she came to a door with a -room-to-rent sign. This house was painted fresh green, the only thing -that distinguished it from all the other houses of the block, except -the number, which was Fifty-four. - -“Here goes me!” she said, starting up the stone steps. - -She rang. The door before her didn’t open, but the basement door below -did. A woman’s voice called, “Yes?” in rising inflection. - -The girl trailed her bag down to the walk and around the railing to -the lower entrance where a dark-faced woman stood, regarding her with -almost concerned attention--dark eyes that saw too much, the girl -decided. The face was un-American, but its foreign suggestion was -vague. It might even have been East Indian. If her skin was natively -white, it had certainly known the darkening of much sunlight. As the -girl drew near she sensed a curious freshness from the woman; something -hard to name, having to do with the garments as well as the shadowy -olive skin. - -“I want to rent a room--a small back room. I saw your sign on the door.” - -“I have a room, but it hasn’t much air,” the woman said. - -“I don’t need much air----” - -“Come and we’ll look. It is on the upper floor, but it is not quite -back. Leave your bag here in the hall.” - -It was eleven in the morning, but the smell of coffee was in the dark -basement corridor, and laughing voices were heard behind the shut door -to the right. A man’s voice said in a stimulated tone: - -“Believe me, and I’ve been around, Miss Claes is the deepest-dyed sport -I’ve ever met. You could drag her the length of Harrow Street and she’d -come up fresh from the laundry----” - -“That reminds me, I’m going to start a laundry,” a woman’s voice -announced. - -“I’m going to start something myself----” came another voice. - -The girl, following through the corridor, heard a little breathless -sort of chuckle from the woman ahead of her on the dark stairs. The -place smelled like a shut room when it rains--a cigaretty admixture. - -They climbed. The next hall was spooky with gaslight; the next was -gay with frying sausages. They climbed. The next was the one, and -it smelled of paint--the same green paint as on the outside of the -house--on one of the doors and doorframes, but the wood was plainly -charred under the paint. - -“We had a fire, but we put it out with wash water before the engines -got here, soapy water.” - -The girl had a picture of threshing soap about in pails of water before -applying it to the flames. - -“This is the one,” the woman said, unlocking the next to last room from -the back on the left. “All the rest are filled just now. Most of my -lodgers never leave, only as they strike it rich----” - -“Do they often strike it rich?” - -“Oh, yes, dear. New York is quite the most magic place in -America--something for every one who comes, if he only stays on.” - -They had crowded into the little room. - -“This is fine,” the girl said. “This is what I want. It’s just as I saw -it.” - -“You get your water in the hall below,” the woman explained. “There -is no gas plate, so you will have to bring your coffeepot down to my -stove in the basement. The walls are ugly, but I’ll see that the cot is -clean for you. If the wall of the next house across the area were only -painted white, you would get more light.” - -The wall spoken of was less than three feet from the window sill. - -“What is the price?” the girl asked, with a cough before and after. - -“Twelve dollars a month.” - -“I will pay for a month now,” she said, with a small part of a big -out-breath. - -“When did you come to New York?” the woman asked. - -“This morning.” - -“First time?” - -“Yes. From Los Angeles.” - -“And you have had four nights on the train?” - -“Six. It was a slow tourist train. I sat up from Chicago----” - -“Have you lived in Los Angeles long?” - -“Always--in and around.” - -“We don’t dare to think of Los Angeles much. To a lot of us here in -New York, it’s a kind of heaven. Southern California--the sea and the -mountains and the ten months of sunlight and the cool morning fogs and -the ripe figs----” - -“I’ve wanted New York like that,” the girl said. “I’ve wanted New York -so badly that I was afraid on the train that it wouldn’t stay until I -got here----” - -“That’s the way to come,” the landlady said. “New York would wait for -you. Oh, yes, New York waits for your kind. What are you going to do -here?” - -“Write.” - -“Really?” - -The woman sat down on the edge of the cot. Her interest did not seem -an affectation. Her figure was thin but lithe. One wouldn’t know in -these shadows if she were nearer twenty-five or thirty-five. She seemed -altogether without haste, smiling easily, but slow to laugh aloud. Her -eyes looked startlingly knowing as she lit a cigarette--not natural -somehow. At the same time in the matchlight her face had looked tired -and weathered. Her way of speaking was like an English person, or one -educated in England. - -“Do you mean stories?” she asked. - -“Yes, a book, a long story--set in eighteenth-century France.” - -“But you seem so young.” - -“I have written for a long time--always written.” - -“How old are you, please?” - -“Nineteen--but I have lived in a writing house always.” - -“Where is your house? I have been to Los Angeles.” - -“Back in a canyon near Santa Monica and my father is there now--in his -slippers. He teaches every one how to write----” There was something -baleful in the girl’s blue eyes, or perhaps it was exhaustion, as she -smiled. - -“Does he write stories?” - -“No, metaphysics, but he knows everything----” - -“What is your name?” - -“Musser--Pidge Musser. Not Pidge, really. Pandora is my name, but -every one calls me Pidge. My father started it.” - -“Is his name Adolph Musser?” - -In the dimness, the girl’s face looked like a blur of white; a little -stretched, too, it appeared just now. - -“Yes, that’s his name,” she said in a hopeless tone. “So you know him, -too?” - -“I heard him lecture once.” - -“I suppose you ‘fell for’ him? They all do.” - -The woman’s black eyes twinkled. “The lecture was on cosmic -consciousness,” she said. “I remember distinctly that Mr. Musser -outlined four paths of approach.” - -“Yes, the mystical, the occult, the mathematical, and the artistic. Did -he talk in bare feet?” - -“Yes, and an Eastern robe.” - -“That was a camel driver’s robe,” said the girl. “Oh, I didn’t think -I’d hear of him here.” - -“You won’t. May I call you Pidge?” - -“Yes, what you like. My father names everything.” - -“It sounds better than Pandora--at least, to me.... I must go down now. -A little breakfast party is waiting there. Take off your things. I’ll -come back soon. I am Miss Claes and I want to come back already.” - -Pidge Musser sat almost in the center of her room, but not quite. At -least, she sat in the center of the stiff little cot. She could touch -two of the walls. The third was across the narrow aisle from the cot. -The fourth was the windowed one, which looked as if it were about to -be bricked up entirely. That was quite a distance. - -Her room. She was alone. She looked at the door, arose, brought in the -key and turned it from the inside. Alone, and this was New York. She -could live a month anyway, and write and write on _The Lance of the -Rivernais_. She could be herself and not be told how to live and love -and write and bathe and breathe, and change her polarity and promote -her spirit and govern her temper and appetites, by a man who was -governed by anything but himself. - -New York. She had hardly dared to look at it on the way from the train -to Washington Square, where the street car had put her down. She had -come to Washington Square because one of the boys who studied with her -father had said it was the best place to live in all the big town--the -cheapest and friendliest and quietest.... It appeared all true, but -Miss Claes wasn’t like a rooming-house landlady; quite different, in -fact, and astonishing. - -“I could hear her talk about New York, forever,” Pidge said half aloud, -and this was a remark of considerable force from one who had known the -maiming of many words. - -Presently she would go out and look at New York again; walk about a -bit, keeping a mental string tied to this green house. Besides she had -to rent a typewriter, but there was no rush. It was delicious sitting -here alone in the gloom of midday, making the place her own, locked -in--a chance at last to take a look at herself and see what she was -made of and think of what she was here for. - -There was a mirror. It wasn’t cracked, according to tradition, but its -surface had frozen over in a high wind. Everything waved, eternally -waved. It gave the sense of air in the room, and made one look mended. -Pidge hoped she would never shed tears in that mirror. Once she had -caught herself weeping, and she looked so abysmal that she was almost -frightened out of the habit. With these waves added---- Pidge took off -her hat and flipped it over on the cot. Her head didn’t look natural, -but that wasn’t all the mirror’s fault. One of the things she had -wanted to do for months was to make her hair a shade redder than it -was. Of course, she hadn’t dared at home, and she couldn’t manage it on -the train, but there had been six hours to wait in Chicago and a small -hotel room that frightened her yet. She had emerged from that room a -different shade, so Chicago meant henna and rain and a frightful hotel. -It would always be so. She had been against landing in New York one -color and then changing. She had wanted to start life new in New York -and keep it straight, an absolutely new page, a new book. - -Her reddened hair waved. It made her face look whiter, and brought out -a red tint to her wool dress that had been brown as apple-butter before. - -Everything about her was tired. If she took off her new shoes she -was afraid she would never get them on again to-day, and she had to -think of renting that typewriter. A little later, she sat up straight, -because through the wall from the next room back came the buzz of a -machine. She listened with a thrill. It stopped and went on--unequal -stops and buzzes of rapid typing for several minutes; then a long -sustained buzz, until a sheet was changed. No commercial typewriting. -That was “creative” stuff, as her father would say--a word she had -vowed never to use. At least, some one in there was doing a letter. - -All this was before noon on an October day in the good year of 1913, -before anything ever happened to anybody. - - - - -II - -THE COLORED MAN - - Once there was an old sculptor who had apprentices. Townsfolk were - invited on a certain day to look at the work of the young men. One - of the apprentices was greatly worried by the faulty light of the - shop in which his exhibit was placed. He complained about it to his - master, who is said to have answered in these terms: “Never mind, - son, about the light here. It is the light of the public square that - tells the story.” - - -RICHARD COBDEN was twenty-one in 1910, and fresh from his university, -when he took his first job as reader in the editorial office of _The -Public Square_, a weekly magazine of opinion and protest and qualified -patriotism. This was the publication of old John Higgins, at one time -one of the highest-priced editorial writers in New York; but Higgins’ -views had become more and more strenuous, instead of mollifying with -the years, the end of which is to publish for one’s self or subside. -Even in _The Public Square_ he found himself under a pull. He wanted -a living out of his magazine, but did not expect to make money. He -occasionally drank himself ill for a day or two. One of his aspirations -was to publish a distinguished short story in each issue, the shorter -the better. - -“But there aren’t fifty a year,” he frequently said. “There aren’t -ten, but we get two or three of them.” - -Richard Cobden came of a well-established New York family of merchants -and manufacturers. There was no traceable connection, so far as the -family knew, with the English Cobdens, of whom there had been a brave -Richard of free trade and free speech. Dicky’s great-grandfather was -the Richard Cobden who first made the Cobden trowel, hand-forged in a -little shop up Yonkers way, and made it so well that stone masons used -to drive from far in back country to his shop. The Cobdens had made and -dealt in hardware ever since, but the trowel was the Cobden _cachet_. - -Dicky was now twenty-four. His eyes were strong and so were his -enthusiasms. These strengths stood him in good stead against the vast -masses of evil typing and the revelations of human frailty contained -in a myriad manuscript attempts. There was a mere screen between his -desk and the desk of John Higgins. One winter afternoon, Dicky was -interrupted by talk between the chief and the office boy: - -“That colored guy in the reception room won’t go ’way,” the boy said. - -“What guy is that?” Higgins asked. - -“The one I told you about two hours ago when you came back from lunch.” - -“What does he want?” - -“He’s got a story. He says he’ll wait for you.” - -“What’s his name?” - -“It ain’t a natcherl name. He says the name doesn’t matter--that you -don’t know him, anyway.” - -“Tell him to leave his manuscript.” - -“He won’t. Every little while he pulls up his sock.” - -“Let him sit a bit longer. It’s a regular park bench out there, -anyway----” - -It was the dragging sock that attracted Dicky Cobden--a bit of mindless -art on the part of the office boy that somehow aroused the young man -by the dreary manuscript pile. Dicky’s world was now full of people -who thought they had the story of the age; people who wanted to see -the publisher himself; people afraid to trust their manuscripts to the -mails; a world of such, coming up through great tribulation, but only -here and there a dragging sock. He took a chance now and volunteered -to Higgins to clear that bit of seat space in the reception room, if -possible. - -A dark-faced young man arose to meet him outside. Tired--that was -the word that bored into Cobden’s mind with new meaning. There was -something potent in the weariness of the black eyes, a deadly sort of -patience that rarely goes with brilliance. Dicky was slightly above -medium height. The other’s eyes were level with his own. The hanging -sock was not in evidence, but Dicky felt that the stranger didn’t dare -to move fast, for fear his clothes would break. - -“Yet he feels clean,” he thought, “yet he feels clean.” This was -important enough to repeat. - -“I have a story----” - -“Your name?” - -“It is Naidu--but not known.” - -“Are you from India?” - -“Yes.” - -“Why not let us have your story to read?” - -“It must be read now.” - -“This sort of thing isn’t done while one waits, you know.” - -“I’m afraid this one will have to be done so.” - -“Why, even if it’s promising,” Dicky declared severely, “it would have -to be read several times.” - -“I’ll wait.” - -“But we have hundreds----” - -“I know--may I not see the chief editor?” - -Mr. Naidu turned slowly back to the bench, as if to resume his seat. - -“You win,” Dicky slowly said. “I’ll take the story and read it now, -though I’m only a deck hand. If it looks good enough, I’ll try to get -Mr. Higgins to look----” - -Five minutes after that, Dicky was deep in South Africa. Six thousand -words in neat but faded typing, called _The Little Man_, about a -diminutive Hindu person who appeared to have no other business in life -but to stand up for the under dog. This person would fight anything, -but the British Government was about the size of a foe he liked best--a -cheerful story of most shocking suffering, which the Little Man took -upon himself for the natives of Natal--no, not the natives, but for -the Hindu laborers who had come to Africa to settle. A clear, burning -patience through the pages; everything was carried in solution--all one -breath, sustained. It wasn’t writing. It was living. It slid on with a -soft inevitable rhythm, and it took Dicky along. - -More than this, he saw in the story--or in the great stillness which -the story brought him--something of the sort of thing he meant to write -some day. Nothing exactly like this, of course, but the achievement -of this unfettered ease. It made him want to start out at once to -find the Little Man. It made him hear from Africa something like a -personal call. He let himself dream for a moment. Wouldn’t it be -great, his mind-made picture ran, when he had done a real story of -his own--wouldn’t it be great to deliver it like this (or perhaps -sockless) and make it sell itself? Halfway through, he arose and -dumped the sheets he had read before Higgins’ spectacles, saying with -slow-measured calm: - -“She breathes. She’s a leaping trout!” - -“Get out,” said Higgins softly. - -“That’s only half,” said Cobden. - -“Where’s the rest?” - -“I’ve got it in there--not read yet.” - -“And you bring this to me?” - -“He’s waiting. This story will finish itself. I know it will march -straight.” - -While he read the second half, Dicky heard Higgins thresh and mutter, -and finally call for the rest--old sore-eyed Higgins, who knew a story -when he saw one, who had read his eyes out on poor stories looking for -the Story of the Age.... - -Dicky went back to the reception room. - -“I’ve read it. Mr. Higgins is reading it now. I think he’ll want -it, Mr. Naidu. If you leave your address, we’ll mail you an offer -to-morrow----” - -“I will take two hundred dollars for the story, but I must have the -money to-day.” - -Dicky laughed quietly. “I’m afraid the countingroom won’t appreciate -that. Countingroom’s not adaptable. It’s intricate, in fact; checks -signed and countersigned.... Besides your price is severe for -us--unknown name and all that. Oh, it’s not too much, only for us, you -know.” - -All the time he talked, Dicky knew Mr. Naidu would get his money, -and get it to-day. A man with a story like this could get anything. -He could write it on wood chips and bring the manuscript in a gunny -sack.... - -“I’ll give him my personal check,” he told Higgins, a moment later. -“The office can reimburse me.” - -“I always forget you have a piece of change in your own name,” Higgins -remarked indulgently. “Don’t ever let it interfere with your work, -Dicky.” - -“My work to-day is to get that manuscript in our vault. Later,” he -added to himself, “my work is to write a story as good as that.” - -“He might take less than two hundred----” John Higgins suggested in -uncertain tone. - -“I can’t bring that up--again,” Dicky said. - -“I couldn’t either,” said the editor. “Maybe we are both crazy with the -heat--steam heat. But I’ll stand by and see that you get your money. -You’ll have to go out with him to get cash on your personal check.” - -Dicky and Mr. Naidu were in the street. It was too late for the bank, -but the son of the trowel makers found a friend of the family with -currency. A rainy dusk in Twenty-third Street near the Avenue, when he -took Mr. Naidu’s hand, having turned over the money. - -“I have your address, I may hunt you up. You won’t forget _The Public -Square_, when you have another story as good as this?” - -“Oh, no,” said the Hindu, “nor you, Mr. Cobden. Good-by.” - -Dicky turned to look after him. He reflected that he hadn’t even -learned if Mr. Naidu were hungry. He wished he had given him his -umbrella. He felt a curious desire to follow; a sense vague, as yet, -that his way, the way of his Big Story, lay after the Oriental, and not -back toward the office. - - - - -III - -A FISH OMELET - - -SNOW had drifted into the outer basement stairway of the green house, -and there was a thin frosty bar inside the door of the basement hall. -Miss Claes opened the door and looked out through the iron railings -to the street. Snow was six inches deep and still falling. She took -a deep breath appreciatively, as if she found some faint exquisite -scent in the cold air. Presently she began sweeping at the doorway, -and continued up the stone steps to the walk. Her arms and throat were -bare, and the dark gray dress that she wore was of wool but the fabric -very thin. Apparently Miss Claes chose to enjoy the chill of the winter -morning. When she returned to her living room, the fire in the grate -had been started and a small cup of black coffee was on the table. She -sipped thoughtfully and then lit a cigarette, which she half finished, -standing by the fireplace. - -The kindling had ignited the soft coal, but not without having shot out -a spray of cinders over the cement hearth. Miss Claes swept the hearth -unhurriedly. A cabinet of dishes across the room from the fireplace -was full of color now from the light of the coals--vivid greens and -bronzes, pomegranate reds. At length, she opened the door to the -kitchen, where an Oriental stood by the big range. - -“May I serve your breakfast?” he asked. - -“Put it on a tray with something for Pidge. I’ll take it upstairs and -perhaps she’ll join me. The child starves.” - -“Not in this house----” - -“She’s troublesome to do anything for, Nagar. She rebels against -accepting any favor. I think she must have been forced to accept many -favors from people outside, when she lived with her father. Was there a -bit of boiled halibut left from last night?” - -“Yes.” - -“We’ll make a little omelet with a few flakes of fish in it. I’m sure -she isn’t getting any money from her father, but she has kept up her -rent in advance. Did she work all night?” - -“Her room was quiet after two, until I came down. Then I heard her -typewriter as I swept the upper hall.” - -“It seems to be a race, Nagar, between the child and her book--which -will finish the other? I love her spirit, but she isn’t taking care -of herself.... Yes, we’ll put in these asparagus tips.... I think Mr. -Musser believes that the world owes him a living, but finds it hard to -collect, sometimes, with only metaphysics to offer. And now Pidge has -flung herself to the opposite extreme; talks of earning her living in a -factory, when her book is done. She’s a living protest against talking -and not doing. We must be very good to her, Nagar.” - -Miss Claes brought a little creamy porcelain urn, and held it for him -to fill with coffee from the larger pot. Nagar held the door open for -her into the basement hall. A moment later on the top floor, she tapped -at the second last door on the left. Pidge sat at her machine under the -gaslight beyond the head of the cot. - -“I can’t make their swords play!” she moaned. “All my swords are stiff -as shinny sticks. The trouble is, I don’t know men, Miss Claes--not red -animal men like they should be in this story. I know pussy men. I know -pious men, salvey and wormy men, monks and mummies and monsters, but I -don’t know honest-to-God _men_! Here they are taunting each other as -they stab, and their talk sounds--like Shakespeare! Oh, dear, you’ve -brought me more coffee and eats!” - -“I won’t touch your papers, Pidge, but if you take them off the cot, -I’ll put the tray between us. I haven’t had breakfast.” - -Pidge turned the roller of her typemill down so that the most recent -literary revelation might not appear to a roving eye. Then she -crisscrossed different packages of manuscript, placed the mass face -down before the waving glass, and moved the oil stove aside so she -could pass to her place on the cot. - -“You always forget to bring your coffeepot down to the range, Pidge----” - -The girl turned back to her typemachine. “He’s a jealous old devil when -I leave the room,” she said. “I think the person who rented him before -I did addressed envelopes all day--kept cranking him back and forth -against time. Now I ride a little ways--then let him stop and browse. -We ramble----” - -Pidge stopped. Her eyes looked dry and smarting, as if tears were on -the verge. - -“Oh, Miss Claes,” she went on, “I’m just as crazy as that--I mean my -figures of speech! Cranking him back and forth, and in the same breath -letting him stop and browse. I wish you wouldn’t bring me this stuff -any more. The coffee’s so good that it hurts--and the eggs. I always -cry when I’m hurt.” - -“But, Pidge, think what a privilege it is for me to climb from the -heart of New York to eighteenth-century France, and not leave the -house----” - -“But you find a twisted cubist sort of France--part Dumas, part Mexican -Plaza, Los Angeles, and the rest _me_!” - -“At least, you’re not carried away with the idea that it’s perfect.” - -Pidge regarded the other’s face closely. She could see with uncanny -clearness in this little dark room where she had struggled night and -day for nearly three months; but what she saw now, or was looking for, -she hardly knew herself. Her own face was spooky from sleepless strain. - -“I’m eating shamelessly,” she said. - -A moment later, she pointed to the rear wall, and whispered the -question: - -“Has Nagar stopped writing? I haven’t raced typewriters with him -lately.” - -“He hasn’t spoken of changing his work. Did you hear that New York has -touched him with her magic?” Miss Claes asked. - -“What do you mean?” - -“He has sold a story--a short story for two hundred dollars to _The -Public Square_.” - -“Nagar--your servant?” - -“He isn’t my servant, Pidge. He just lives here and works with me.” - -There was a clicking dryness to the girl’s tongue, as she asked: - -“And now is he going away? You said they always do when they strike it -rich.” - -“Oh, no. Nagar wouldn’t leave for a little story success. But nobody -quite knows Nagar--nobody.” - - * * * * * - -Pidge was alone. _The Lance of the Rivernais_ was pricking at her to -get back to work, but she resisted for a few minutes, thinking of Miss -Claes. - -“... She may be crazy, but she’s good to look at,” she muttered. “I -believe she can look into me, too.... I wonder what she is?... She -may be crazy, but she’s kind! And, oh, I’m so tired,” she yawned a -moment later. “I’d like--I’d like to be a leaf in the park under the -snow--still snowing, and sleep till spring. Only I’d like some roast -turkey first.” - -The recent breakfast had an extraordinary flavor, but it was all -too dainty for one who had eaten little or nothing since yesterday -morning. Her mind trailed off to buns she had seen in bakery windows; -and delicatessen stores with opened sausages, big as one’s head and -colored like tapestries, and little brown birds and deviled eggs, and -sliced filets of fish of amazing tint. - -All meats had been anathema in the house of Mr. Adolph Musser. Pidge -had lived in no other house in all her years, before coming to New -York, but since then, she had shocked her young self through various -experiments among the fleshpots of Greenwich. Not so various, for the -narrowness of her purse was ever a limp fact, but these few flavory -adventures were exciting and memorable. There was a tap of a finger -nail upon the panel. - -“A letter, Miss Musser,” Nagar said. - -She looked at the Hindu with different eyes from ever before. He had -sold a story. She wanted to speak of it, wanted to sit before him and -listen--this anomaly, whose typewriter she had sometimes heard through -the partition, and rarely a low deep hum. She was prejudiced against -Hindus, because her father had affected such a knowledge of them, but -somehow she had been less lonely in New York because of this one. He -was embodied Detachment and Impersonality.... He had turned away. - -“Thanks, Nagar,” she called. - -The letter was a typewriter bill. - - - - -IV - -LAMBILL KNOCKS - - -INSIDE the moonlit castle gardens, across the moat into the -pictured halls, up the marble staircase, driving straight and true, -Lambill Courtenay, a man of the people--artist, swordsman, lover -virgin-hearted, rode--no, ran, for once on his sprightly feet, straight -to a sequestered wing of the ancient and noble castle of the Rivernais, -and with his ungloved hand touched the knocker of its inner sanctuary. - -“Who is there?” came the cry like the thin note of violins. - -“I----” swelled the deep orchestral answer of Lambill Courtenay, -Frenchiest of the French. - -Then the great oaken door from the forests of Savoie opened. Lambill -crossed the threshold. The white arms of Madelaine Rivernais opened and -the heavens opened also--for the great maze of life had been untangled -for these two--and Pidge Musser’s book was done. - -Just a book--one of the myriads that you see lying around, like -sloughed snake skins on first or secondhand bookshelves--but it had -been properly wept on and starved for and toiled over, as only youth in -its abandonment can toil for its own ends. It had almost been prayed -for, but not quite. Prayer wasn’t easy for Pidge Musser’s defiant soul. - -It was two in the morning. The oil stove smelled as if it were dying. -Of late the wick had hiked up out of the oil a little earlier each -night like a waxing moon, and Pidge had been forced to shake the oil -around to keep the flame. Miss Claes and Nagar did so much for her, she -was ashamed; and you could get a red apple for the price of a wick. - -Pidge coughed. It was the most astonishing and cavernous bark. The -silence afterward was painful. She fancied she was keeping _him_ -awake--the silent, dark and courteous Nagar, who did prodigies of work -every day and was always willing to do more, and who had come into -Pidge’s direct limelight since his sale of a story to _The Public -Square_. Pidge hadn’t known a cold for years. It actually amazed her, -how unclean it made her feel, and ashamed to have anybody come near. - -“I’m going to watch over you very closely, Pidge--you’ll have to -let me, now that the book is done,” Miss Claes said in the morning, -“because it’s really a shock to stop work after the way you have -carried on. The drive--suddenly stopping, you know.” - -“I wonder how she knows?” Pidge thought to herself for the thousandth -time in regard to the subtle capacities of Miss Claes. - -“I’m tough,” she said aloud. - -“That is a true saying, Pidge. On that, everything hinges. Am I to hear -the story?” - -“It would--it must be read aloud. It’s terrible to ask, but will you?” - -“I’ve wanted to hear it from the beginning. Now tell me, would you like -Nagar to listen, too?” - -“Oh, no!” - -“Just as you like. Only you’re offering it to the world later----” - -“But Nagar _knows_.” - -“That’s what you want, isn’t it?” - -“Oh, yes, but----” - -“He won’t say a word. Nagar rarely talks, except to answer questions. -But, of course, don’t think of it, if you’d rather not.” - -“What is Nagar?” Pidge asked suddenly. - -“Just a watcher and listener in America, learning to see things -impersonally.” - -Pidge contemplated the idea for a few seconds; then her eyes hardened. -“I’ve heard lots of talk about the impersonal--oh, talk to the skies -about the impersonal life in Los Angeles--by people who haven’t yet got -a personality!” - -Miss Claes bent in low laughter. - -“They start in killing out personality before they get a live one,” -Pidge added sullenly. - -“They do, my dear, but have you heard any words about the impersonal -life from Nagar?” - -“No. That’s the best thing about him--that he doesn’t explain himself. -But I hate mysteries about Hindus--hate people moving about saying, -‘Shh-sh’--finger on their lips, trying to astonish you with something -they can’t tell. I’m so tired of all that!” - -“Still you asked me about Nagar, though really there is nothing to say, -except that he is good to have in the house.” - -“I think I’ll let him come and hear the reading, if he’s willing.” - -“Good,” said Miss Claes. “We will listen in this room, where the story -came to be.” - - * * * * * - -... Nagar sat in a straight chair, in the aisle between the cot and the -wall. Pidge sat by the window before her machine. Miss Claes lay on the -cot with her head under the light that Pidge read by, and away they -went. There was an hour or more in the early afternoon when both Miss -Claes and her helper could escape from below, and two hours, at least, -after nine in the evening--this for three days. - -Pidge was fagged and ill and frightfully scared. She would begin -hoarsely, and for pages in each reading her cold in the head was -an obstruction hard to pass; besides, she felt she was boring them -horribly and that all the massed effects of her pages dithered away -into nothing or worse. But a moment came in each of the six sessions, -when the last monster of the mind’s outer darkness was passed. And -then, for Pidge, at least, knighthood rose resplendent; days became -stately, indeed, and chivalry bloomed again. At such times the dark -gleaming hair of Miss Claes--which Pidge could have touched with her -hand, became the tresses of Madelaine Rivernais herself, and a little -back to the right in the deep shadows, the face of the Easterner there -took on the magic and glamour of Lambill’s own. The vineyards of old -France stretched beyond from their balcony; the rivers of France flowed -below. The lance of the Rivernais was won back heroically and human -hearts opened to the drama of love and life. - -But on the last night of the reading, after the self-consciousness was -passed and all was going well, Pidge, glancing down to Miss Claes’ -head under the light, saw gray for the first time, in the depths of -her hair. It hadn’t been combed with any purpose of hiding. The outer -strands were coal black, the strands beneath had turned. This discovery -had the peculiar effect of changing everything around in Pidge’s mind -in the moments that followed. - -She couldn’t get into the story as before; and in the very last pages -of her reading, a face persistently crowded in between her mind’s -eye and the rapid flow of the story at its end--a long, humorless -complacent face--the high-browed, self-willed and self-thrilled face -of her father. It was as if he were reading and not herself; reading -with rising expectation, drinking in the silent praise, as if he had -done the writing himself and loved it well. So effectually was Pidge -mastered by this apparition of her own mind, that the last pages of the -manuscript were spoiled entirely. The light had gone out of her and she -said hastily, as the final page was turned down: - -“I know how kind you are, but please don’t try to tell me anything -to-night. Not a word, please!” - -There was something in Nagar’s smile as he turned and went out that she -knew she would remember again. - -“I quite understand,” said Miss Claes, when they were alone. “But say, -Pidge, I do want to say this. To-morrow afternoon, Mr. Richard Cobden, -an editor of _The Public Square_, is coming here to see Nagar. He is -the one who put through Nagar’s story. We’re to have tea at four. -You’ll come down, won’t you?” - -“Why, yes, of course.” - -“It might be arranged for Mr. Cobden to look at your book. Would you -like that?” - -“Ye-es.” - -“Do you mind if I suggest something?” - -“Please,” said Pidge. - -“Don’t let Mr. Cobden know, just yet, that you are the one who has -written the story. Write a new title-page without the name of the -author.” - -“All right, but----” - -“It’s because you look like such a child, Pidge. No one would be able -to see all that’s in your story--if they saw what a child you are!” - -“I’ll do as you say. Thank you, but, Miss Claes----” - -“Yes?” - -“To-night under the light, I saw your hair--underneath!” - -“Yes?” - -“It made me see everything differently for a minute. You know I hate -cults and everything that apes India and talks about saving the world; -everybody talking about their souls, but doing the same old secret -selfish things--oh, I’ve almost died of talk about all that--but for a -minute, to-night under the lamp, it seemed that you knew, but had come -down to brass tacks--your feet on the ground--living like the rest of -us, but not ‘falling for’ love or money or fame, as we are. Are you -really through talking about service--just doing it?” - -Miss Claes laughed. “Such a lot of words, Pidge--about some gray hair.” - -Pidge was intensely serious. “Are you English?” she began again. - -“Yes.” - -“I know you’ve been in India. Miss Claes--are you really farther along -than I thought? Are you trying for that impersonal thing--trying to -belong to everybody--to enter the stream of humanity, as they call it?” - -“Of course, I’m trying, Pidge.” - -“You and Nagar working together?” - -“Yes, but you and I are working together, too.” - -Pidge was not to be turned aside by generalities. - -“You--down here in lower New York--keeping a rooming house?” - -“Why not?” - -“Nothing--only it’s so big, so unexpected. I’ve always believed ’way -down deep that a real person wouldn’t be long-haired or barefooted or -pious, but lost in the crowd something like that--quietly efficient, -moving here and there among people unannounced, only a few ever -dreaming! Oh, it’s too, too big!” - -“Don’t try to believe anything, Pidge.” - -“I’ve been spoiled for believing anything, by so much talk!” - -“Don’t try to settle things ahead of time,” Miss Claes repeated -laughingly. “Let the days--each day tell its story. I’m just living out -life as you are.... And now undress and get into bed. I know you’re -too tired to sleep, but I’m going to fix you in and open your window -and put out your light, and sit with you for a minute, perhaps in the -dark. You’re just to rest--a tired little girl--and not even hear me go -away.” - - - - -V - -LUNCHEON AT SHARPE’S - - -RICHARD COBDEN and John Higgins were lunching at Sharpe’s Chop House. -It was one-thirty, and at the height of the day’s business. The tables -were packed close. - -“You were telling me about that Asiatic landlady down in the Village,” -Higgins said, lifting his spectacles to wipe his red-rimmed eyes. - -“I wasn’t telling you much,” said Dicky. “She’s too deep for me--looks -to thrive on coffee and cigarettes--eyes that have seen too much, a -lot of laughter in them, but no hope.... And what would you think of -a basement room, with flowers in winter and a fireplace with hickory -embers, a Byzantine jar in the corner and a cabinet of porcelain which -I haven’t seen the like of on this side?” - -“Go on--don’t mind me,” said John Higgins. - -“... Little old Harrow Street,” Dicky mused. “Harrow Street curves, -you know. There is quite a mass of rooming houses on each side, and -number Fifty-four, with a green front, is Miss Claes’ house. And our -Mr. Naidu works there with his hands; only they call him Nagar in that -house--spelled with an ‘a’ but pronounced ‘nog.’... By the way, he -told me twice, yesterday, that it isn’t a fiction story we’ve bought, -but a handling of things that actually happened in Africa--Little Man -an actual human being named Gandhi or something of the sort.” - -“Can’t be done. Fiction and life are different,” said John Higgins. - -Dicky resumed: “Some of Miss Claes’ lodgers happened in for the tea -party. No one barred apparently. I must have seen most of the houseful: -couple of girl-pals; one works in a restaurant to support the other -who is to become a prima donna; a couple of decayed vaudeville artists -looking for a legacy--a regular houseful, but I don’t believe all of -them pay, as they would have to in other houses.” - -“Landlady supports those who can’t?” - -“That’s the way I see it. The green front in Harrow Street took hold -of me. I must have stayed over two hours. Our Mr. Naidu made some -coffee to go with that cabinet of porcelain. Also there was a little -girl--from Los Angeles, I think they said--red head, brown wool dress -and eyes of a blue you see on illumined vellum out of Italy----” - -“Some cerulean,” said John Higgins. - -“They weren’t large, particularly,” Dicky went on at his literary -best, “but that extraordinary blue like the ocean. Ruffled on top, but -calm and still in the depth! Never saw such eyes. They come back to me -now----” - -“They do to me, Dicky.” - -“You’re not getting all I mean, John. Uptown here, we think we’re -the center of the world, the heart of New York yanking up toward the -Park--but down there those old rooming houses are filling up with the -boys and girls from all the States west, and the second growths from -the families of European immigrants--filling up because they are cheap, -with the boys and girls who will do the surgery ten years from now, and -the painting and writing and acting----” - -“I’ve heard about all that,” said John Higgins. “You’ll do a big story -yourself one day.” - -“I’m not so sure of it, since yesterday. I couldn’t take their chances. -I couldn’t sit down and do a novel and not know how I was going to -eat my way through. I couldn’t scrub tenement-house floors for the -privilege of writing a book.... Oh, I love books all right. I rise up -and yell when a big short story comes in the office, or breaks out -anywhere. I think I know a real one, but a man’s got to do a whole -lot of appreciating before he gets to doing. I’m not bred somehow as -those people are. I’m the first of the Cobdens to break out of trade. -They call _me_ a dreamer, my people do--yet compared to those boys and -girls in Harrow Street, I’m a basket of fish with only a wiggle at the -bottom----” - -“Get out,” said John Higgins. “The first thing you know, you’ll be -going down there again.” - -“I will,” said Dicky. “I’m going down there to live.” - -“Eh?” - -The younger man nodded seriously. “They’re crazy, perhaps, but I’m -convinced from yesterday of one thing: One can’t be sane as I am, and -ever find the Big Story, much less write it.” - -“Therefore the first thing to do is to go insane.” - -“It isn’t like that,” Dicky said gently. “I’ve been brought up to think -I know New York, belong and breathe in New York. You see, my family -has lived here a hundred years. But yesterday I saw New York for the -first time. She isn’t an old Dutch frump, as we thought, John. She’s a -damsel! She’s a new moon----” - -“Blue eyes?” said John Higgins. - -“No, that’s the little girl from Los Angeles. It’s the landlady, of -course, who’s the spirit of the place. I figured out afterward that it -was because she was there that I liked everybody and had a good time. -Wouldn’t be surprised to hear she was a priestess of some sort. I asked -if she were Hindu, and she said ‘Yes,’ but she talks as if she were out -of an English convent. Of course, most of her lodgers don’t get her. -One old actor, out of a job, leaned across the table to me yesterday -when Miss Claes left the room. He tapped his forehead, whispering, -‘Lovely, eh, but got the Ophelias.’” - -“Is she young?” John Higgins asked presently. - -“Moreover,” Dicky added, lost in thought, “I believe Miss Claes knows -that they think her cracked and doesn’t mind.... Young? Say, I don’t -know, John. You don’t think of her with years, somehow--rather as one -who has reached the top of herself and decided to stay there.” - -John Higgins leaned back, drained his coffee cup and stared with eyes -that smarted at the steaming ceiling. “Is Naidu going to do us another -story?” - -“We didn’t get to that, but they gave me a novel manuscript to read.” - -“His?” - -“No, I didn’t get it straight whose it was. Miss Claes handed it over, -suggesting I look at it for a serial. Some one in the house had written -it or left it there.” - -“We’d better be going back to the office. Have you read into the novel?” - -“Started, but didn’t get really going. It’s back-age France stuff, and -I was a little lost last night on the subject of 54 Harrow Street.” - -“You’re a little lost yet, Dicky, I should say--for a Cobden.... So -you’re going to lead a double life? Rich young New Yorker, quarters in -Fiftieth Street under the eaves of St. Patrick’s, vanishing into life -down in Greenwich.” - -Dicky’s eyes were keen with memory. - - - - -VI - -ENTER, FANNY GALLUP - - -_THE Lance of the Rivernais_ had been in the editorial rooms of _The -Public Square_ for almost a month, but there had been no report; -not the slightest mention, in fact, though author and editor were -frequently together. Richard Cobden had come to 54 Harrow Street to -live for the larger part of each week. Pidge had gone to work in a -tin-can factory up Lenox way, pasting labels. She was half sick from -fatigue from the new work and from keeping the secret about her book. -In the days that followed the finishing of the _Lance_, it was as if -her whole body and brain had been a scaffold or matrix for the story, -and it had been taken from her, leaving a galvanism useless as an -eggshell, a sort of afterbirth that persisted in staying alive. - -... There was Fanny Gallup, who sat at her right, elbow to elbow at the -pasting bench--Fanny of the intermittent pungencies of scent and the -dreary muck of talk about boys and boys and boys. Fanny was a child -and woman all in one, about Pidge’s age and size, one whom you could -fancy had been a stringy street-kid a year or two ago. But just now, -Fanny was in her brief bloom, red in her lips, a lift to her scant -breast, the earth driving into her and overflowing with such color and -fertility as it could. - -For eight hours a day, Pidge dwelt in Fanny’s frequently tropical -aura--hateful, yet marveling. The thing that amazed her was that Fanny -loved life so, loved the feel of her own hands when she rubbed them -together, loved the taste of sweets and the memory of last night’s -kisses--loved fearlessly and without reserve, not a pang of dread for -what was to come, nor a shudder of regret for what had happened to her -mother or sisters or the other girls of Foley Street. Never a thought -in Fanny’s head that she was being hoaxed by Nature; that her body was -being livened and rounded, her face edged and tinted, for an inexorable -purpose; not a suspicion that she was being played for, and must -presently produce. - -Fanny lived her brief hour to the full, and Pidge Musser suffered and -revolted for two. Pidge took the dreary monotone of talk into her soul, -as she had taken her father’s, knowing that one day she would be full. - -“Oh, you Musser,” Fanny would say. “Why don’t you come over to Foley -Street?... You’re dryin’ up, Redhead. What do you do nights? What do -you do all the time, thinkin’ and listnin’?... Where’s your fulluh, -Redhead? Ain’t got one--wot? Little liar. You’re bad, you are, because -you’re so still.... Come on over to Foley Street to-night. I’ll let you -have a peep at Albert, m’li’l barber--just one peep, Redhead--not too -close. I ain’t sure of him yet, but I’ll let you have one look--aw come -on!” - -So it was through the hours, pasting apricot labels, lobster, -asparagus, pimento, peach, and codfish labels. More and more Fanny’s -boys and men folded into one, whose name was Albert. - -“I’m gettin’ him goin’--goin’, goin’. Psst! an’ he comes!” Fanny would -say. “But I wouldn’t trust him to you, Musser--not longer than a -hairpin, dam’ little party, you.” - - * * * * * - -Miss Claes was observing with some concern the result of her suggestion -to Pidge, not to let the young editor know the _Lance_ was hers. - -“If it hadn’t been for my tampering, she would have heard about her -book before this,” she said to Nagar. “Pidge looked so young, I felt -it would prejudice Mr. Cobden against her work. He’s fascinated with -Harrow Street, but seems to have no time or thought for a romance of -eighteenth-century France! Yet he would have put through her book in -a week, if he knew, seeing the story with the same eyes he sees the -author.” - -“And she doesn’t tell him?” - -“No. That’s our Pidge, Nagar. I even suggested that I would speak to -him--let the truth slip out. She caught me in her hands, those hard -little hands, strong as a peasant’s, ‘Not for worlds, Miss Claes!’ she -breathed, and there was a patch of white intensity across her upper -lip, ‘Not for worlds!’” - -“... Of course, I mean to write,” Pidge had granted to Dicky in the -very beginning. “I’ve always meant to write, since the day I learned -that print wasn’t done above the clouds somehow, like Moses’ tablets, -and had to be written all out first by human beings. But I’m not ready -to begin----” and she silently added the word “again” for her own -composure. - -“But they tell me on my floor when you first came, you hammered a -typemill day and night. Was it commercial work?” Dicky asked. - -“It was _not_,” said Pidge, with such emphasis that she felt her secret -endangered again and hastened to add, “That was before I started to -work in the factory. Likely they heard Nagar’s machine part of the -time.” - -“But you seem to know yarns--like one who works with them--tries to do -them, I mean,” he remarked. - -Her face was flushed. Evasion irritated and diminished her. She coldly -explained her father’s professional interest in the short story. - -“He isn’t an artist, but he teaches how, you know,” she finished. - -Dicky pondered long on how much Pidge meant by this. He had been -brought up to revere his parents. Surely, he thought, she must know -that one can’t be taught except by life itself to do a real story. - -One rainy Sunday forenoon in February, they were sitting together in -his “parlor,” the front of his two rooms on the second floor. This room -opened through a single door to the main hall, and through folding -doors to his sleeping quarters. Dicky had brought some few additional -furnishings from his mother’s house in East Fiftieth Street. The place -made Pidge feel uncomfortable, but Miss Claes’ basement front was often -in use and subject to constant interruption. - -“I want to read you something I’ve brought from the office,” Dicky -said. “I’m not saying a word--until afterward.” - -It was a little story called _Dr. Filter_, by an unknown young -man, named Rufus Melton. It had come to _The Public Square_ among -the unsolicited manuscripts. Pidge listened with extraordinary -restlessness. She seemed to know so much about this story, its -processes and the thing it told, that her mind was unpleasantly -crowded. It wasn’t a matter of like or dislike. _Dr. Filter_ was here -in the world, a live thing. It had to be met and dealt with. - -“Not more than once a year, one comes in as live as this,” Dicky said. -“Yet it’s like something from a different world from Nagar’s Little Man -story.” - -“It isn’t whether you like _Dr. Filter_, or not, but you can’t get away -from it--like a relative who comes to live in your house,” said Pidge. - -“That’s a center shot,” Dicky thoughtfully remarked. - -She found herself asking about Rufus Melton. Dicky didn’t know much, -but was intensely pleased over her reaction to his latest artistic -find.... Pidge never lacked opinions, even verdicts, nor the energy -to express them when Dicky was around. They forgot Rufus Melton, and -out-generaled time in discussing Miss Claes. - -“Every little while as she talks, I feel as if I were going through a -tunnel,” he said. “Of course, I admire her, and all that, but sometimes -I can’t help asking myself, like the others, if she is really right----” - -“The more ignorant one is, the more crazy he thinks Miss Claes,” Pidge -observed. - -“Another bull’s-eye. Wait till I set up the target again, Pidge. But is -it because she’s Hindu--that she’s so different?” - -“She isn’t Hindu. She’s English.” - -“I asked her.” - -“So did I.” - -“She’ll have to referee this herself,” Dicky hastily put in. - -Then they were silent awhile, until Pidge said: - -“Maybe I heard her wrong. I’m sure she’s had a lot of Hindu training. -But that’s not what draws me to her. It’s because she’s not taking -it out in talk. She knows about plumbing and cooking and streets and -common things. Best of all, she pays her bills!” - -But Dicky, who had never known other than financial ease and financial -integrity, was more interested in the other side of their landlady. - -“Can one get books--on her sort of thing?” he asked. - -“You’re always getting me into this lately,” Pidge complained. “I don’t -like to talk about it. I floated up through zones of Hindu stuff from a -child. Better leave it alone, Dicky. Stay in your head--stay down.” - -“What do you mean, ‘Stay in your head,’ please?” - -“Any one who amounts to anything stays in his head. He’s not -complicated by _souls_. All the comfortable, solid world calls you -absurd for what you say and the way you look, when this Eastern stuff -starts you going. You get so absorbed that you lose all touch with -things down here, the things you are really here to do. You stop making -money and go around saying the Lord will provide. You don’t really let -Him, you let other people support you and call it God’s work. You call -yourself the Elect, and yet you can’t do the things that average people -do. Mainly, you talk. You stop work to talk. You settle heaven and God -and the soul with talk!... Oh, Dicky, that’s why I hate it all so; -that’s why I’d rather be a factory girl; that’s why I’m all lame and -tired about ‘ideals’ and ‘supermen’ and ‘abstractions’--because I’ve -heard so much talk.... It’s the first thing I remember. Lying in the -crib--I began to hear my father’s voice.” - -“But you’ve got all this stuff, Pidge. That’s what makes you--makes -you----” - -“It is what makes me nothing! It is what keeps me from being an -honest-to-God mill girl. It is what keeps me from everything that means -something to other mill girls. It is what keeps me from taking life -as I find it. It’s what spoils me from really knowing Miss Claes or -Nagar--or what they are about--because so many words have been dinned -into my ears before coming to New York.” - -The hardest thing on Dicky these days was that Pidge had to work in -a factory. This thought was never far from the central arena of his -mind. It chafed and irked. There was very little of the philanderer in -his breed. Mostly, the Cobdens had chosen their women carefully, after -long, cool, studious courtship. Having decided, courted and married, -nothing short of death could break in. Doubtless Dicky’s fidelity -was as stable as that of his relatives, even though his heart had -not turned so cautiously to his light of day. Pidge had risen in his -heavens and possessed them like the rising sun. There were not two suns -in his system. - -He had meant to live lean down in Harrow Street, but his idea of that -wasn’t native to the locality. His ramifications for keeping clean were -considerable and very disturbing to Pidge Musser, who had been brought -up in Southern California to wear a few white garments which she could -wash herself. Washing was impossible in her room, and wasn’t at all -easy in the hall below where Miss Claes had told her to get her water. - -Dicky Cobden was the first _gentleman_ Pidge had ever known. She had -met several boys with a streak of genius showing; boys who had come -to her father to learn how to write and had taken away something, if -not that. Practically all those boys had been “on a shoe string,” -and trained to get along without many things that Cobden would have -considered actual necessities, including an established routine of -order and cleanliness in one’s person and quarters. Pidge had also -met many of the “queer” ones of Hollywood and vicinity--men and women -who ate this way and that, bathed this way and that, in running waters -and still, in sea waters and rain waters, in mud and sunlight, using -unctions and ointments, but they were bathing their souls. - -Dicky Cobden bathed frequently, carefully, believing beyond cavil that -New York and the processes of life grimed him on the outside, that life -itself was a constant war against grime, requiring an ever accessible -tub, much soap, hot water, changes of clothing, laundry bags, rugs, -brushes. Not that Dicky gave any thought to this. It was as if he -supposed everybody did the same. Since everybody didn’t and couldn’t; -and since everybody didn’t have as much money to spend for bread and -meat and tea, as Mr. Cobden did for laundry alone--Pidge was miserably -rebellious. - -Always as she sat in the presence of Dicky’s altogether thoughtless -freshness; sat in her apple-butter colored wool dress which had -contained the emotional hurl and thresh of the romantic _Lance_--always -Miss Musser had a hard time to forget herself and was frequently on the -verge of becoming defiant and bad-tempered for reasons he didn’t dream. - -She suffered, because every evening almost, Dicky invited her out to -dine, and not once in four times could she pass the frowning negatives -of her own soul. He chose to regard her as superbly honest and -unaffected. She really needed those dinners, too. All the future novels -and heart throbs needed them. Occasionally she met him after dinner -for a walk or a picture, and once she had been lured to an uptown -theater. Just once--never again in the brown wool dress! - -She felt, as she entered the theater lights that night, that she had -been betrayed. She felt also like something Mr. Cobden had found in -the street, or that she was helping him make good on a first of April -bet. Pidge hadn’t been to more than three “talking shows” in all her -nineteen years; to her a show house was a place of darkness, except the -screen. - -Alone in her room afterward that night, she made a great vow: that when -the torrent of American dollars turned loose on her (as it was bound to -some time) she would buy outright chests full of lingerie, cabinets of -hats, shelves of shoes, and a book of orders for frocks to be delivered -at future dates. She would keep clean then if a Santa Ana sandstorm -settled on New York and lasted a year. - -One raw and cold week-night, Pidge was about done up when she reached -Harrow Street. She tried to slip softly past his hall door, but Dicky -was there. - -“Hard day?” he called. - -“Yes,” she said, pushing on. “Everybody’s tired and cross the whole -length of New York, like a sore spine.” - -“You haven’t had dinner?” - -“No, but I don’t think I’ll go out----” - -“I’ve been waiting, Pidge. There’s a little place near, where I used to -come from uptown, thinking it an excursion--just a neighbor of ours -now, _The Hob and Hook_, where they make a stew like Dickens tells of -in the old English inns--smoking in the pot for twenty-four hours; and -there’s tea for tired folks, and no end of scones and honey----” - -“Oh, please----” said Pidge. Then she added stubbornly, “No, I’m not -going out again to-night.” - -“It is a trifle wintry,” Dicky observed. “We’ll have supper here. I’ll -go out and get an armful, and Nagar will make us a pot of tea. Oh, I -say, Pidge, have a little thought of somebody else.” - -She weakened. Alone upstairs a minute afterward, she lit the gas and -stood before the mirror that waved. - -“If I turned loose just once and ate all I wanted, he’d never speak to -me again!” - - - - -VII - -“THE FREEDOM OF IGNORANCE” - - -PIDGE was gone from Harrow Street from seven in the morning to seven -at night. She had been absolutely blurred with fatigue at the end -of the first days, but her hands were hardening, her back adjusting -to the monotonous work at the big pasting table. She was actually -learning like the other girls the trick of sinking into a sort of coma -for an hour or more at a time. Sometimes (as one under the influence -of a prying drug, which opens scenes, as from a past life) she would -remember the palisades of Santa Monica, the ocean pressing its white -fringes up against the gray sand; tirelessly pressing again and again, -but never leaving its white lines of foam, unless the water was sick -from the big sewer of El Segundo. Rarely a sail on that great sunny -bay, but many wings--pelicans, sandpipers, gulls in hundreds, feeding -out beyond the surf lines, or gathered in conference on the beaten -sand--three strange and ancient bird types, gathered together in one -vast audience facing the sea. - -This was but one of her pictures. Other times she roamed the canyons, -Santa Monica and Topango, and the cheerful and solitary mesas.... “Yes, -that same creature--Pan Musser,” she once said, half aloud.... Then -she would think of New York and Miss Claes and Richard Cobden; of the -book she had actually written, and pretty nearly died for, the book -around which there was a conspiracy of silence. In spite of the coma -at the pasting table, and the moments of memory drift, the stimulated -laughter in the washroom, or in the half hour for lunch as they heated -their tea pails over the radiators at noon; in spite of the clatter of -tins passing from left to right around the big table, and the tireless -goading of Fanny Gallup’s cheerful boy-talk--the brown wool dress -contained plentiful hells of the human heart.... And to-morrow would be -Thursday, the next day Friday, the next day Saturday, and then sleep, -and this was also New York. - -The first Sunday afternoon of March was the afternoon of the new frock, -a cheap little one-piece dress, bought on Seventh Avenue, neither -wool nor brown. It had a tissuey and boxy smell. It was rapturously, -adventurously new. Pidge had an omen as she put it on, that this was -a sort of hour of all her life, that never another frock would mean -quite the same. She was alone with Miss Claes when Dicky Cobden came -for her at six, according to a plan made early in the week. They were -to cross to Staten Island and find an old Georgian mammy, whom he knew, -somewhere back of Stapleton on the wet roads, a mammy who could cook -chicken and beaten biscuit. - -Dicky seemed only to see her face. A great wonderment came up in -Pidge’s heart, not disappointment exactly, but a sort of soul-deep -wonder, that Dicky didn’t appear to see the new frock. Could it be -possible that a man who managed the details of his own attire with -such practiced art had never known what she suffered in the brown wool -dress, in all that tragedy of shabbiness and dirt? Had he really not -felt ashamed of her that night under the lights in the uptown theater? -He turned to her now: - -“You won’t mind, Pidge, just a moment or two, if I speak of a little -matter to Miss Claes. Oh, I don’t mean for you to leave; in fact, I’d -rather not. It is just a report about a long story that should have -been made before.” - -Then out of the inmost heart of innocence, Pidge was jerked with a -crush. Before his next words she realized what she must face; she, -sitting aside from them in the new frock. - -“... About that book manuscript,” Dicky went on. “I have ordered -it sent back to you, Miss Claes--doubtless it will be in the post -to-morrow. I have read it, and John Higgins has read it. We’re both -agreed on this particular manuscript--that it isn’t for _The Public -Square_.” - -Pidge stared at him like a child being whipped for the first time. All -that was left of the meaning of the book in her own body and mind, and -all hope concerning it, had suddenly been put to death. But the rest -of her remained alive in a stupor of suffering; her eyes stared. She -saw Richard Cobden as never before, saw him as a workman; as they saw -him in the office. This was a bit of week-day that he was showing now, -sincerely speaking to Miss Claes, having at length done the best he -could in regard to the task which she had imposed. - -“The thing is _young_, Miss Claes,” he went on. “There is fling and -fire to it, but its freedom is the freedom of ignorance. This love and -this sort of man-stuff would only do for the great unsophisticated. I’m -not saying that some publisher couldn’t take hold of it and make a go. -In fact, I’ve seen stuff like it in covers mount up to big sales, but -the human male isn’t handled in it, Miss Claes. This is sort of a young -girl’s dream of what men are. They drink and fight and love and die and -all that, but----” - -“There, there, Mr. Cobden. Don’t try so hard,” Miss Claes said -laughingly. “I’m sure you’ve given the book its chance.” - -But Dicky meant to finish his report. - -“That’s just the point,” he said; “its chance with _The Public Square_ -is all I’m talking about. This is a shopgirl’s book, and there are -myriads of shopgirls. _The Public Square_ would like to have their -patronage; yet one pays a price for that. John Higgins--this is the -best thing that can be said about one of the best men I’ve known--John -Higgins has never yet consented to pay that price.” - -Pidge Musser found her head turning from side to side as one who tries -to find in which neck muscle a troubling lameness lies. She stopped -that. She glanced up at Cobden, who was pressing on his left glove -with his bare right hand. Before she turned, she realized that Miss -Claes’ eyes were waiting for hers. It wasn’t pity she saw in them, -nor friendship, nor loyalty, nor laughter; it was something of each of -these, yet something more. Only one word in English even suggests the -thing that was pouring upon her through Miss Claes’ eyes--and that word -is _compassion_. - -Its power could not find her heart with its healing, but it seemed to -gather around like a cloak, waiting for entrance. Pidge wanted to be -alone with Miss Claes now. The ache was so deep that she felt it would -be worth a life if she could go into Miss Claes’ arms and break. That -was it, an utter break was the only thing that could ease this pain. -Then she became aware of Cobden standing at her side. In a moment he -would speak. She did not wait for the moment, but arose. - -“Shall we start down toward the ferry?” she asked. - -“Yes, all ready, Pidge.” - -In the silence that followed, Dicky did not seem to notice anything -wrong. At the door Miss Claes’ hand raised and hovered above Pidge’s -shoulder, but did not touch. Pidge was grateful for that. - - - - -VIII - -SOMEBODY’S SHOULDER - - -IT was early April, a dark and rainy afternoon. Pidge had been in the -tin factory three months. For four weeks the manuscript of the _Lance_ -had lain in the bureau drawer of the little upper room in Harrow -Street, not being given a second submittal. The secret was still kept. -Richard Cobden had not spoken of the story since his report that Sunday -afternoon to Miss Claes. There seemed an astonishing cruelty in the -fact that he could forget. He had spoken of everything else.... - -Pidge had just left the factory and was running in her rubbers through -the blur of rain toward a downtown subway entrance. A sort of mocking -laughter was in her ears, “and this is New York,” the burden of it. -In the dim light of the passage down into the tube she saw the gray -gleaming patches of wear on the steel steps, slippery now from the -rain. There was a shudder and gasp from a girl beside her; a parting of -the hurrying ones ahead to avoid clotted pools of blood on two or three -steps below. - -Farther down in the area, a man lay propped in the arms of a stranger. -His face was very white. A few minutes before he had been hurrying down -those steel steps that the rain had made slippery--hurrying perhaps in -the same confusion of fatigue and hunger that she had known.... A pause -had come to him from all that hurry. His white face was more peaceful -than any of the bystanders. A hospital ambulance clanged above, as -she lingered. Attendants came down with the stretcher. The body of -the unconscious man was swept up by one of the swift city brooms. -The stream of ticket buyers filed on as before, the downtown express -crashed in. - -Pidge sat in her cane seat. The main crowd of the city was coming -uptown at this hour. At least, she was spared that packing. She -breathed the dense tired air, and recalled that on a night or two -before she had slipped on the steel stairs, but had not fallen. It was -borne upon her that in some way this man had fallen for her, fallen for -every one who saw him or the puddles of blood he left. Every one had -walked more carefully afterward, reaching for the rails. And he had -lost the sense of hurry--that unmitigated madness which drove them all -from dawn to dark. - -Her old wonder of New York came back, as she thought that she was being -flashed fifty miles an hour from the junction at Ninety-sixth Street -down to Forty-second Street, under the busiest streets and corners of -America. Mere men could manage much. Then the old agony stole in--“the -freedom of ignorance.” Surely no one had ever been punished for doing -a book as she had been punished: that it was so poor, as to prove a -temptation for John Higgins to publish it, because of its chance of -falling exactly into the fancy of these--the myriad of shopgirls in -the uptown locals and expresses, crashing by in thick ropes of white -light. As for the public taste, Dicky Cobden had told her that John -Higgins had confessed, speaking wearily and with a smile that had lost -its sting of reproach, that for thirty years he had been choosing -stories for people to read, and every year he had been forced to lower -his estimate as to what the public taste was. Even so, John Higgins -had said he was far from the level; that only a trade mind could get -stories banal enough. But hers might interest that public. - -She was so tired.... For somebody’s shoulder to lean against! Pidge -knew what Fanny Gallup felt, what the other factory girls felt, when -they pushed out so brazenly toward men--in very clumsiness from hard -pressure, spoiling their chances of being treated on the square. Yes, -she was really learning what the girls felt, as they hunted their -own in the masses of men they passed--how tired, hungry, blurred, -unsatisfied their hearts--anything to escape the withering grind of -the mills and the counters and the shops. She knew the secret bloom -they felt, the terrible brief drive of it--childhood, girlhood and -youth, all passing like the uptown trains--a home, a man, a child of -their own, the one chance for a breath of life. Of course, they talked -of nothing else, in the closets and dressing rooms, in the cars and -streets; and read nothing else. Certainly their dreams had to come -true in books and plays, even if they didn’t in life. Life would break -the dream soon enough. The best life could do didn’t compare with the -lowliest dream; for the dream of a girl has glamour, and the life of a -woman is stripped. But that was no reason why books and plays should -tear off the glamour ahead of time. - -It wasn’t that Pidge loved shopgirls and mill girls. She didn’t love -herself for sharing their lot. She wasn’t sentimental at all. She -recognized bad management somewhere that forced her to this work. She -had to have bread, and outer and under clothing. She paid the price, -but there was nothing good nor virtuous about it. She didn’t hate Dicky -Cobden when he spoke of “shopgirl literature”; she knew how rotten -it was, but there was something in her that belonged to it, or she -wouldn’t have been in the factory; moreover, that something had helped -to write the _Lance_. - -... Somebody’s shoulder. Three months of tin cans was teaching that -very well.... And there was a shoulder, straight and steady--a kind -of mockery about it, because it was so fine. None of the girls at the -big table where she worked would have asked more. It meant books and -pictures and all the dining tables of New York; plays and dresses, -cleanliness, and all the little coaxing cushions and covers of this -arrogant modern hour. It meant all the old solid established joys of -place and plenty; all the writing she liked; a leisurely winning of her -way through magazines and publishing houses; nothing of Grub Street and -the conspiracy against an unknown outsider.... - -And this life of the factory--hadn’t she earned release? What more -could come of the grinding monotony of the days but a more passionate -agony to escape, through the under world, or the upper world, through -any route at all, even death itself? Was there a further lesson than -this?... Somebody’s shoulder. He had the native kindness of clean -breeding; also that consideration for others of one who is brought up -in a large house. He had an ardent interest in books and life. He was -warmly established in the hearts of other men--first and last, a man’s -man, which it behooves a woman to inquire into. - -There was a tired smile on Pidge’s lips as the car halted at -Thirty-second street.... The only blunders he had ever made were in her -presence, because he cared so much. He seemed continually in awe and -wonder before the thing he fancied she was, as if he had never really -looked at a woman before. Of course, another man might act that way, -but it was different the way Dicky did it. He had been at school late, -and for nearly four years in the office of _The Public Square_ he had -bored steadily, craftily toward the center of the life of letters. -Work had been his passion up to that day in which he had called to see -Nagar, and fell under the spell of Miss Claes and Harrow Street.... -There was enough of the artist and dreamer in him to keep life from -being tame, yet not enough to make life a maze and a madness. He had -health. Money was to him like an old custom, so established as to be -forgotten.... - -Fourteenth Street. Pidge didn’t hear the first call and hopped off -with a rush at the second, pulling a growl from the gateman as she sped -out.... Dicky was standing at the head of the stairs on the second -floor of the Harrow Street house. - -“Hello, Pidge,” he said. - -“Hello,” she answered, pushing past, but he caught her arm. - -“Let me go, please! I haven’t washed yet----” - -But he drew her by the hand toward the open door to his front room. The -brighter light from there streamed out into the dim hall. - -“My hands are sticky from the paste. I’ll come back. I’d rather come -back.” - -“It’s about that--about your hands, Pidge. I’ve waited as long as I -can.” - -... Somebody’s shoulder. She wasn’t safe to be trusted right now, yet -she couldn’t pull away. If she ever got upstairs--even for a minute -in her own little place, before the mirror that waved, she would see -it all clearly, but here and now she didn’t want to see clearly. She -wanted to give up and rest. She wanted what he wanted--wanted to give -him what he wanted, which was the tiredest, most hopeless girl in -New York to-night. She was dying of all its strains and failures and -rigidities and fightings, and he wanted to take the load. - -They were standing under the hanging lamp in his room. The light was -white; his face was white. It was leaner than ever before, more of a -man in it, more of a boy in it. His will was working furiously to make -him speak. - -He held her right hand up between them. - -“It’s about your hands, Pidge, about the factory. Listen, you make -me feel like a tout or a sot--as if you were out killing yourself to -support me. I’ve been home two hours and you just coming in.” - -“There’s half a million girls in New York--just coming in.” - -“I know. We’ll get to them later, but now there’s only one--only one -Pidge. I want her home to stay. I want to make a home for her. Why, -Pidge, I’ll let you alone, if you just let me do that----” - -“I believe you would.” - -She was looking up at him hard. She didn’t fully understand, but the -boyish cleanliness of him struck her fully that moment. The power of -his will which she felt was mainly the fierceness of his decision to -speak. It wasn’t the burn of terrible hunger for her. He was young as a -playmate: that’s what shook her now. He wanted to fix her place, to let -her hands soften again, wanted to let her rest and breathe--not what -the other girls laughed about. - -“Why, Pidge, I’ve got to take care of you. I’ve got to straighten you -out--if it’s only to marry you and go away.” - -Something in her heart cracked like a mirror, and a sob broke out of -her. It was as if a car that had been running along by itself suddenly -left the road and went into a cliff--a warm, kind cliff. Somebody’s -shoulder, and she was sobbing: - -“I told you I was so tired! I told you I wasn’t safe----” - -“Ah, little Pidge----” he was patting her arm and pressing her close. - -It had come. This was it. It _was_ rest. The other girls knew. The -awful cold ache was broken--warmth of life pouring out of her--heavenly -ease in the flood of tears, and something of the dearness of dreams was -in his passion, not for her--but to do something for her. - -The first whip stroke fell, when Pidge remembered how she looked when -she cried. But if she could keep her face covered! She didn’t stir.... -Was this the fullness of days? All the consummate essences of ease, he -brought--no hunger, no dirt--and really she had fought long and hard. - -“... Everything you want, Pidge,” he was whispering. “I’ll take you to -my mother. She’s a regular sport, Pidge----” - -“She’d have to be,” came from the incorrigible heart in his arms, but -not aloud. - -The second whip stroke--_The Lance of the Rivernais_. She had failed, -and the failure wasn’t the book, but herself, the thing in his arms. -She didn’t stir, but there was coldness of calculation to her thinking -now--that he meant ease and rest and expediency, not the ripping, -rioting, invincible man force that was to come one day and carry her -off her feet. - -This was the third whip stroke: that he meant propinquity--the nearest, -the easiest way. - -She started up and pushed him from her. - -“I’m not washed,” she said. “I don’t mean from the mills. I’m not -washed, or I couldn’t have--couldn’t have----! I’m just like the -rest--dying for a shoulder to cry on. You’re all right, Dicky, so right -and fine that I’m ashamed. I’ll always care for you. I’ll always be -warm at the thought of you. I’ll always remember how I went to you--how -dear you are--but you can’t give me freedom. You can’t give me peace. -My soul would rot in ease and peace and plenty. I’ve got to earn my -own.” - -She looked up into his face and her own took a fright from it. - -“I know I’ll suffer hells for hurting you--but I can’t help it. I had -to know. If I have to spend a life in misery--I had to know that there -isn’t anything you can give that will satisfy----” - -His mouth was partly open, his head twisted peculiarly, and lowered, as -if his shoulder and neck were deformed. He was shockingly white under -the lamp. - -“Oh, I’m such a beast and I’m so sorry. I really wanted terribly to -stay.... But, Dicky Cobden--it wasn’t for you. It wasn’t for you that I -wanted to stay--it was for what you have--more.” - - - - -IX - -“YOU BOTH HAVE KEYS” - - -DICKY kept his quarters in Harrow Street, but for days at a time did -not appear. Pidge Musser at first fancied this was easier. There was a -faint cackle of derision from somewhere in her depths, as this idea of -it being easier repeated itself in her mind; in fact, there were many -conflicting mysteries in Pidge’s deep places. “I laid my head on his -shoulder,” she once said to herself, “but thought better of it. Now we -are to be strangers.” - -At unexpected moments when she was busy at the pasting bench; or -nights and mornings, passing in and out of sleep, the faint note of -mockery would sound. When she passed Dicky in the halls, or met him -at one of Miss Claes’ little tea parties, and he would bow distantly -or indulge in formal commonplaces, the mockery would stir itself in -Pidge’s profundities, indicating that something somewhere was decidedly -idiotic. He looked positively diminished as he kept up his formalities, -and she liked and respected him too much to feel pleasant about this. -She heard that he was interested in Africa. It was to be observed that -he sought Nagar; in fact, several times she heard these two together -through the partition. - -Finally Pidge heard that Dicky was going to South Africa, possibly to -hunt up Nagar’s Little Man, whose name was Gandhi, and who had been -Nagar’s friend and teacher both in India and Natal. Also Dicky was to -do some letters for _The Public Square_. - -On the night before he was to sail for the Mediterranean, he was -invited with Pidge by Miss Claes for dinner at Tara Subramini’s Punjabi -Fireplace down on Sixth Avenue near Fourth Street. This was also the -night Pidge smelled Spring in New York for the first time. - -Mid-April; there had been rain. Pidge hadn’t caught the Spring magic -coming home from the factory, but now as they walked down Sixth Avenue -under the momentary crashes of the Elevated--it stole up out of the -pavements as if she were in a meadow--that untellable sweetness -which seems the breath of Mother Nature herself, a breath made of -all the perfumes of all the flowers, without accentuating one, and a -sublimation of all the passions of the human heart as well. Her left -hand burrowed under the hanging sleeve of Miss Claes’ wrap. The bare -elbow there closed upon it. They both laughed, and Mr. Richard, walking -sedately, was altogether out of the question. - -Tara Subramini served her Punjabi dinners on great individual plates -which were none too hot. She discussed modern dancing with Miss Claes -at easy length, when Pidge was served and Richard Cobden was not. The -rice cooled, the lamb cooled, even if the peppery curry held its fire. -The vast plate had curious little crevices on the side for conserves -and glutinous vegetables and various watery leaves. Pidge became -prejudiced at once against the Punjab. The great leisure of Asia, which -she had heard about from a child and which had tempted her alluringly -in the more intense pressures of her own life, lost something of its -charm as Tara Subramini conversed with all concerned and the contents -of the troughs congealed. - -Food is food, but talk is merely talk. Besides, Pidge was hungry. -Subramini had things to say, but also an oriental delight in the use of -English. Mr. Cobden was unreservedly courteous. Pidge always wondered -if he really knew what hunger was. She could get so hungry that her -hands trembled, and New York had shown her deeper mysteries of the -hunger lesson that she would be slow to forget. - -“It must be great to be a gentleman,” she thought. - -She positively yearned for Dicky to wake up. If this were poise, this -moveless calm of his, this unvarying quiet and courtesy, this inability -to be stretched even in laughter--Pidge felt she was ready to drop the -hunt; also she was tempted to test out Dicky’s poise to see how much -it could really stand.... India bored her, as well as America. Miss -Claes could eat and talk at the same time, and drop neither words nor -food.... A lone Hindu arose to depart from another table. Subramini -helped him with his coat and followed him to the door. Pidge thought -once that Subramini was about to spread herself on the doorstep and let -him walk over her. Punjab didn’t rise in her regard. Pidge suddenly -burst out into a kind of merriment that had nothing to do with anybody -present. - -“It is because we’re such idiots!” she said brokenly. “Oh, I don’t mean -you, Miss Claes. I mean myself and--_Mr._ Cobden. It is the way things -are done in the world--so utterly silly. Why should we be strange and -embarrassed, avoiding each other for days and weeks--when we should be -more than ever friends, and----” - -Richard Cobden bent forward attentively. Pidge was turned from him. - -“You don’t mean, Pidge, that you fail to see a reason for this -strangeness?” Miss Claes asked. “You----” - -Pidge stared at her a second in surprise. - -“There can’t be any sense to it, can there?” she said slowly. - -The other regarded her with a calm that irritated Pidge just now. -Everything irritated her, Dicky sitting by, Miss Claes’ familiarity -with Subramini, and the look of knowing and not speaking, back of the -smile on Miss Claes’ lips. But most of all, peculiarly at this moment, -arose in Pidge’s mind the two conflicting stories of nationality. - -“Did I hear you wrongly that you said you were English, Miss Claes?” -she asked abruptly. - -“No, dear.” - -“But Dicky said you told him you were Hindu----” - -“I did. I am both. I am half-caste, supposed to unite in myself the -worst of English and Indian.” - -Pidge burned with contrition, less at her questioning than at the bad -temper that prompted it. The two women were ready to go, but Dicky -wasn’t. - -“You seemed to have something to say, Miss Claes, to set us--to set me -straight on all this,” he began. - -“You see, Richard, one cannot speak without being drawn in. I hesitated -on that account.” - -“But I’d like to hear.” - -Pidge flushed a little as she watched him. Tara Subramini, still afar -off, was engaged in words. - -“... My house in Harrow Street is just a symbol,” Miss Claes was -saying. “To come into one’s house really should mean to come into -one’s heart. You both have keys.... What was in my mind to say was -that people in your trouble act as strangers for good reasons. If they -cannot have each other--they sometimes rush to the other extreme to -save themselves the pain of watching another come between.” - -Dicky Cobden essayed to light a cigarette. The match broke in his -fingers. He did not try again. Miss Claes amplified without apparent -feeling: - -“Sometimes one who cannot have what he wants--gives way to hatred for -a time to ease his wound.... Pidge, what have you to give for the -friendship and association of one who wants more?” - -“I don’t know that I have anything. I see how selfish I was. It came to -me that we, of all people, should be friends, but I didn’t look at the -other side.” - -“You can be friends, if you are brave enough. You can be, if you dare -to come and go and set each other free utterly, but that means long and -bitter work.” - -The harrowing thing to Pidge was that Miss Claes talked as if Dicky and -herself were one in condition and purpose and dilemma, when in reality -all the hard part seemed to go to him. She wished Miss Claes would -stop, but the words continued with a smooth predestined force: - -“The best the world knows, even in books and art, is the kingdom of -two; but love doesn’t end in that--at least, not for those who are -brave enough and strong enough to sunder their tight little kingdom of -each other and let the earth rush in between....” - -Tara Subramini’s slippered feet crept in. She stood behind Miss Claes’ -shoulders and began to speak of a book of poetic obituaries. The paying -of the bill seemed an interminable process. - -Cobden looked dazed. - -“If Pidge thinks it’s silly to act as strangers--and I can see that it -is--I’m for trying the other way,” he repeated, when they reached the -street. - -The whole talk had been subject to most stubborn and perverse -distractions. On Sixth Avenue the racket of traffic had become -incessant. Apparently Miss Claes had decided to say no more. Callers -waited for her in the basement room at Harrow Street, so Pidge followed -Dicky to his “parlor,” which she had not entered since the night of -Somebody’s Shoulder. - -He seemed possessed to talk of what he had heard, as a youth fascinated -by a new course to take. He spoke of a man being big enough to stand -by and set a woman free; of a man big enough to wait and watch and be -a friend, a comrade. And Pidge, who had brought it all about, listened -in a sort of terror which only a woman could understand. This thing -which she had aroused in him, this answer of his deep, but still vague -powers, to her thoughtless challenge, frightened her now that it had -come. - -“Don’t, oh, don’t let’s talk any more!” she said at last. “It’s talk, -Dicky, just talk. The doing is different, the doing is harder! What -do we know of what life will fix for us to do day by day through the -years? This thing is so hard that Miss Claes herself hated to let it -out. It belongs to you differently than it belongs to me. I haven’t -anything to give for your friendship and association. I mean you’ll -always want more than I can give.” - -He looked at her steadily for an instant. - -“I don’t want to be strangers again, Pidge. I want to stand by and -wait.” - -“You won’t know better than to build pictures while you wait. No one -would. You will wait--while you’re away in Africa, making pictures -about me, pictures of what I am _not_! I don’t know why I’m chosen to -hurt you. If I hadn’t been so utterly lost in myself, I never could -have brought this on. I feel that I’ve started a new set of conditions -to bring you to another moment--another gash--like in this room the -last time we were here. And oh, Dicky Cobden, I don’t want to! To be -strangers! To be common and hateful and avoid each other is so much -more simple and easy.” - -“I’ll stop talking, Pidge,” he said quietly. “It may be easier to be -strangers, but it doesn’t look rosy to me. Don’t you worry about it. It -is my job and I’ll take a chance.” - -“You don’t know what you’re saying!” - -“Perhaps not. We won’t talk about that any more.... Now, Pidge, I’m -keeping these rooms while I’m away. Wouldn’t you--wouldn’t you for -me--look after them--look in on them and keep them alive while I’m -gone?... It would make me feel like--great, you know.” - - - - -X - -APRIL BREATHES AGAIN - - -THREE nights later, when she reached Harrow Street from the factory, -Pidge found two letters. One was from John Higgins of _The Public -Square_. This she opened first. - - ... At the suggestion of Mr. Cobden, just before he left for - South Africa, I am offering you a position here as reader of the - unsolicited manuscripts. Mr. Cobden hints that you know enough about - _The Public Square_ to realize we cannot be lavish in salaries, but - think we can at least pay you what you are getting now, to begin - with--and the work will be different. - -“Oh, Dicky Cobden,” she whispered, alone in the upper room. - -She sat in the center of her cot as of old, breathing the sweetness of -the release from the factory.... Friendliness like this art of Dicky’s -was good.... It made her eyes smart now--the new work. It was easier to -take it from him--away. It was a soft cloak that she could nestle in, -because he wouldn’t see.... Miss Claes knocked. Pidge read in her eyes -that she already knew. - -“No one can ever tell you anything.” - -“I’m so glad you want it, Pidge. I couldn’t tell him for sure that -you’d take it.” - -“They really need somebody, don’t they?” - -“Mr. Cobden said you wouldn’t be in doubt about that after you got -there.” - -“I’m going to take it,” Pidge said soberly. “I know it means something -more than it looks--but I’m going to take it. I’m so sick of myself -which fights everything. Also, I’m going down after supper--and sit -there--in his ‘parlor.’ I haven’t entered since----” - -Miss Claes was called from below. Pidge felt the second letter in her -hand. It was from Los Angeles, her father’s writing. A check dropped -out on the cot. By powerful effort of will, Pidge left it there, until -she had read the note: - - ... At this time it seems well for me to send you money. Hard as it - has been for me to refrain, I felt before this that it was best for - you to face New York alone, unaided. As there is a New Generation, my - child, there is a New Fatherhood which dares--dares even to allow the - heart’s darling to struggle alone; dares to say “hands off” to all - the untransmuted emotions which rush forth to shield the fledgling - from the world---- - -Fifty dollars. Pidge sank back and softly batted her pillow with -one loose arm. She laughed in a smothery uncertain way that was not -of joy.... It was as if she heard his voice in the room--the new -parenthood, the new generation, the adjustment of motive to moment! - -The sort of thing in this letter always shook and tortured Pidge. It -was a part of her. She was bred of it. She had been half as old as now -when she first realized it. Then in every thought and act, she had -rushed to the other extreme. It was true that her father had taught -her the deepest things in books. In his study, she had caught hints of -the inner meanings of inaccessible literatures, before she had learned -to spell simple words of English. Because his eyes hurt, she had read -aloud for hours, day after day, tomes out of Asia which she had no -care nor thought to understand, but from which, volatile fairylike -impressions came to rest in the depths of her heart. She had loved the -few central springs of books in a house of books, until she realized -that her father read, but lived them not; that he expounded, exhorted -upon the doctrines--but his life was his own twisted rag. That was when -Pidge’s heavens cracked--and she had set out to be honest and erect, if -only as tall as a gnome. - -The thought that came at this moment had come before. It was the -passion to be what her father was not that had made her rush forth to -be straight in her own head--to refuse to lie to herself--to go to the -other extreme of fierceness and bleakness and ill-temper, rather than -lie to herself--to be plain and true, if she had to be a man-hater and -poison face. Yet Pidge sat up straight with a bitter thought. Like it -or not, she saw right now that it was her father who had prepared her -to accept and make good, possibly, in this position with _The Public -Square_.... - -“But where did he get the money?” she muttered at last. - -She crossed to the open window. April breathed up to her from the stone -floor of the area to-night; magic April, breathing up through the -trampled earth and the degraded pavements. Suddenly a soft love stole -over her. It was love of the April dark. - -She heard the sounds of the city over the buildings, over into the -stillness of Harrow Street, like the far tread and clatter of a -pageant. Mother Nature was actually perceptible in this soft air, and -something that Pidge answered to as never before in New York. Her hands -stretched out to touch the casings of the window; the old wood gave -her an additional warmth. It belonged to this house of Miss Claes, -this house of the mystery of kindness. She was free at this moment of -the fear of accepting too much, having come up to breathe, at least, -out of the ruck of fighting everything and everybody. She had been -utterly graceless and narrow in her acceptances, fighting against -favors, when she knew all the time that to receive is the other part -of giving. A shiver passed over her, nevertheless, as she remembered -the subtle mendicancy that she had known in her father’s house, the -calm acceptance of gifts and favors from others in the belief that one -was evolved enough to give the ineffable in exchange for materials. No -wonder she had run from that. - -This of Miss Claes’ was a house with a heart. This was her house. She -could breathe in it now, at least, for a little. The numbness and -dumbness of the factory had fallen away. The softness stole over her -toward Fanny Gallup and the other girls who must still stay at the -bench. She would never forget. She had earned an understanding of them, -and had been released; _released_ was the word. But something would -carry her back to them one day, something born in that slow madness of -monotony. - -She crossed the room and opened the door into the hall. Supper smells -came up to her, the murmur of voices behind the shut doors. The prima -donna person was singing, not practicing this time, but singing.... -“One comes up through great tribulation to learn to sing,” Miss Claes -had once said, “and others share it.” - -The warmth stole into her from the halls. Everybody was hungry -to-night, the spring hunger, and everybody celebrated, as a festival. -April seemed breathing in the halls, too. April was breathing in -herself; that was why she was awake to this outer delight. If she -could only keep it. It would always be in externals, if she could only -keep this springtime alive within. She laughed a little bitterly. Of -course, she was elated because the factor had dropped away, because -the new position had opened, because the check had come (though she -felt something queer about that), because Richard Cobden and Miss Claes -were fashioned of unswerving kindnesses, which she suddenly realized as -never before. - -“It’s money and place, and I’m ‘falling for’ it, venturing to be -pleased with myself----” She laughed again. “But, oh, it is so -cheerful, so restful to feel New York like this, just for to-night!” - - - - -XI - -THE BABY CARRIAGE - - -PIDGE read manuscripts in the office of _The Public Square_. She saw -them first. The large part of them were seen by no one else. It was -like being a telephone girl in a way, dipping into the secrets of a -thousand houses. But it was much more subtle than that; the secrets -more soulful and revelatory. She saw the hopelessness of life. She saw -love, hopelessly uninviting love--puppy love, and much of the “kidding” -clever love that is made in America, and proud of itself for that. -But over all, there seemed an anguish on the part of male and female, -old and young, _to express_. Before her were secrets of those dying -for expression; in her hands, the progeny. She loathed the desire -everywhere, because she had the same desire herself. - -Every one who wrote and submitted stories and manuscripts had a -“front.” In the personal letters, accompanying their stories and -articles and poems, they told matters about themselves which their -manuscripts did not. They knew this one and that; they had influential -friends who had said this and that about their writing. Parlorfuls -of friends “had been quite carried away by the inclosed.”... Others -hadn’t wanted to write. They had rebelled long; even as Saul, they had -kicked against the pricks; but for the good of others, for the message -it would carry to the world, they had given in at last and written -their story which was inclosed.... “This is a true story,” one personal -letter accompanying said.... “This story may be finished differently,” -another wrote. “I have thought out a happy ending, if the public is not -ready to stand this human one.”... Here was a sales manager who wrote -his personal letter with a jovial laugh: “I have just tossed these few -experiences into a story which my friends insist belongs to you.... -I wouldn’t think of it, but I can’t help seeing what a rotten lot of -stuff the magazines publish!”... This one had decided to write stories -because she was a widow and had no other means of support, and had -heard that writing was “the pleasantest of professions.”... And here -was one who had sent in story after story to rejection for six years. -“Some time I will win,” came the thin tired cry. - -Pidge had fatigued her body in the mill. She tired her heart in the -office of _The Public Square_, reaching Harrow Street with something in -her breast all sore and shamed. This was the queer strenuous part--the -shame of it all. She, too, had fallen into expressing herself, and they -had been kind. Miss Claes had been kind and she knew. But Dicky Cobden -and John Higgins had been kind, though they hadn’t known the author of -the _Lance_. (They would never know.) They had said that the writer -had the fine freedom of youth--“the freedom of ignorance.” - -Pidge knew even better now what that meant. She saw the freedom of -ignorance in the rape of many type machines.... The worst of it was, -she herself wasn’t through. She knew the time would come when a new -story would form within her, and begin its knocking for life.... And -this was New York, the market place; and John Higgins sat near, and -always he held his face nearer the manuscripts toward the end of the -days, his eyes more tired and dim in the late hours.... - -“Miss Musser,” he called one afternoon at the end of the first month. -“I wish you would go out and see what this Rufus Melton really has to -say. We took a story of his some months ago. We had great hopes for -him, but now he’s sent in a raft of junk. Kid stuff, this must be, he’s -trying to work off. I don’t feel like seeing him right now.” - -In the reception room, a young man arose to meet her, as she spoke the -name, “Mr. Melton.” It was a face you would expect to see on one of the -cars of Hollywood Boulevard, among the movie plants. There was a catch -in Pidge’s throat as she said: - -“Mr. Higgins asked me to tell you he was occupied, Mr. Melton. His -report will go to you in a day or two.” - -He was looking down at her, the young man who had written the little -twisted fury of a tale called _Dr. Filter_, which Dicky had brought -to Harrow Street for her to read. She sensed that he regarded her as -an office girl, not as a reader. He couldn’t have been more than -twenty-three or four. He knew that her words portended an evil fate for -his present offerings. It was not hurt alone in his eyes, but rage, too. - -Now Pidge’s mind whirled back to a pair of eyes in a baby carriage at -Santa Monica; eyes of a male infant, said to be the handsomest of that -locality where the hills and mesas break off abruptly for a sea wall. -Large, still, steady blue-black eyes of an actor that had become calm -because they were used to seeing faces wilt before them; long, curving -coal-black lashes. Pidge hadn’t liked them in the infant; at least, -they roused her unpleasantly somehow; and she didn’t like them now. The -resemblance was deeper and more essential than that of family, but what -held Pidge really was something she recognized, or fancied she did, -something that had to do with being broke and threatened with hunger -in New York. His clothing was fine, but had been long used. She had a -positive divination for poverty. - -Now his gaze was lost in her hair, as if he found hope there. Story -failures and New York, fear, and its tough core of hunger, these -amounted to one thing--but red hair was another. The astonishing part -was the constant changing of expressions in his eye. They reflected -every mood and whim of him, for one who could read; that is, when he -forgot to veil them for purposes of his own. Just now he seemed to be -wondering if he had better go any further with this red hair--if he had -time to play. He didn’t seem to consider whether Pidge wanted to play -or not, only whether the game were worth the while of one whose law was -not to let any real chance slip. Pidge had forgotten the hurt of her -message from John Higgins. She had a pronounced feeling that she wanted -to hurt Melton some way herself.... - -“So I can’t see Mr. Higgins?” - -“He’s been unusually rushed to-day.” - -He laughed a little bitterly as if he understood all that. “Are -you--are you his secretary?” - -“No, an under reader.” - -“I see. Have you been through any of my stuff?” - -Pidge glanced at him resentfully; she felt he wouldn’t have asked such -a question of a man. - -“This is a sort of show-down with me,” he went on. “I’m leaving New -York. I really hoped to see Mr. Higgins.” - -His dilemma seemed real. It pulled her out from herself. - -“I’m sorry----” - -“Perhaps you--I’d have to know before to-morrow,” he said jerkily. -“Perhaps you’d look at another story just finished? If you would read -it--there is just a chance you might want to get it to Mr. Higgins -before I go.” - -“Have you the story with you?” - -“No. I was hoping for good word from one of the others first. This new -one is my last wallop. Might I bring it to you, anywhere you say, this -evening?” - -“You may leave it with Miss Claes at 54 Harrow Street.” - -“Are you Miss Claes?” - -“No, but she will give it to me.” - -“Could I call later in the evening also, for your answer? It is only -four or five thousand words.” - -“You know, my reading is merely--I mean Mr. Higgins would have to -decide.” - -“But it would help--if the story pleased you--help to pass the night!” - -“You may leave it with Miss Claes at the basement entrance and call a -little later.” - -Pidge found herself walking on tiptoe back to her desk, the catch still -in her throat. - - - - -XII - -UNDER THE SAME LAMP - - -THE manuscript was delivered while Pidge was out to supper. She took -it upstairs to Cobden’s “parlor” and read with a nervous interest, and -an uncomfortable feeling that Rufus Melton was looking down at her -all the time. She didn’t lose herself in the story, but the feeling -persisted that she might have done so, another time--especially if the -manuscript had come to her in the usual way at the office. Certainly it -was different and distinctive, compared to the run of the unsolicited. -It was artful, if not art.... She heard Nagar’s quiet steady step as he -passed up to his room. She had an impulse to ask him to read, but he -wouldn’t say anything. Anyway, he was gone now. - -This was a story of the Tunisian sands, written, she decided, by one -who hadn’t been there; one who saw the desert as the average American -reader would expect, but with additional flatfooted bits of color -tramped down with audacity. Moonlight was different in Tunisia, and -morals were different--freer than here. There was the glitter of the -snake’s eye through the pages, for Pidge Musser. It made her think of a -sick man in a gorgeous robe. - -She had inferred from Melton’s talk that this story was new; in -fact, that it was still hot from his machine. Yet the manuscript -didn’t feel new; the front and back pages showed wear. Could she -have misunderstood?... It had freedom; not the freedom of ignorance, -but the freedom of a drifting ship. Its anchor dragged, its compass -was uncentered. It cried out, “My God, I am free!” and it was, as a -derelict is free. - -At a quarter of ten, she heard the bell in the basement hall; heard -Miss Claes directing Melton to the next floor. Pidge would not have -had it this way, but people of the house were in the basement. He came -up out of the dim stairway, walking wide, his soft cap crumpled in his -hand, elbows out. He must have learned her name from Miss Claes. - -“You mustn’t think, Miss Musser, that I don’t know how much I am -asking--this favor of yours to-night.” - -There was a sort of lift and draw to the way he took her hand; at the -same time his shoulders and head bent down upon her. This thing that -he was playing to-night was college boy--clumsy subtlety of a big boy -coming home and greeting his sister--seeing in her, at the moment of -greeting, something of the charm other boys might see. He walked around -her under the light, laughing, apologizing, making a humorous picture -of his own tension at _The Public Square_ that afternoon. - -“I went there like an anarchist,” he laughed. “I was prepared to get my -answer or blow up the place. I had to laugh afterwards the way I seized -upon you.” - -“I read the Tunis story,” she said. “Of course, you know it’s really -unimportant what I think. I liked it well enough, but wasn’t carried -away. I felt the color; in fact, color is the main asset of the story, -but it seemed a bit thick----” - -He laughed aloud. He was bending to her again, and most benignly, -college big brother still in his manner and voice. - -“I could tone that down, of course. The trouble is to get a thing like -that straight, when you know that part of Africa as I do. I ought to -have kept off Tunis, that’s the truth of it.” - -“You have really been there?” - -“That’s the worst of it, Miss Musser,” he laughed. “I went through hell -for that story. Too much feeling to write with, you understand.” - -Pidge was awed at her own error. She had been so convinced that the -color was faked that she had judged the whole story on that basis. - -“I’ve already asked too much of you. I’m sorry,” he added ingenuously. -“One can’t force his things through this way. Why, I’d have given the -whole six stories to _The Public Square_ for a hundred dollars, and -taken the cheapening that comes to an author from a trick like that. -That’s how I needed an answer.” - -He had glanced up at the light as he spoke, a white, haggard smile, -that bloodless look around the mouth. Pity caught and controlled her. -She had done him an injustice already. - -“You spoke of leaving New York for the west,” she said. - -He laughed and shrugged, palms held upward. - -“How far? I mean where is your home?” - -He pointed to his cap lying on the arm of a chair, as if to say that -were his home. - -“I’ve got an aunt in Cleveland who wants me,” he added. “A little quiet -house away out on one of the cross streets off Euclid, where there’s a -room and eats and a place to write. I’ll start to walk, I guess.” - -“Where are you staying in New York?” - -He was laughing at her. “A little den up in Union Square--just a -skylight. It’s a cell, Miss Musser, and even there, I have to stay out -until midnight to sneak in without meeting the landlady.... Did you -ever sleep in a room that had no window?” - -“Mine has a window,” Pidge said. - -“Then this isn’t yours?” He pointed to the closed folding doors of the -inner room. - -“Oh, no. Mine’s up higher, but it has a window. This is just a sitting -room we sometimes use--Miss Claes and I--the lodger being away.” - -“Oh,” he said queerly; then added with his haggard smile: “So the color -was put on too thick--that’s too bad.” - -“Does Mr. Higgins know that you have been over there in Tunis?” Pidge -asked. - -“I figured he would, but maybe he will decide, as you did, that I sat -here in New York and stabbed at that setting.” - -“I’ll place the story before him to-morrow. I could say to him that -you’ve been to the desert----” - -“Oh, I wouldn’t. Don’t tell him that. I was hoping, though, that you -could tell him you liked it.” - -Pidge now looked up into a smile almost childlike in its eager purpose. - -“Couldn’t you tell him that? Couldn’t you tell him that--just for what -others may find in the story?” - -The catch was in her throat again. His hand rested lightly upon her -shoulder; his smile was altogether disarming in its wistfulness. She -thought he couldn’t mean what he said. She thought of the face in the -baby carriage in Santa Monica; of this tortured child of whims and -imaginations, in a room with no window, and the pallor around his -mouth. She didn’t like any of it, but did not feel exactly separate -from it. She thought of a little box upstairs in her own room, of the -check her father had sent, which she had so far refused to cash. She -was in a blur, her sense of belonging to Melton’s dilemma over all. - -“You can’t mean for me to tell Mr. Higgins what I don’t believe,” she -said. “I’ll ask him to read the story to-morrow. If he’s against it, I -could--I might help you to pay for the room in Union Square, or--enough -to get to Cleveland.” - -Then the thing happened which she would have apprehended, except for -her pity and personal involvement in his trouble. She was drawn in -between the open flaps of his coat, and held there against the soft -shirt which he wore. And all through her were his whispers--soft -delighted laughter from lips that pressed into her hair and cheeks, -searching for hers. - -She had finally pushed him from her, and they stood apart under the -lamp. For a moment, they stared. Then it seemed as if he studied her, -as one who suddenly revalues, doubles the value of an object. It was -the queerest, intensest scrutiny, his head cocked to one side, the -light and laughter returning to his eyes and lips. - -“I knew I wasn’t safe to come here,” he said. “I knew if you did -like the story, I wasn’t safe to hear the verdict. It was the idea -of getting enough money to escape from that room, to get back into -Cleveland and find myself----” - -Still she stared at him. - -“I don’t suppose you can ever forgive me, but it broke me wide open, -Miss Musser--to find what a ripping sport you are!” - -“That’s about enough words,” she said. - -He looked down. - -“To-morrow,” she went on in a dreary tone, “you may come here--I mean -to the basement entrance, at seven in the evening, and I’ll tell you -Mr. Higgins’ decision. If it’s against the story, I’ll do as I said -about your room rent and the fare to Cleveland.” - -His hands went out to her. - -“After what I did--you still want to do that?” - -“Yes, and now please go.” - -Pidge was up in her own room minutes afterward, before she realized -that it had happened under that white lamp of Cobden’s “parlor.” - - - - -XIII - -“MOTHER” - - -“A MAN’S a fool before he learns technic,” John Higgins said, as he -leaned back from a manuscript the next afternoon. “He’s a cripple while -he’s learning it. When he’s learned it and forgotten he’s learned -it--he begins to be a workman. That’s the freedom of knowledge.... As -for this Tunis story of young Melton’s--it’s a subtle sort of botch.” - -Rufus Melton came to the basement entrance at seven. Even if Miss Claes -had not gone out to dinner, Pidge would not have taken him upstairs. He -looked older, his back had a curious droop. He glanced at her ruefully, -and around the room. Pidge stood beside the table. - -“Mr. Higgins didn’t care for your story,” she said. “It has happened -unluckily all around.” - -His head had bowed before she began to speak. His eyes came up to her -now, full of contrition and pain. - -“I think the hardest thing I ever did was to come here to-night. Only -one thing made it possible. I’d have started west, only New York is a -curious old dump.” - -“How is that?” she asked warily. - -“You have to go north to go west. I mean the only way out is north, for -a pedestrian.” - -“You haven’t enough for the ferry or tube?” - -Their eyes met. - -“What I said last night holds good, you know,” she said with effort. - -He turned slowly to the door as if in indecision, and Pidge watched. -She knew she could make him take the money, but she wanted him to be -ready to die first. - -“There was nothing in the other stories, either--from Higgins’ point of -view?” he asked. - -Pidge was white. She felt like an executioner. “The package was mailed -back to you to-day.” - -For just an instant his head was bowed again, half turned to the door. -Then he veered around and his hand came out to hers. - -“Good night,” he said. - -“Good night. But you--that quiet room in Cleveland----” - -He shook his head with a slow, dawning smile. - -“It’s great to know you. I’ve heard about such people being here in the -Village, but it’s--‘It’s fourteen miles from Schenectady to Troy.’” - -“It’s a long way to Albany before that,” she said. - -“It’s a long way to One-Hundred-and-Tenth Street, Miss Musser, but it -is easier than taking money from a girl.” - -She breathed relief. “I came to fight it out here in New York on the -same terms you did,” she said. “You can pay me back.” - -Now his back was toward her, his face uplifted. She saw his hand grope -for the knob of the door, and his shoulders rock weakly. She caught his -arm and pulled him back to a chair. - -“You see, you really couldn’t get away.” - -He had suffered her to lead him to a dining-room chair, and sat very -still, his head tilted back, eyes closed. She took the little package -of bills from her dress and tucked it into his hand. There were voices -in the hall; a vague frown crossed his white temples. - -“What is it?” he said queerly. - -“You are faint. I’ll go with you to a near place for something to eat. -That’s all you need. Come--if you can walk a little way.” - -He stood in a sort of confusion, holding the folded bills in his hand -as one would hold a card. - -“Put that in your pocket,” she said, but he did not seem to comprehend. - -They were in the street, her hand steadying him. They found a dim -restaurant with a counter and a few tables. He did not speak until -the waiter came; then asked for coffee. Pidge had taken the money and -thrust it into his coat pocket. Now she was tormented with the fear -that he would lose the small roll, not knowing that he had it. She had -not brought her own purse. He would be forced to pay; then he would -have to see what he had. - -He drank the coffee first, then ate sparingly. - -“I learned that in the desert,” he said at last. - -“Learned what, please?” - -“Not to go mad over the taste of food when one has been without.” - -The girl who waited on the table looked devotedly into Melton’s profile -as she served. Twice as he started to speak, the Sixth Avenue elevated -crashed by outside and he seemed to forget what he meant to say. It -seemed more true here in the restaurant than it had been in the house -in Harrow Street, that he was wonderfully good to look upon. The -realization held a small tumult for Pidge. She was altogether different -with him than with any one else. They had finished, and still he -lingered. - -“I’m sorry. I hadn’t intended to come out. I left my bag upstairs. Will -you please pay?” - -To his illness, a look of embarrassment was now added. - -“It’s in your pocket. Right there----” - -She pointed to his coat, and he drew out the bills wonderingly. - -“Oh, I remember,” he said dully. - -While the waitress was away bringing the change, he shoved the rest of -the money across the table to Pidge, but she pushed it back, saying -quietly: - -“I want you to fix up the room rent and get a night train west. We’ll -say no more.” - -His lips whitened under a curious tightening. - -“Let’s get out in the dark,” he said roughly. - -They walked back to Eighth Street and over to the Avenue, entering the -Square that way. The sooty grass was soft and damp; the faintest trace -of fog among the trees. - -“You’ve got something on me,” he was saying strangely. “You’re not like -a girl, but like a woman and a pal, too. You had something on me last -night, or I wouldn’t have fallen for you that way.” - -“When you get back to that Cleveland room--perhaps a real story will -come of all this.” - -“A real story,” he repeated. - -His eyes were bright and the pallor of his face intense enough to be -visible. She was conscious of his inimitable charm as his head inclined -to her and she heard his words in the lowest possible tone: - -“Meeting you--that is the real story.” - -She pushed away his hand that had lifted to hers. - -“You’re all right now. I’m going back. Good night and good luck.” - -He made no attempt to detain her. - -That night Pidge lay for a long time without sleep. She was forlorn -and troubled and restless, but underneath it all there was a queer -little throb of happiness, like the recent night of the two letters. It -would not be stifled. Every time she could get still enough, she was -conscious of it, like the song of a bird that kept on and on, but was -only audible in the lulls of almost unbroken traffic. She awoke in the -night with the thought of him speeding westward on his train. - -The next night when she came home there was another letter from -Los Angeles, another check dropped out, and a clipping, which she -read first--the wedding announcement of “Adolph Musser, the noted -metaphysician, and Mrs. Hastings, wealthy widow of the late Rab Gaunt -Hastings, firearms manufacturer of New England, at the Byzantine,” etc. - -Pidge didn’t have her guard up. The choke and the shame were too swift -for her self-control. For the first time in many days the tears broke, -the extra scaldy sort. If she had only been permitted to keep that -first check uncashed for a few days longer!... - -The next was a day of dullness and misery, a May day of rain. Crossing -Broadway, as she hurried to luncheon, she passed Rufus Melton in the -crowd. Her lips parted to call, but she checked in time. He hadn’t seen -her. She found herself standing loosely in the traffic, her hand to her -mouth, until a taxi driver roared at her, and she swung into the stream -of people again and reached the curb. - - - - -XIV - -ISOLATION - - -PIDGE was leveled with personal shame. Try as she would, she was as -lacking in the ability to detach herself from Melton, as from the -influence of her father. She had felt the boy’s power over her, and -knew innately that she would feel it again; that this sort of thing -wasn’t a mere touch and go; that meetings like this, which appear -sporadic on the surface, have twined roots beneath. She had been taught -from a child that nothing merely happens. The incentive that made her -lend him the fifty dollars, which she had held uncashed for nearly -a month, did not mean to her now a mere impulsive mistake. It was a -symbol of a giving to this boy--of a blind but eager something out of -the depths of her heart. - -Late in June a letter came to her from Dicky Cobden, who was at -Coquihatville on the Equator, where as he said, “the sun’s rays fall as -straight as a tile from a roof.” - - ... Oh, yes, you and Miss Claes knew a lot more than I did that - night at Tara Subramini’s. I shot off a lot of words afterwards. - Never again. But I’m going to stay with it, Pidge.... I’ve just had - ten days here in the jungles, back on one of the tributaries of the - Kong. If I stayed long here, I would see it all as these exiled white - men do; that God is a rubber man with ivory legs; that the natives - are vermin, not only to be walked over, but to be stamped into the - ground. They whimper so. It’s too hot here to be whimpered at.... I - think so much about you. Of course, this isn’t news to you, but I - say it, because it is so different from what I thought it would be. - Something snapped when I got to the Kong.... All fat and decoration - are sweated off down here. I reach out to you just the same. Only - in New York I thought that we were both wrapt in the same sort of - film, a tinted filmy sort of glamour that stretched out as we went - different ways. That film was stretched too hard. When I reached the - River it snapped. I think I’ll never get over feeling this awful - isolation of being a separate creature from everybody, worst of all - from you.... - -... Next morning in the office John Higgins called her in to his desk. -“Dicky has sent in some stuff. We begin to publish in August.” - -He took off his spectacles and wiped them on the flap of his necktie. -His eyes looked watery, as if the light had run out in tears. - -“I’ve always heard that the Cobdens were honest,” he went on, “three -generations of honest men. They’ve built something, Miss Musser. Not a -business, that’s well enough, but they’ve built a man. Listen----” - -He opened the pages at random and began to read. It was like the stuff -in her letter. - -“It’s so for pages and pages,” he continued. “Every word standing out, -if you get the hang of it. No tint, no art; just words, pain-born, -separate like boulders in a field. He has no hopes, yet he writes what -he sees.... Something seems to have happened to our Dicky, besides -Africa.... He watches the string of natives coming in with their tusks; -he watches the crocodiles coming up to the blinding surface water; he -watches the big monkeys that live in twos, and the little monkeys that -live in troops. I don’t know what the world’ll get out of this, but I -know what I get out of it----” - -She saw that John Higgins was merely thinking out loud. A few moments -later he finished: - -“This stuff amounts to the most subtle and incredible rearraignment of -imperialistic cruelty, but Dicky doesn’t mean it that way. He keeps -repeating with devilish calm that it isn’t so bad as it was. It’s no -particular nation, but all whites. He writes from the standpoint of -a white man who remembers Cortez in Mexico, Pizarro in Peru, Warren -Hastings in India, Cecil Rhodes in Africa and our own dear religious -settlers bringing Yankee wits and rum and disease to the red Indians. -He turns over the pages of all patriotic histories with a long stick -as you would poke the leaves from the face of a corpse you had made -yourself. His face tries to turn away; his stomach retches, but he -knows each man and each nation must bury his own dead.” - -“‘Something seems to have happened to our Dicky, besides Africa,’” -Pidge repeated, when she was alone. - -Summer days in New York, sleepy stewy days. The low clouds made the -nights hot. Pidge was used to the “high sky” of Southern California -where every inch of shadow meant coolness, where cool night fell -quickly no matter how hot it had been in the sun, where there were no -afterglows, nor afterheats, and you wanted a wrap the instant the sun -went down. The meaning of summer in New York became a cruel meaning, in -the little room off the area. It gave her an astonishing grasp of what -people suffered in the tenements. - -Two weeks after the copy arrived from Africa, the galleys came up on -the Cobden articles, and Pidge asked permission to take a set home to -show two friends of Dicky’s in Harrow Street. John Higgins acquiesced. -Pidge delivered these to Miss Claes and forgot all about it, until the -next night when she returned to the house after dinner, and Miss Claes -called her from the door of Cobden’s “parlor.” - -“Come in, Pidge, and we’ll shut everything out.” - -Nagar was within and the galleys were stretched out under the -light. Pidge had never seen Miss Claes and Nagar quite like this. -They appeared happy over something they had found in Dicky Cobden’s -isolation and melancholy--happy as in the news of a legacy. - -“Why, don’t you see?” said Miss Claes strangely. “He’s pondering on -Life! He thinks he’s reporting--when really he is giving himself -to Life. The world stretches out before his eyes without glamour, -stripped. He offers himself to it, but his writing contains a -confession with the weariness of the ages on it, that he has nothing -to give--that he is a sham like all the rest. There’s not a self-pose -in all his pages.” - -Nagar had slipped out. Miss Claes came close and added softly: - -“Richard is finer than we knew, Pidge. What happened here in this house -has prepared him--always the wrecker before the builder.” - -“You mean, I’m the wrecker?” - -“You couldn’t have done differently.... Too bad he isn’t to see -Mohandas Gandhi. Nagar has received word that the Little Man is -returning to India. Richard didn’t go to Natal first.” - -“He’ll be so sorry,” Pidge said. “It was Nagar’s story that drew him to -Africa----” - -Their eyes met; no need to amplify. - -“Dicky’s so deadly in earnest,” Pidge went on. “He sees what he sees -the same at ten in the morning and at ten at night. His coming to -Harrow Street didn’t mean a whim. His part that night of our Punjabi -dinner didn’t mean a whim. Oh, but I’m so glad he hasn’t started out to -save the world!” - -“He’s preparing to work better than that.” - -“I feel so ungrateful for not missing him more,” Pidge added -unsteadily, “for not being more interested in this that pleases you. -I can appreciate, but oh, Miss Claes, I don’t belong to your way of -seeing things. I’ll always be Dicky Cobden’s hangman, always hurting -myself more!” - -They were standing close together. - -“Nothing matters to me but myself!” Pidge moaned. “I’m hopelessly lost -in myself--that’s what’s the matter! What room have I for Africa or the -world? There’s more to me in the struggle of John Higgins not to get -drunk--in the body hunger and body love of Fanny Gallup--in the lies of -Rufus Melton! I can understand this world-service thing--oh, I can see -the nations like chessmen on the table!--but I can’t fix Fanny Gallup -or John Higgins, I can’t fix Rufus Melton. I can’t fix myself!” - - - - -XV - -THE COBDEN INTERIOR - - -PIDGE heard about the assassinations in Bosnia as wearily as of a -murder in little Sicily. She heard rumors of war in Europe with -ennui--how could there be energy enough left in the human race to make -war? She met Nagar in the lower hall at Harrow Street on the evening -that war became a fact. He looked like a dead man walking in the -twilight. She didn’t see Miss Claes at all that night. The next day in -the office war began to show its personal aspects to Pidge Musser of -Los Angeles. John Higgins was hours late in returning from lunch. She -saw that he wouldn’t be down at all to-morrow. He looked old. He had -on a black frock coat, as if dressed for pallbearing, though his face -looked as if he were about to be borne himself. The little office was -fumy, sweetish. - -“Our blessed Savior moves in mysterious ways,” he remarked. - -Pidge lingered at the door to get any significance that this might have -for her. - -“The Lord gives and the Lord takes away,” he added, sitting back -straight in his chair. - -He removed his spectacles and reached for the flare of his tie to -polish them off, but no tie dangled to-day. It was a little black -store-made bow, fastened with a clip over the collar button. Pidge -still lingered, her hand on the knob. - -“Blessed be the name of the Lord,” said John Higgins, “but it’s hell on -us.” - -She started out, but was called back. - -“I need an audience, Miss Musser. I need a female ear. I need ladylike -sympathy. It isn’t sweet of you to run off.” - -“What’s the matter?” - -The editor looked at her, squinted, put on his spectacles and looked -again. - -“Do you mean to say you don’t know what’s the matter?” - -“Everything is the matter,” said Pidge. “But what’s new?” - -His hand nearest her lifted and rested upon a pile of page proof on his -desk. - -“Dicky Cobden hasn’t written a line from the Kong that we can publish. -We’ve cabled him to come in, though he’s probably started. You’ll -recall that Belgium lies between France and Germany. She’s holding the -Germans off from Paris, giving France and England a chance to get set. -Belgium’s the world’s public square right now, the one vortexical spot -on the face of the earth. Doesn’t it occur to you that even a new angle -on her sins in the heart of Africa is about as much in time and place -right now, as Paul Revere’s ride?” - -... Three weeks later, she heard that Richard Cobden was in town; that -John Higgins had seen him the night before. All that day at the office -she kept listening for his step and voice, but he didn’t come. His car -was in front of the Harrow Street house, however, when she reached -there, and a light showed between the doors from his “parlor.” She lost -some of the sense of suffocation when she saw that, a curious gladness -for a moment. She tapped the door with her finger tip, pulled the -curtain aside ever so little and said: - -“Hello.” - -A quick step in the inner room; then he was before her in the doorway, -drawing her in under the light. - -“Pidge--Pidge,” he repeated. - -The boyish look was gone from him. He might have been taken for ten -years older. The thing had happened that takes place abruptly in many -Americans, more among business men than artists: Youth had been put -away, its trace of divine humor exchanged for adult seriousness. - -“Why didn’t you come to the office to-day, Dicky?” she asked. - -“I wanted to see you here--like this.” - -They were standing under the light. - -“Why, you’re different,” she said. - -“John Higgins said that. They told me so at home, uptown. I feel -different, but it isn’t an improvement. And you, Pidge, you’re taller. -And John Higgins says you’re doing so well.” - -“I’m thanking you every day for that----” - -She kept thinking about the change in him. If this were selflessness, -she liked him better before. He had been quite unselfish enough, she -thought. She didn’t see the fight in him, because it was so subtly -identified with herself. She only knew that he seemed without fight. - -“Keep on your things, Pidge. We’ll go out somewhere----” - - * * * * * - -That was the beginning of strange days and evenings. They played at -the old game of _Comrades_. Often they lunched together, occasionally -with John Higgins for a third. At such times it seemed that they took -_The Public Square_ with them, subscribers, advertisers, contributors, -policies. It was that curious time in America when the personal and -national meaning of the European war was breaking through with all its -paralyzing ramifications; when all who were sensitive at all reflected -division and strife in themselves, as a deep leveling sickness. - -Pidge was taken to the Cobden home, a new and terrifically complicated -modern apartment in East Fiftieth Street, but the furnishings, the -household ceremonials, the people themselves, suggested prints of New -York interiors in 1870--respectable, established, grim. The gradual -speeding up of the world for a half century to the explosive point of -1914 ended with the click of the key in this hall door, and you were -in the world of another day, with a spinster aunt, a widowed mother, -an unmarried sister, a slowly disintegrating grandfather, and Dicky -himself, not in a different guise at all--the same courteous, sincere -Dicky, but now to Pidge Musser’s western eyes, utterly, revealingly -comprehensible. This was the place that had made him. This was his -reason for being. - -Here life was life. Here was the family unit, the family a globe, -all human society moving outside like the water around a bubble; -a closed globe reflecting all else in curious unreality. Here -three-score-and-ten was life, and a very long time. Life wasn’t a -spiritual experiment, in matter; not an extension in matter of souls -that had made innumerable such experiments, but straight work-a-day -three-score-and-ten with oblivion at the birth end, and heaven or hell -at the other. Here was All Time, in which it behooved man and woman -to gather worldly goods and religious goods and love one another and -hang together--for the rest was with God. Here senility was dear. The -heavy-bodied, dim-minded grandfather was still grandfather, not the -vanishing spirit of him. They would weep when the body passed. They -would look to his place in the cemetery and say, “Here he lies.” - -Pidge Musser wanted to scream, not at the limitations, but at the -kindness which was showered upon her. They were ready to perform the -great transaction of taking her in, opening their hearts and house -to a maiden, who would bring respectable additions to the Cobden -line--sharing wealth, well-being, gentleness, the Cobden name which had -been kept clean and useable and virile, and the Cobden God, who stood -on the other side of death with angelic associates and rewards in His -hands. - -Pidge continually felt that her next word would ruin everything; yet -they unswervingly regarded her as becoming one with themselves; the -process of assimilation already begun. They were patient, knowing of -old that a new maiden would have incrustations of the world to check -off, inequalities to be planed down. They set about not adjusting to -her, but as she fancied, assimilating her, as the changeless Chinese -assimilate a weaker race, breaking down the foreigner in themselves. -She would become theirs to them with the years. - -“Oh, Dicky,” Pidge said, when they were in his car again. “I see. I -understand. How did you dare to open those doors to me!” - -“I spoke of you at home, Pidge. They wouldn’t have understood if I -hadn’t brought you soon. They were prepared to open their arms to you. -They have their laws----” - -“But they are your laws. Dicky--how did you dare? Is it because you -don’t know me, don’t see me at all? Do you see something which you want -to see, that has nothing to do with me?” - -“What is it that troubles you so?” - -“Myself--always and forever myself! Oh, don’t you see I have nothing -to do with them? Why, you’re comfortable, Dicky--your people are -comfortable! _This_ is life to you--this, here and now! It isn’t to me. -Life’s an exile to me, a banishment and coldness and pain. In all New -York there are not two such opposites. My God is far away. Yours is -here--a Person.” - -He answered hopelessly: “I can see how it would strike you, but I -couldn’t cover up on account of that. I belong to them. I’m of them. -Any front I might put on wouldn’t wear. You had to see us, Pidge----” - -Another time she might have seen the fine thing back of those words, -but she took such finenesses of Richard Cobden for granted, while he -rarely could understand that she saw anything but his faults. - -“It’s queer,” he said, in the same dull hopeless way. “I stand to -you as the most staid and changeless person, but to my family I am -dangerous, a fulminant. They love and trust me, but watch me with -fierce concern. Already I’ve broken more Cobden convictions in -twenty-five years than all my relatives in all their years.” - -His face glanced wearily toward her from the lights of the street, as -he drove. - -“You’ve let me understand too much for one Sunday afternoon,” she said -in an awed voice, “and it feels colder and lonelier than ever before. -I even see something of the coming years, Dicky. I see that it means -Fate, when you say ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ I see that you turn to a girl to -stay. I see you don’t cheat. I see that I’m volatile compared; that my -honesty is a fierce effort, a deadly self-conscious effort, and yours -is an established habit. I’m clumsy at my honesty. I love it terribly, -but it is still on the outside of me--something to attain.” - -She sank back, laughing. “I wonder if it will stay as deadly clear as -this?” - -“You are not making it quite clear to me,” he said. - -“I must. Oh, I must. Dicky, please open your soul and listen to -me--hard, hard! While it’s clear, I must talk. You’ve chosen to be my -friend. You’ve chosen not to take the easier course of hating me. I -understand all that better now than the night of the Punjabi dinner.” - -“I do, too,” said Cobden, and bitterness of the African rivers was in -his words. - -“Do I have to begin by saying how dear you are--how kind, how utterly -good it is to know you; what it means to have faith and trust in one -man?” - -“Please not, Pidge.” - -“But never forget it, Dicky. It’s the pedestal upon which everything’s -builded. Always remember that I know you underneath; that I turn to you -in trouble--not like a brother or father or lover, but what our word -_comrade_ means--what it will sometime mean to many people! That’s you. -But, Dicky, because I know you--I can look away! Don’t you see--you’re -like something done! Having found you, I can turn to other things.” - -“I’ll try to see that, but most people find each other differently, to -stay----” - -“It’s because they don’t find what I’ve found. I don’t know what I -want, only I know there are terrible undone things in me, that other -people stir to life. I’m lost in persons. Miss Claes and Nagar lose -themselves in nations. You’re getting to be like them, but I see it -all in the personal!... Listen, Dicky, if you were to get a woman to -take to your house--one ready to go in and be a Cobden and a mother of -Cobdens--I could love her! I could hold to you just as close, though -secretly. I would expect you to be my _comrade_ just the same--I mean -just between us--never on the outside, perhaps. What I mean is, it -wouldn’t hurt me--not the thing we have together.” - -His car had come to a stand in the stillness of Harrow Street, but -still they sat. - -“What you mean is--you haven’t any place for me as a lover or a -husband.” - -“That’s like you, but that’s it.... Dicky, you mean to me something -done, something found. I don’t dare to turn to you and rest. The savage -undone things in me _won’t_ rest! They demand experiences, life--and no -one knows better, that they mean pain ... and oh--under your lamp--it’s -horrible to tell it, but you’ll forgive me later, when you see that it -had to be told----” - -“What are you talking about, Pidge?” - -“Under your lamp--in there! He came about a manuscript. He was broke -and needed help--all his stories refused. He asked to see me that -night. Miss Claes’ basement was occupied. She sent him up. We talked. -He wanted something, money, everything. Under your light--he took me -to him, his coat open----” - -Cobden startled her, as he cleared his throat. The silence between them -had been so deep. - -“It meant nothing to him! He was used to it. It was only his way to -get something--money most, he wanted. It was just as he might take a -waitress or hall maid--used to having girls ‘fall for’ him. This is -what I mean--though I understand him, a theatrical mind, a liar--life -meant something to me that instant, that it never meant before. -Something I must do, something calling--pain, but something I haven’t -done!” - -“You mean--you mean--it isn’t over?” - -“Just that, Dicky, and oh, forgive me! I may not see _him_ ever again, -but _something in me_ isn’t ‘over.’ I had to tell you--to be honest, to -learn to be honest. You’ll be glad some day!” - - - - -XVI - -DICKY FEELS A SLUMP - - -IT was nearly a week afterward when Pidge heard sounds, not of meeting -only, but of mauling, from over the partitions of Richard Cobden’s -office at _The Public Square_. Her desk was now in John Higgins’ room. -The racket was “young”--something of the sort you expect in a college -fraternity house, rather than in the editorial rooms of a magazine of -dignified social protest and short story ideals. John Higgins winced -and glared. Now the stranger’s voice was upraised: - -“You’re not seedy, Dick--you’re decayed! If Africa treats a man like -that, I’m off the Sahara for life.” - -Pidge heard this with something of the sense of personal arraignment. -The ugly part was that it was true, and it hadn’t been the truth a week -before. Dicky had been changed when he arrived, but the change since -their ride home from his mother’s apartment in Fiftieth Street was -more definitely disturbing. She found John Higgins’ eyes upon her and -started guiltily. He leaned forward to whisper: - -“It’s a fact. Something’s eating our Dicky. He’s losing his bounce.” - -For once, Pidge did not altogether blame herself. There had been no -two ways about telling him what had happened under the light. She had -been challenged to speak on their first evening together after his -return, challenged every hour of the week afterward; and yet it was not -until after the words were out, spoken in her particularly ruthless and -unequivocal way, that she actually saw the power of their hurt. - -In Africa Dicky had stripped himself of hope, in the most complete -way he knew. Africa is said to have a way of helping a man in this. -Doubtless he had winnowed this hope down to a semi-impersonal concept, -that straight, clean devotion would win its reward. But Africa alone -was one thing, and New York with Pidge was another. He had been -entirely innocent of the possibilities of pain his heart was capable of. - -Still they went out together. They tried, furiously tried, but the star -toward which they had held their eyes, the star named _Camaraderie_, -was for the present out of their sky. She tried to give herself in -interest to his particular studies of world politics. His views had -nothing to do with intuition or prophecy. Dicky gripped affairs on an -academic basis of economics, and the only light he had to work with -in relation to the turmoil in Europe was from the same friction that -had furnished his sparks in Africa--the pain of his own heart. He told -her of the delicate and dangerous adjustments between the nations, as -he saw them; the organic play, the push and pull on every national -boundary; the draw of Russia upon India, for instance; the grim hold of -the British bulldog; the interatomic play of India, Ireland and Egypt; -the poison vats of the Balkans, the frowning menaces of the Levant. One -night he spoke of Italy’s inner and outer stresses, and of her age-old -hatred for Austria. - -“And Pidge,” he said quietly, “you won’t mind my saying it, will you? -I see it all so clearly when I talk to you. I know you’ll tell me that -you don’t know anything about these things. You always tell me that, -but you certainly make me know them better.” - -And another time when they were going out together in the evening and -she had come down from the upper floor with her wrap which he took for -a moment: - -“I’m sure you won’t mind, Pidge,” he said, “if I tell you that the -little things you wear quite take me over. They actually hurt, and I -never saw you look quite like to-night.” - -This was the quality--more like the words of an older man; a touch of -sentimentality upon them, as if he were diminished in her presence, -something in him so whipped it did not dare appear on the surface. -This was unpleasant to Pidge. The changeless want in his heart -suffocated her at times; then her affection changed to revolt. She -became irritable and uncentered, her temper hard to govern. She wanted -freedom--freedom for something utterly undelineated, but freedom to -Life (in Miss Claes’ meaning of that word of words) and she saw him in -such times as one who stood in her way. - -One night in the little upper room, in her own particular time of -self-revelation, as Pidge lay on the borderland between sleep and -waking, she saw herself like an ogre, and Dicky Cobden like a terrified -child in a great house, and she was driving him from one room to -another, from one floor to another, to an inevitable cornering in the -farthest wing. - -Finally an early October evening, and again his car had halted before -54 Harrow Street. Pidge sat beside him, but Dicky had not opened the -door. - -“Pidge,” he said suddenly, “I’ve got to the end of my rope. I’m not -making good. I’m all blurred on what we’re trying to do. It’s--it’s too -much for me here.... I don’t want France or Flanders. I’m going into -the Near East for _The Public Square_ and a newspaper syndicate.” - -“I knew it. I felt it coming, at least,” she said. “And I’ve failed, -too, all the time. But, Dicky, back of everything, I know there must -be somebody laughing at our seriousness and stupidity. We’ll see the -puzzle straight some time. You’ll see.” - -They both were sitting straight up. - -“Nobody’s--nobody’s shoulder?” he asked with terrible effort. - -“No, Dicky. It would only fog us up--all the more.” - - - - -XVII - -NEW LODGERS FOR HARROW STREET - - -PIDGE MUSSER was ending her second year in the editorial rooms of -_The Public Square_, when a short story came in from Rufus Melton. -Meanwhile, his work had begun to appear in magazines of large popular -appeal. This manuscript, called _The Boarded Door_, had doubtless not -fitted into any of them. The chief thing about the story to Pidge was -that her cheeks burned as she read. - -This made her angry. Another thing, the story was so familiar to her. -She seemed to be in and out of Melton’s mind, hearing his typewriter, -understanding even his corrections. But also she saw what the author -could not--his fluctuations of fancy, which uncentered the tale. - -“He’s beginning to be read,” said John Higgins. “It’s not a bad story. -We’d better take it.” - -“It is not his best work. There’s a cavity in it,” said Pidge. “If it -were by a new name altogether, we’d write the author suggesting that he -work over the weak part.” - -“Do it,” said John Higgins. - -Pidge laughed nervously. “He won’t like it,” she said. - -“Don’t mind that. Rufus Melton can write. He’ll have his hour, but go -ahead and scuttle the ship, young woman. We don’t care about pleasing -our passengers.” - -Back at her own desk, Pidge was smitten with the idea that she wasn’t -being fair. In the course of reading Melton’s story, she had not once -forgotten that he had failed to pay back that fifty dollars. Not only -that, Rufus Melton hadn’t mentioned it; and he was said to be making -money right now. She had to write the letter to Melton three times. -Films of ice formed on the sentences and had to be skimmed off, in -spite of her most rigid effort. She carried the sheet, signed by “The -Editors,” to John Higgins, with a restless feeling that damage was done. - -“That’s just like what Dicky Cobden would say,” he remarked, handing it -back. “Send it along with the manuscript.” - -Pidge wasn’t allowed to forget Dicky Cobden, though Richard, himself, -was across the world and remained across, apparently groping to find -the exact antipodes from Washington Square, New York. Between Miss -Claes’ affection for him and John Higgins’ and Nagar’s; considering her -occasional use of his “parlor” in Harrow Street and her daily use of -his old desk in the office, to say nothing of the position she occupied -through his kindness and care--no, she wasn’t being allowed to forget. - -About the same time that Rufus Melton’s story came in to the office, a -dingy bit of white paper came to Harrow Street for Pidge. It was like -a paper you would see in the street around a public school building. -Pidge was awed at the unfailing magic of the post-office authorities, -that the letter had ever been delivered. It was from Fanny Gallup, who -had married Albert and left the pasting table shortly after Pidge’s -change of fortune. Pidge had seen Fanny but once in the meantime, but -had asked her to write or telephone in case of need. - -Pidge found the hall designated in the third floor of a condemned -building in Foley Street, and was directed to a door through which came -the sounds of a crying child. Her knock was answered, and the caller -gradually realized through the shadows that she was being grinned at. -She smiled back, wondering if the shoeless creature were Fanny’s sister -or mother. She wore no outer waist and a heavy plaid skirt that was -splashed with wash water. An infant shrank into the hollow curve of her -body, and another child sat wailing on the wet floor behind. - -“I thought you’d come, Musser.” - -It was Fanny herself. Pidge had crossed the threshold to look into -eyes in which hate and hunger moved in a narrow orbit; narrow like the -wet spot on the floor, in which the first-born played. Tired back, -draggled hair, merely a stretched and faded vestige of a girl was Fanny -Gallup now. Laugh and street talk were gone for the time, at least; -gone as Albert, the barber, as much a myth as ever, so far as Pidge was -concerned, though the place hypothecated a male parent. These three -remaining seemed purposeless bits of life which a perverted scheme -permitted to live on. - -Pidge hated herself for becoming involved in the complication. For the -moment, she hated New York that could not keep itself clean. No rent, -no food, somebody else’s washing in the tubs, and the rags of Fanny and -her children unwashed. - -“... No, it ain’t no good to think of staying, Musser, because they’re -tearing the buildin’ down.” - -“How much rent do you owe?” - -“Five weeks. But it ain’t no good to pay that, because I got to get out -anyway. Gawd, Redhead, you look like a doll in a window!” - -“Is there any place around here where you can go?” - -“It’s hard to get in with the two, and you’d have to pay a month in -advance,” Fanny said. - -“How soon do you have to leave here?” - -“Four days. That’s why I sent the letter.” - -“Have you got any--anything to eat?” - -“That’s why I sent the letter. That’s why they keep squalling all the -time.” - -“I’ll be back before dark,” Pidge said, turning into the hall. - -“You’ll--sure--come--back?” - -“Sure,” called Pidge. - -She returned with her arms full of groceries, and went home promising -to come back the next afternoon. - - * * * * * - -“... Bring them here. There is no other way,” Miss Claes said. - -“But they’re not clean!” Pidge moaned. “They are too sick to keep -clean.” - -“We can freshen them up a little,” said Miss Claes. - -“But there’s nothing Fanny can do, unless the two children are taken -from her. I mean she’s held to the room with them now, and they’ve been -crying so long that they can’t stop. They both cry at once, and she -doesn’t hear them; they look and listen for a second and then go on -crying. If one stops, he hears the other. The place smelled like a sty, -and the packages of food I brought got wet and spoiled before they were -opened.” - -“Forget about them until to-morrow, Pidge, and then get a taxicab and -bring them here. I’ve got a second-floor room toward the back.” - - - - -XVIII - -AN OUTER CHANGE - - -MISS CLAES standing by the table in her own room heard a step upon -an upper stairway; not on the immediate basement stairs, but of -one descending from the second to the first landing. The tread was -deliberate. She heard it now in the hall directly above. Miss Claes -moved to the door, her hand against her cheek; then back to stand by -the table again. Now the step was on the basement stairs. A fire was -burning in her grate, and that was the main light of the room, for the -winter morning was very gray. The table was prepared for one--plate -and cup of ruddy gold, a cutting of white hyacinth in a purple vase. -The footsteps approached in the basement hall; a heavy bag was placed -down outside Miss Claes’ door; then Nagar appeared, a dark hat and an -overcoat upon his arm. He came forward, and the two stood together for -a moment. - -“At least this once, I can serve you,” Miss Claes said. - -Nagar smiled as he sat down to the table. Miss Claes went into the -kitchen and presently brought a pot of tea in a Chinese basket and a -covered dish. She filled a goblet from the water bottle, and stood -behind his chair while Nagar ate. The house was strangely silent. - -Nagar arose. They stood together again for a moment by the mantel. He -spoke in Hindi, and she listened, like one already weary, hearing of -more things to do. Not until she smiled, did he turn away. She did not -follow to the door, nor look toward the window, as he passed up the -steps to the street. After a long time, she stepped to the cabinet for -a cigarette and lit it standing by the fireplace. - - - - -XIX - -FANNY DRIES HER TEARS - - -FANNY GALLUP was taking life easy. She had not been separated from her -children, but relieved for the present from the hunger drive to support -them. Pidge helped to pay Fanny’s room and board, but didn’t miss the -fact that the main expense fell upon Miss Claes. - -“There is a little fund back of me for just such cases, Pidge,” Miss -Claes said. “I rarely divulge the fact, but there is no reason in the -world why you should be inconvenienced.” - -“Except that I brought her here----” - -“I asked you to.” - -“Except that she called on _me_ in her trouble, and I worked elbow to -elbow with her for four months, and she pulls out the very devil from -me every time I see her.” - -“Your feeling of responsibility is what makes you what you are--I never -miss that, Pidge. If you weren’t so hard and straight on all the tricky -little matters of dollars and cents, you can be very sure I’d never -tell you my secret of secrets, about the fund.” - -“I’ll have to pay what I can, if only because I hate to so. But I can -never pay for bringing her to your house.” - -Miss Claes laughed. “That is only the way you see it. Fanny isn’t heavy -on us here. Not at all. It’s the dear, possessive Pidge that is hurt. -Do you suppose I am torn by what goes on in the rooms and halls? Not -torn beyond repair from day to day, at least. Fanny’s only a little -more simple than most, a little less secretive.” - -“She’s unmoral,” Pidge declared solemnly. “The awful thing is, she -doesn’t learn. Life passes through her like a sieve, leaves its muck on -her, and she doesn’t learn.” - -Philosophy seldom helped Pidge; she had heard too much of it, and money -was invariably a serious affair. In the California life there had -never been enough money for all needs. Adolph Musser was unable to do -without what he wanted, even though the immediate tradespeople of the -neighborhood were frequently forced to. The metaphysician relied upon -the Law of Providence to take care of them; and this had hacked and -hewed into Pidge’s disposition; this had meant red war to her soul up -to the last hour in her father’s house. - -Here in New York the fight had been different. Even with Miss Claes -mysteriously back of her from the beginning, she had faced, in her -first few months in New York, the ugly candor of starvation. There was -established in Pidge both from Los Angeles and New York experiences, -a determination to fix herself unrockingly on her own feet in a -financial way; and now, just as she might have gotten a bit ahead, was -the expense of Albert’s children, and the claims of their mother, which -were getting to look as interminable to Pidge as a ninety-nine years’ -lease. - -Another trouble was that Fanny was beginning to show fresh traces of -her sense of the “fun of the thing.” Her spine was stiffening a little -with good food and rest, and curious little suggestions of starch -showed in lips and hair and breast that had been utterly draggled. She -was often seen hanging over the banisters; sure indication of renewal -of life and hope. She didn’t weep over the departed Albert; in fact, -Pidge Musser observed, as an added revelation of the hatefulness -of life, that Fanny was back on the scene looking for a man--not -earnestly, not passionately, but without compunction and entirely -unwhipped. Fanny granted that she was nobody, that she never had been; -but that was no sign why she should pass up anything that was going by. -Pain and hunger were forgotten like a sickness. - -One night as she was coming in, Pidge heard Fanny’s low laugh on the -floor above, as she ran upstairs in time to shoo a lodger from Fanny’s -arms in the doorway. Then she followed into the littered room and a -light was made. The two women faced. The laugh remained unwithered on -Fanny’s cheerful face. - -“Oh, Musser, you look so cross,” she panted. - -“Don’t you remember--?” Pidge began. - -“Remember wot?” - -“What you were in that beast’s nest in Foley Street?” - -“That’s what you always want, Musser, always want me to keep -rememberin’, just as I’m getting straightened out.” - -The fashion of Fanny’s straightening out settled upon Pidge, as she -looked around the room. Its awfulness was beyond tears to her, even -beyond laughter. - -“Fanny Gallup, if you bring another baby here, I’ll--I’ll----” - -“There ain’t going to be no other baby here, Musser. I ain’t nobody’s -chicken like that.” - - - - -XX - -THEY WALK IN CIRCLES - - -ONE day just as Pidge was finishing luncheon with John Higgins, she -was startled to hear Melton’s voice. He moved around their table with -a fling of his coat tails and held out both his hands. It actually -sounded, though she never was sure, as if he said something like, “I’ve -been looking everywhere for you.” - -Pidge fancied a sort of rueful wonder on the old editor’s face, as he -announced his haste to get back to the office, and bolted out.... She -was recalling the baby carriage in Santa Monica. Melton’s face was -slightly broader, she thought, and the poise of young success was upon -it. One thing she had never known before was how remarkably well his -curly head was placed upon its shoulders. The neck was not merely a -nexus, but a thing of worth in itself, with arch and movement which -made him look taller and intimated something light and fleet, touching -memories which Pidge could not quite grip. - -They were together in the street. Melton had asked her to walk with him -to his bank. He seemed on both sides of her at once, his hand drawing -her deftly this way and that through the crowd, his chat and laughter -in her ears, and an old indescribable weariness and helplessness in -herself. - -“... Sure, I could have hunted you up. In fact, I would have done it -eventually, but I haven’t been in New York all the time; running back -west to get my stuff up, now and then.” - -“I thought you lived in New York,” Pidge said. - -“I keep an apartment in East Twenty-fourth Street,” he granted. - -A lull for just an instant before he went on: - -“You see, it’s handy to my publishers, and my bank is only a square or -two away.” - -Pidge wished she could accept him for just what he seemed--the upstart -American in literature. She wished to forget everything else, save the -youth who said, in effect, “This is my bank, this is my solicitor, -this is my publisher.” But she could not smile her scorn and pass on. -She felt like the parent of a child showing off. Back of the tinkle -and flush of these big days of his, which he seemed to be drinking -in so breathlessly, she felt more than ever that thing about him -which was imprisoned. A thing it was that called to her, kept calling -beseechingly. - -“I’ll never forget,” he said, speaking of the fifty dollars--“I’ll -never forget that night, when I left you--and the fog in the Square. -Everything was different, after that.” - -“You didn’t go to Cleveland that night, as you said,” she declared, -watching the curve of his black lashes. - -The eyes darted her way. - -“Lucky, I didn’t,” he said. “God! How I wanted to! New York had me -bluffed that night, before you came to the rescue.” - -“Why didn’t you go?” - -“I was up close to Grand Central with my bag, when the idea struck -me--the idea that has since come out in the story series that has -caught on. I could hardly realize that I had your money. I kept it in -my hand--the hand in my pocket. That was a turning point in a life. New -York had frightened me pretty nearly to death--the hunger thing, you -know. All I wanted on earth was to crawl into that train for Cleveland, -but it was as if you were calling on me to stay.” - -She turned in pain and amazement. He was looking straight ahead and -talking softly. She saw every twist and drive of his mind as he -dramatized the situation unfolding to him. He was deeply absorbed in -the pictures which his fertile brain uncovered one by one. It hurt her -like the uncovering of something perverted in herself. - -“Don’t go on like that,” she said. “You’re not working now. You are -just walking in the street. You mustn’t make stories when you talk.” - -He glanced at her sorrowfully, as one realizing in himself a truth so -big that he is willing to wait for it to be believed. - -“It is God’s truth,” he said. “That was the turning point in my -career--that night--the night I turned back from the train. It was as -if you were calling me, and it was as if the idea came from you. I knew -I had to stay on and do the work here, close to the markets.” - -She looked into his face and laughed. - -“And you could forget me--forget the fifty dollars for nearly a year!” - -“I don’t blame you for talking that way. I expect to be -misunderstood--not me, but the thing I stand for.” - -She was hushed. Could he mean that he suffered in conscious conflict? -Could it be that he was aware at all of that imprisoned thing she saw -back of his eyes? He had halted, and now she turned again for him to go -on. - -“I hoped that you, you of all, might understand,” he said. “Why, it was -from you that the whole thing started.” - -He seemed actually to be making himself believe it. She felt herself -trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. - -“Do you know you’re changed?” he said, in sudden exultation. “Do you -know you’re five times as charming? What’s happened?” - -“Nothing has happened,” said Pidge. - -“It was the strangest shock, in the restaurant when I saw you. I knew -it was you, and yet you’ve put on something--out of the ordinary.” - -“Oh, don’t.... I must go back to the office now.” - -“The bank is just half a block. We’ve been walking in circles. I hadn’t -a check in my pocket.... I wanted to walk with you anyway. Do you -really have to get back to the office?” - -“Oh, yes.” - -“Couldn’t you--couldn’t we go down on the river or to a show somewhere? -I know what you’re thinking: that if this meant so much to me, how -could I let it go for nearly a year. But you’ll understand. You’ll see -what I mean and what I’m up against. The thing was too big for me to -rush in. I had to wait. But now that you’ve come, I can’t let you go.” - -“I must go back.” - -“To-night then. Couldn’t I meet you at _The Public Square_ at five and -have supper?” - -“Oh no. I must go home--first.” - -“May I call for you at Harrow Street, say at seven, or before that? -Say, couldn’t we go to that old restaurant where we went that night?” - -This idea had come to Pidge before he spoke; exactly, perhaps, as it -caught his fancy. - -“Yes, I could----” Pidge cleared her voice, and spoke again above the -roar of the street. “Yes, I could.” - -Then because she had lifted her voice, she seemed to hear her own tones -unforgetably, as if her soul echoed back the words. - -“But I must hurry back now,” she added. - -“Let’s get this bank thing finished.” - -But when they reached the door of the bank they found it closed for the -rest of the day. - - - - -XXI - -THE DINNER COAT - - -JOHN HIGGINS came up through the newspapers and magazine editorial -rooms in those brave days when a typewriter did not always go with a -man’s desk, but a cuspidor nearly always. Even yet, the editor of _The -Public Square_ tucked a piece of fine-cut between his cheek and lower -jaw after breakfast in the morning, and forgot about it just so long -as it was there. The fact that he smoked from time to time caused no -inconvenience to the wad of shredded leaf. He complained of indigestion -and gave himself wholeheartedly to various forms of diet. - -He kept Pidge Musser close at hand during these trying war days. His -former stenographer languished. John Higgins found a singular peace in -working with Pidge and was innocent enough to discuss it. He was an -old integer so far as women were concerned, never getting beyond the -rare confession (when a few drinks ripened his mind) that he had had -a mother once. He didn’t hate women; nothing like that. He had just -merely walked around them as you walk around the shore of an ocean. He -wasn’t born with a bathing suit and the idea of taking off his shoes -and stockings made him hoarse with fright. Pidge, however, had crept -in through the business door, and John Higgins awoke to find her at his -side. - -Pidge found him like a somber relative of the elder generation, when -she returned from her hectic walk with Melton that afternoon, but for -once she could forget John Higgins easily. Twenty times in her mind, at -least, Pidge went over the talk and walk with Melton, her face often -turned away to the window with a sad but scornful smile. She thought -it out with hard sophistication, all that he had said of receiving -inspiration from her, but underneath she wanted it to be so; and deep -among the secrets of herself, she felt that what he said was possibly -truer than he knew. - -Had he known that the bank would be closed? She would soon learn about -that, for he had promised to bring the check to-night. Even if he -didn’t, she could never forget that _calling_ to her, back of his actor -eyes--calling like a child of her own. New York whirled by below; the -manuscripts were piled high in front and side. A Mecca letter came in -from Richard Cobden, intimating that he might go to India. Even that -did not arouse John Higgins, nor startle Pidge Musser from the painful -web she was in. - -Melton was at the basement entrance at seven. As Pidge went down to -meet him, Fanny Gallup was coming up. They met in the second hall. -Fanny stood in the gaslight, her arms open wide, her dress open at the -breast, her eyes laughing. - -“I saw him, Redhead. He’s a God-awful, that boy. Don’t you bring no -little baby to this house! I won’t stand for it.” - - * * * * * - -Melton wore a black cape coat, a dinner coat beneath. Pidge felt as -if she had left all her light in the second hall. She was exasperated -with herself for pushing past Fanny and not taking the joke gracefully, -exasperated with Melton for togging up to come to Harrow Street, to -take her to that old eating house. Couldn’t he resist showing off for -just one hour? - -Some awe seemed to have fallen upon him, or rather between them. In -silence they rounded the almost empty curve of Harrow Street, and -presently entered the crowds and lights and crashes of trestled Sixth -Avenue. On the corner, as they crossed Eighth Street, Pidge heard a -newsboy behind say, “There goes a movie actor.” Pidge deeply knew what -that grimed child-face had seen.... It troubled Melton to find the -restaurant, and she didn’t help, though she had located it a score of -times since that other night. At the table, while they waited, he took -a fifty-dollar check from his pocket and handed it over, saying that -the real part of the favor he would try to pay bit by bit through the -years. - -“Because I’ll never get very far from you again,” he added queerly. -“Find it very funny, don’t you? Sit there chuckling, don’t you? You can -laugh, but it’s true.” - -Now Melton began to ask for things which weren’t on the bill-of-fare. -He told the waitress how things should be prepared and served--this in -a side-street eating house, that specialized in beans and encouraged -counter trade. There were hard lines around the mouth of the waitress -which Melton commented upon, as she turned her back. Pidge had a -warning to hold her temper, and yet she would have died first. - -“I’ve never worked in a restaurant,” she said, “but I’ve worked in a -factory, and I know what those lines come from. They come from dealing -with people like you, people who forget where they are, forget what -they come for.” - -“How do I forget where I am?” he asked. - -“Because you don’t know that this is a place where they serve ‘eats.’ -‘Eats’ are cooked all one way. ‘Eats’ are served fast in business -hours, and the waiters sit around and gasp the other times, trying to -catch up with themselves. And you don’t know where you are, because you -try to show these people and me that you’ve seen how it was done in -uptown hotels.” - -A trace of sullenness showed in his eyes, and then a warmth of almost -incredible delight. - -“It’s great! I never was scolded in my life!” - -“It wasn’t for supper alone--that wasn’t why I fell into the idea of -coming here,” she said. “You forget it entirely. You dare to come in a -dress suit--here--here!” - -“Listen,” he begged, “don’t run away with that idea. I thought we might -go to a theater afterward. I didn’t think so much about where we were -going as I did that I was coming to you. I didn’t have anything better -than this to put on, and so I came this way.” - -A moment before it had seemed the most righteous and perfect thing -under heaven to vent a few scathing remarks, but now she felt twisted -and diminished. Long and religiously she had tried to keep her rages to -herself. Neither spoke while the plates were being served, and then he -said: - -“I was horribly out of true, in telling these people how to do it, but -I wanted it good for you,” he added simply. - -She looked at him hard, but the intensity of her trying that instant -kept her from reading what was really back of his eyes. - -“It’s plenty good enough for me,” she said. “I came here once when I -had only twenty cents to live on that day--I remember the stool, that -fifth stool, I sat on. I spent my twenty cents all at once,” she added, -“and the grub was so good that I could have wept in the arms of the -woman on the other side of the counter.” - -“Was that when you were working in the factory?” he asked. - -“No,” said Pidge, “it was before I got the job. I ate regularly after -that.” - -“Where was the factory?” - -“Oh, way up in the other end of town. I labeled tins, salmon tins, -baking powder tins, cocoa tins.” - -“To get local color?” he asked. - -“To get food. I sat at a big table with a lot of girls, and in the -hours and hours, in the monotony of the days, I found out how easy it -is to get hard lines around the mouth. I learned to understand just -enough to learn that I know nothing, and that’s a lot.” - -She was thinking of what a tension she had been in to escape from Fanny -Gallup. - -“I worked on a ranch in Wyoming,” Melton observed, “cattle ranch.” - -“What were you doing on the Tunisian sands?” - -“Just ramming around the world. I got in bad with an Arab sheik. It was -while running away from him that I got lost in the desert.” - -She saw his eyes kindle in the prospect of narration, his faculties -forming a fresh tale, which she could not bear to hear that moment. She -forestalled his fruitfulness. - -They were in the streets. - -“No, I don’t want to go uptown,” said Pidge. “I don’t feel like the -theater to-night----” - -“Wouldn’t you like a ride on the harbor? The ferries are empty this -time of night.” - -“No, we’ll cross over to Harrow Street.” - -“May I come in? There’s so much to say. It’s just--finding you -again--Pan.” - -“Not to-night. I want to be alone.” - -He didn’t answer. She felt a little better after that. She had thought -it might be harder to have her way. There seemed always something he -could not say behind his words. It wasn’t _all_ lies. It became clear -for a moment that he would follow after her--so long as she could run -ahead; that he would only turn away and forget when she paused to -breathe or play. - -“I feel strange,” he said in the silence of Harrow Street. “It is -strange to-night. It’s like finding the house one has been looking -for so long--the house, even the door, but not the key. Pan,” he said -suddenly, “give it to me. Give me the key. It’s you--it’s yours----” - -His strength was without strain, the strength that is effortless, -the strength of laughter. He had taken her to him suddenly, and she -dwelt in it, though resisting; something ecstatic, even in holding -out.... She heard voices in herself and faces flashed through her -mind--Cobden’s, Fanny Gallup’s--but her arms and shoulders and breast -knew a terrible sweetness from his strength. It wasn’t hateful. It was -like her own boy, not a stranger. His laughing face was nearer. It was -coming to hers. In the dark she could see it, eyes and eyelids, curving -nostrils and laughing lips. She knew something would die in her when it -touched ... that she was dying now of the slowness of its coming. She -ceased to struggle, and all that she had known and been arose within -her to meet his lips. - - * * * * * - -She was on the second flight of stairs. She almost prayed that Fanny’s -door would not open. She wanted to be in her own little room, the -smaller the better to-night--no touch or voice upon her. The key turned -in her trembling hand. She was safe, the door locked again. She stood -in the dark. Her lips moved audibly: - -“Am I--is it because I am my father’s child?” - - - - -XXII - -A LETTER FROM PIDGE - - -RICHARD COBDEN moved up and down the Near East for a long time, looking -for the men they had told him about in school and college--the men who -make history, and are said to contain in themselves the greatness of -their race. He sailed with sailors, talked with the diploma-ed talkers, -rode with soldiers. He found men who would do for their countries what -they wouldn’t do for themselves, but the energy of their fidelity to -their countries was balanced by their enmity toward other countries. -They gave themselves to the heresy of fighting one part of the human -family for the alleged enhancement of another. It took Dicky a long -time to change the brain tracks made in school and college, that the -names of history might _not_ be the names of men who walked with God, -whose intellects pained from sheer power. Nor was he spared from the -suspicion in all his discoveries, that he was the one who was wrong, -that he had become softly insane in the midst of new ideas. - - * * * * * - -When he essayed the thing Miss Claes spoke of at the Punjabi dinner--he -started something which he meant to live up to. The fact that it was -harder than he dreamed; an effort, in fact, involving dreary years, -hadn’t broken his resolution so far. One of the terms of the Punjabi -dinner covenant, for such it had become to him, was not to lose himself -in the easy way of hatred, nor to help himself to forgetfulness by -casting Pidge Musser’s image out. He knew that the “one” she had spoken -of was Rufus Melton. Through months, covering two years, the figure of -this young story-writer rose higher and higher in his consciousness, -as the person of the Enemy, himself. It was Melton, all unknowing, who -vanquished Dicky in his weaknesses, and at best was only kept at bay -in his strength. Not to cast her out, not to hate; to know the slow, -steady burning of the heart that is focalized upon a woman, and to -realize that this woman may be turning to another! - -There were really extraordinary days of service in Arabia with young -Tom Lawrence, whose fame Dicky Cobden helped to make; desert days of -camel back and Turk fighting; desert nights of smoke and tea in such -starry stillnesses, that one almost expected the Christ to appear; -then, after many weeks, mail at Mecca, and one letter from John -Higgins, which was read several times: - - ... You have done several good things for _The Public Square_; but - you never did a better thing than wishing Miss Pidge Musser on our - editorial rooms. She’s brand new every morning. She’s honest, and a - worker. She has brains and a whole lot of psychic viscera, sometimes - designated as Soul.... Also she’s a stenographer. Never whispered - it until one morning when Maneatin’ Dollie was ill with the flu. - My letters were piled up. “Give them to me,” she said. I did that - thing, and I’ve been dictating my editorials ever since. It’s like - talking to an intelligent audience. When I get opinionated and lose - my balance, not seeing the other side of a question, this child sits - up and looks disturbed.... I’m sending you separately our Brooklyn - Bridge contemporary with a story called _The Salt Pit_. If it isn’t a - little man of a story--I don’t know one. Hers.... Of course, you know - why she didn’t give it to us. She thought I’d take it on her account - and not for the story.... And still we stay out of the War. They’re - sending over one big imperialist after another from London, trying to - get us in, and all that’s flunkey in Washington, rocks--but so far, - we’re only sinning commercially.... Give us more of the inky desert - nights, Dicky, and young Lawrence. - -Dicky reached Bombay from Aden in the spring of 1917. He was now on his -way home, the long way around. He had told no one, but it had grown -upon him of late that he could relish a bit of New York after more than -two years. He coldly ignored in himself the tendency to thrill at the -thought of seeing Pidge Musser again. He had made a bit of a name for -himself as a reporter, but was known more as a first-class fact-getter -than a feature writer among newspaper men. Facts were sometimes so -bleak in his work that one had to possess real understanding and real -love for honest materials to find the inherent beauty and order. His -knowledge of international politics was now granted by all classes of -newspaper men, but he was known especially from his articles in _The -Public Square_ as one who exerted a steady pressure against America -entering the war. - -To be cool was said to be Cobden’s religion. The stuff that he wrote -was cool and the words that he said. “I am a reporter, only,” he -occasionally explained. “I write what I see, not my own reactions nor -opinions.” He had come far in this doctrine, far enough to be trusted -by white men of place in Turkey and the Holy Land, in spite of his -curious scorn for war. He was somewhat slower now to get enthused over -human actions than he was when he left New York; his boyish humor had -become grim. He had seen the worst things men do, and written a few -of them. Though he had been through as much hard riding in two years -as any empire-building Englishman, he seemed to retain no personal -relation to his adventures. - -Other men talked about him, however. There was something about the -American that made it easy for others to “sketch at him.” Tales of his -far chances with Tom Lawrence in El Hejas, for instance, had followed -him up into Turkey, but no one knew his tendency to nausea in a pinch. - -Dicky had written a lot of big newspaper stories, but they were -stories of the day. He had packed the films of tense and frightening -and humorous moments away somewhere deep in his brain, to the end of -massing them all into one--one day doing the Big Story, that had to -do with finding a Man. That dream had held since the day he first saw -Nagar. But in his heart of hearts everything was a side issue--world -politics, world wars, newspaper stories, magazine stories, even the Big -Story of all--compared to the war in himself over a girl named Pidge. -He still had night sweats over the name of Rufus Melton.... A quiet -voice, a tired smile, a face darkened and dusty looking from exposure, -even after a clean shave--out of this face, usually shadowed by a big -cake-basket helmet of cork, shone a pair of steady eyes in a fine mesh -of dusty brown wrinkles--Dicky at twenty-eight. - -He had scarcely stepped ashore at Bombay when he heard that the States -had entered the war. He touched the sleeve of an Englishman who was -looking up at the promenade deck of the ship with eyes and mouth wide -open. - -“Tell me, I hadn’t heard,” Dicky said hoarsely. - -“She’s in, but I must say, sir, she took a long time about it.” - -“But that cannot be!” Dicky answered. - -Now the Englishman stared, this being the peerless rebuke. Moreover, -he observed that the American had a sudden withered look, and presumed -that he was a mere upstart person. Accordingly, the Englishman refixed -his triple focus on the ship’s promenade deck, and Cobden tunneled into -the bus for the _King George_. There he verified the news. He went to -his room a bit whipped, quite a little bit whipped. He wanted to be -alone. For two years he had written and felt for America as only an -exile can. He had believed in her luck and native horse sense in the -midst of the mess other countries were making of their national lives. - -Something snapped when he had been alone in his room for a while. It -was Dicky’s romantic allegiance to the country of his school histories. -For the present he was a man without national gravity, and a sick man -since some hot, hard-held part of himself had been ripped out. - -He had missed his mail in Aden and left word for it to be forwarded to -Bombay on the next steamer. A cablegram from his newspaper connection, -rewired from Aden, not only counseled him to make haste to double back -to France (to be on the spot to greet the first American military -arrivals), but accepted it as settled that there was nothing else for a -man of his equipment now to do. The message was actually elate with the -“doings” ahead, but Dicky Cobden didn’t see it that way. The fact is, -he was sore, personally sore, at what had happened and didn’t care who -knew it. The following ship brought his mail, including a letter from -Pidge Musser, which he opened with an old and ugly fear, and in this -letter the worst that he had ever feared fell upon him: - - ... Oh, Dicky, there is no other way. I’ve tried to dodge it, but it - has to be told now, that I have taken Rufus Melton. Why did I do it? - I don’t know, unless it is that I am evil and unfinished and answer - to the evil and unfinished in him. He draws me terribly, but at the - same time, I am not deluded. There is never a moment with him that is - not unmixed with pain.... I wonder if you can believe that I did not - do this thing for happiness; that the happiest moments I have ever - known have come from my work with John Higgins and my friendship with - you? And can you ever believe that I am no farther from you now, in - that mysterious comrade way?... Oh, Life is not like books, Dicky, - not at all like what we are taught it is. I have a relation to him. - I answer some terrible drawing need--like a child crying for me. - But I have a relation to you, too, only different. You mean rest, - something done. He means the unfinished. He brings a mirror to me, - and says, “Look!” I want to scream, because the mirror brings out - all my defects. That’s what his presence means.... This is one true - thing, Dicky. The one who can rouse the most hell in your breast is - the one to whom you belong for the time. At least, that is true to - me.... Have I not been grateful for your stability? And have I not - been proud for your moving so quietly up and down the East, keeping - your surfaces clean for the world events to be pictured there without - twist or falsehood?... A strange door was opened in my being when I - was a child. In and out that door, whether I will or not, you often - come and go. “He is my friend,” I whisper, “my friend”----and repeat - it a thousand times. - - - - -XXIII - -THE RED ROOM - - -LINE by line the thing was killing him. He got up and crossed the heavy -red carpet to the hall door and turned the key in the lock. He was -afraid some one would come in and find him. He had the strange power -of partly seeing himself, as the sullen horrors of hatred and revolt -boiled up in his breast. Vaguely, but quite well enough, he could watch -the man called Richard Cobden in the dim hotel room, the shoulders -hunched, the mouth stretched and crooked; unable to sit still, the face -wet with poisonous sweat. - -The love had gone out of him, and with it, all the light he had. He -thought he had known pain and loneliness since leaving New York, but -all he had known was humming content compared to now, because there -had been a laughing idolatry for all her ways and words, a reliance -upon her that he had dared to call absolute. “Understand, understand!” -she had cried all through the letter.... Oh yes, he could understand. -She wasn’t what he had made her out to be--that was clear enough. He -had built upon something which wasn’t there. He had believed her to -be--built into himself the conviction--that she was the honestest thing -alive, and here she was---- - -His thought shot back to the night of the Punjabi dinner. That little -basement room was devastated before his mind, the table overturned, -the face of Miss Claes a mockery, the face of Pidge Musser--that of an -American girl found out. Into the center of his consciousness was now -flung his old promise not to hate.... He heard his own laughter. He saw -his own stretched and twisted mouth from which it came. Like a couple -of sly schoolgirls, they looked at him now--Pidge and Miss Claes--slyly -pulling together and duping a fat boy.... - -He saw his room key upon the table. Number Five, it was, the fifth -floor. He looked around the dim papered wall--whitish-red like the -pulp of raspberries--the deep upholstered chairs, the seats slightly -crushed, the full-length mirror, the ash tray, the silver flask on the -writing table, his own things here and there orderly enough--all but -himself, a sort of maniacal Mr. Hyde. Number Five. He would remember -this room where he had fought it out, too, about America entering -the war. He poured brandy into a whisky glass. The stuff eased him a -little. It made the pain all the more poignant, like a stove getting -hotter, but also it seemed to give him the power to move back a little -from the stove.... He stood up in the dark and shook himself. - -“Oh, you ass!” he muttered. “You awful ass!” - -In the light of a match, as he lit a cigarette long afterward, he saw -the rest of his mail on the table, one letter from Miss Claes. He -couldn’t get head nor tail out of that at first. She seemed to be -talking about something he had said about finding a Man. Oh, yes. He -had written from Mecca, mentioning Tom Lawrence and his search for a -Man. He snickered now at himself through the fogs of his own past and -present. Then a line seemed to stand up before his eyes. “... If you go -to India, go to Ahmedabad. Nagar is there. You are in danger of finding -your Man.” Later that night, still in the dark, his back straightened. -He laughed and said aloud, failing altogether for the moment to see the -absurdity of himself. - -“Number Five--queer little old musty room, I wonder who died here?... -Good night, Pidge; good night, dear America--grand pair to tie to!” - -The next day he cabled to his newspaper connection that he was not -returning to France for the opening campaign, at least; and wrote -to John Higgins that he didn’t expect to send in much stuff for the -present. “I may stay awhile in India--just looking around. She smells -like a typhoid ward, and needs orderlies.... I’ll, of course, let you -know what comes of my _spectating_.” - -Still he did not start at once for Ahmedabad. He locked himself in -Number Five through the days and walked the streets of Bombay at night, -walked like a man in a strait-jacket. He wasn’t conscious of this at -first, until he began to feel an ache from the tension of his neck -and shoulder muscles and tightened elbows. When he forced himself to -relax, however, the torture of his thoughts was accentuated. He had -been holding himself rigidly to help fend off the destroying rush -of mental images. He walked himself into one sweat after another for -the nights were hot and humid. The point of all his fighting was to -keep Pidge Musser out of mind. Of course, he could not succeed. She -came in by every door. She came in softly, she came in scornfully, she -came in singing, scolding. Mostly she came in saying, “Why, don’t you -see, Dicky, I am nearer and clearer than ever?” Then it was as if an -isolated bit of shrapnel would explode in his brain. - -His whole fabric of world politics was demolished. It looked to him -like a tapestry that has been hooked up out of a sewer--all that -careful weaving and balanced pigmentation! Before the day of the letter -he had prided himself that his building in the past two years was good -and strong. Now he faced the pitiful discovery that every block of his -building had been placed upon this platform: That even if he couldn’t -have her, no one else could. This smelled to him now. Forever after, it -smelled to him like the sewage lanes of old Bombay. - -Dicky had a good body. After two weeks his physical vitality began to -steal back. The love was gone, but out of the debris of Subramini’s -Punjabi Fireplace, the face of Miss Claes came up faintly smiling -again. Another letter came from her, which he read in dismal irony -several times on the day before he took the train for Ahmedabad--the -last day in Number Five, with its wall paper of raspberry crush. He -couldn’t make sense out of the letter. She seemed to love Pidge, even -to respect her. Miss Claes wrote, “It gives me quiet joy to know -that Nagar is near you. It will be good for him and good for you. A -great dearness for you both goes from this house, as you sit and walk -together.” Miss Claes also repeated in her letter that “love never -faileth”---- - -All very pretty and possible, no doubt; it sounded good, but it was -no longer his sort of a project. This wasn’t for the product of three -generations of hardware merchants and manufacturers. Funny, he thought, -how he had ever accepted visionary stuff like this. He would write Miss -Claes some time how he had failed, but not now. On the night train, he -felt India closing about him really for the first time. Once when the -train stopped, he smelled the altogether indescribable earthiness of -hills that had been sun baked all day, now letting it be known through -the moistness of the night. It was vaguely like home to him; not home -in America, but home on earth again, the faintest symptom of his -reallegiance to life here, only known to one coming up out of sickness. -In the early morning he lay for a while after awakening in a sort of -bodily peace. It was as if he had really rested a little, as if he had -left behind some utterly miserable part of himself in the red room at -Bombay. - -“A bit questionable,” he muttered whimsically, with the trace of a -smile, “a bit shabby and questionable to leave a bundle, a black bundle -like that, in Number Five--for some one else to stumble over.” - -He fell asleep again and reawoke with a curious sentence on his lips; -something that he had forgotten a long time, something that Miss Claes -used to say: “Nobody knows Nagar--nobody.” - -“Nobody ever will,” he added, “if he doesn’t talk any more than he used -to.” - -Again at breakfast the faintest little quiver of organic ease stole -into him. The earth was very bright outside and the pot of tea that had -been brought tasted actually sane. He had the feeling of being on the -way somewhere, of having escaped something, as he watched India slip -by from the window of his compartment.... Then Ahmedabad, the station, -a Hindu in white garments, almost taking him in his arms--laughing, -talking like an American--Nagar talking! - - - - -XXIV - -MISS CLAES SPEAKS - - -ONE Sunday morning about three weeks after the luncheon with John -Higgins, during which Rufus Melton came to the Chop House, Pidge found -Miss Claes alone in the basement front. - -“We’d like to come here to live. Is there any chance?” she asked. - -“Yes, it can be managed, I think.” - -Pidge regarded her with a kind of cold fixity and added: “We were -married night before last. Rufe seems willing enough to come here. I -hate to leave this house, but I didn’t think you had the rooms.” - -“I’ll make a place for you; a little place, at least. But, Pidge----” - -“Yes?” - -“Why haven’t you come to me all this time?” - -“I know how fond you are of Dicky Cobden. I haven’t hoped any one could -understand.” - -“Being fond of Richard Cobden doesn’t make me less fond of you.” - -“How could I expect you to understand me, when I can’t understand -myself?” Pidge demanded. “I am two people, and they are at war.... No -use lying about it. I fell for him, knowing him all the time. Not for -a minute did I lose track of what he is. But I wanted him. Something in -me answered--that’s all.” - -“I’ve always loved that honest Pidge,” said Miss Claes. - -“Think, if you like, that it’s part of the evil in me that talks this -way about him, but I am talking about myself, too.” - -“You could never see all this clearly--without ‘falling for’ him, -Pidge.” - -“What do you mean?” - -“I mean it would remain a hopeless, unfinished puzzle--if you had run -away from Rufus Melton.” - -“I couldn’t run away. I wanted him,” Pidge repeated. “But there’s -another side. There’s something in him that I seem to have known from -the beginning--something like a little child that I left somewhere ages -ago. It keeps calling to me from his eyes, and I leave everything to go -to it--everything that Dicky means and the world, even writing--I leave -all that. And yet when I go, when I go to his arms, I lose the purpose. -It’s as if the child that I run to--the irresistible thing that calls -to me from his eyes--stops crying and stops needing me! Then I suddenly -know that it must need me and not be gratified, ever to be helped. Oh, -no one on earth could understand that. It’s insane.” - -“But, Pidge, I do understand.” - -“How can you?” - -“Because I have loved like that, because I have had experience. I loved -an English boy in the same way--oh, long ago. I love him still, but I -could not stay with him, because he--why, Pidge, it is just the same. -He needs to cry for some one, for something, otherwise he remains -asleep in life.” - -“You’re saying this to help me.” - -“What I’ve lived through _should_ help you. It was the hardest thing -I’ve ever known--that I couldn’t forget everything and have him, just -two alone in the world. But when I went to him, he was satisfied and -looked elsewhere. I almost died of revolt.” - -Pidge’s eyes were very wide. “And when you didn’t go to him?” she said -in slow tones. “What happened then?” - -“It was then that he remembered and reminded me that I was half-caste. -Also he looked elsewhere, just the same.” - -“And you still love him?” - -“Deep underneath--that is not changed.” - -“But what is Nagar?” - -“Nagar means the other world, Pidge--a new heaven and a new earth. He -means the not-wanting love, the willing-to-wait love----” - -“I’m not like that,” Pidge said with old bitterness. “I want love in a -room! I want to shut the world out. I don’t want the love of the world, -but love that’s all mine. And I can’t--I can’t have it!” - -She was breathing deeply, staring at the fire. - -Miss Claes glanced at her wistfully a moment, her lips faintly smiling. -The girl’s face had never been so lovely to her. It was like land -that has had its rains after long waiting--soft blooms starting, an -earthy sweetness rising in the washed sunlight. The beginnings of both -laughter and tears were in Pidge’s wide eyes; her red-brown hair, from -which the henna was long forgotten, had an easy restful gleam in its -coils. - -“Why, Pidge,” Miss Claes said at last, “you’re like one who has been -born again. It’s wonderful. I had almost forgotten what that love does -to a woman, at first--for a little, little time.” - -“And you knew that kind of love--with the English boy?” - -“Yes.” - -“And Nagar knows.” - -“Yes.” - -Pidge shivered. - -“... Rufe brings the fight to me, makes every undone thing rise -and live! He brings the most terrible disappointments, the crudest -disorder, yet that which would pay for it all, if I were just a simple -peasant woman, is denied. Why can’t we shut the door and just live? Why -can’t there be a kingdom for two?” - -The form was soft and gliding in Miss Claes’ arms. The -square-shouldered little figure of the mill and office girl had -become almost eloquent with its emotional power. After a moment Pidge -straightened, her face staring into Miss Claes’. - -“Why don’t you answer?” - -“I can only say, Pidge, you are called to learn the next step, the next -lesson in what love means. You want the love that has two ends, but the -Triangle is ready for you. Oh, many are learning the mystery of the -Triangle. It hurts so at first, but it lets the world in--the bigger -meanings of life.” - -Pidge shivered again. “Is it blasphemy,” she asked, “that I feel just -as close to Dicky Cobden--as ever?” - -“No more than the finding of bread would spoil your taste for water.” - - * * * * * - -Pidge said at last: - -“Oh, I don’t want to leave this house, Miss Claes. He says he’ll come -here, too.” - -“I’ve been thinking of putting a bathroom on the third floor. There’s a -tiny empty room like yours across the hall. The bath shall be installed -there. You know I’ve kept Nagar’s room empty. It is pleasant and larger -than yours. I’ll have a door cut through the partition, and with a bath -across the hall you will do well enough for a time.” - -“You would give us Nagar’s room?” - -“Nagar has the key to the whole house,” said Miss Claes. - - * * * * * - -Moments afterward, Pidge’s strong fingers closed over the hands of the -other. - -“No one can know how it hurts me--to think of Dicky----” - -“He is with Nagar now.” - -“Do you think--can it be possible that Nagar will help him--as you help -me?” - -“Nagar and the Little Man,” said Miss Claes. - - - - -XXV - -“BE IT EVER SO HUMBLE” - - -THEY were ensconced in the two upper rooms. Pidge kept up her work -at _The Public Square_, and did not come home for luncheon. She had -told John Higgins of her marriage but the subject was not mentioned -afterward. The old chief vanished for three days following the news, -and when he came back there was a new dignity on his part for Pidge -to cope with. She found her position a trifle uncentered. His old -stenographer took his letters, and he wrote his editorials on his own -machine as aforetime. John Higgins said little, but found flaws in her -judgments that had not appeared before. He no longer risked availing -himself of her entire equipment; this change being apparently on the -basis that he dare not get used to it all over again. He seemed to hold -the idea that it was only a question of days at most before a married -woman would forget place and town entirely and rush off to pick up -pieces of wool and thread for a nest. - -Pidge had built so much of herself into her work that there was -emphatic pain in the new conditions. She needed the work more than -ever now, but _The Public Square_ was falling into sorry days and -ways. There was nothing to say but War, and if you didn’t like War, -didn’t see the divine uses of War and say so, you had better say -nothing. There was no field in the world at this time for a magazine of -dignified or any other kind of protest, and in the steady loss of money -week after week, the struggle became one of great simplicity--to stay -alive. - -“Higgins is a rotten old knocker anyway,” said Rufus Melton. “This is a -time for Americans to stand together and not criticize the government. -He never did pay any real money for his stuff, but was always ready to -tell you where you fell down. They’re telling him a word or two now.” - -So Pidge didn’t speak much of _The Public Square_ at home. - -Rufus vibrated between a depression when his stuff wouldn’t come -through and an exaltation when it did. He was quite sincere in his -industry, but slept late in the morning. Pidge was up and away four -mornings out of five without waking him. Sometimes Rufe decided to eat -his “big meal of the day” in the middle of the afternoon, in which -case Pidge supped alone. He was slow to get his work started, so that -it was often evening before he got “all of himself working at once.” -Then he was apt to stay with it for several hours, in which case Pidge -could sleep if she got a chance. Occasionally he found that he could -dictate a bit of first draft and Pidge undertook at first to help him -in this way, but when she perceived that it didn’t occur to him, in the -flush of his evening powers, that she had worked all day and must work -to-morrow, she decided to stay off his night work. - -“I can’t, Rufe,” she said one night on the way to bed. “It’s so -fascinating to practice napping in the hushes and rushes of your -machine.” - -“You won’t take this stuff?” - -“No.” - -“You won’t?” - -“It will interfere with your work session if you lose your temper. Of -course, we’ve got the whole upper floor to start something in, but we -must think of your story.” - -“Whose work counts in this outfit?” he demanded. - -“Yours, Rufe, by all means. A fine patriotic short story at any price. -But I have a job to look after, and I can’t give them a red-headed -somnambulist to-morrow. No, I’m going to sleep, but I do hope you get -the American flags waving all right in your story.” - -“I’ll get you, Pan--for acting like this.” - -“You’ve got me, dear, and don’t forget to have the hero come through -with, ‘My country right or wrong.’ No girl can resist that--or editor. -Good night.” - -Rufe was rarely rough. He didn’t overtire or over-stimulate himself, so -that his temper could easily break corral; and at its worst this temper -wasn’t a man-eater. Rufe’s nervous system was cushioned in a fine layer -of healthy fat, and therefore didn’t flog itself to madness against -bare bone and sinew. He was merely involved in himself entirely, which -makes any man naïve. - -Pidge wasn’t missing any of the petty dramas of her present -experience. When she came home the first time to find that he had -already had dinner, something flew out of her into space in a frantic -search for God. When she realized that he saw nothing but undisturbed -equity in the idea of using her for his own work purposes half -the night, when she was contracted to _The Public Square_ for the -days--another output of herself was loose in the solar system. When she -came to understand that the tens he was earning were mysteriously his -own, and that her ones were theirs--another day, at least, was spoiled -for her in the editorial rooms. - -Rufe thought her extremely selfish. So had her father. “Two to one,” -she said. “They’ve got it on me. They’ve got it on all of us. This -is their world.”... She thought of all this bitterness and bickering -taking place in Nagar’s room, which Miss Claes had saved for weeks -for a sort of sanctuary of her own. Mostly she was hurt by the deadly -parallel of this life, with her life in Los Angeles and vicinity. To -cope with this American story-man, she was forced to draw out and -readjust and refurbish the old hateful mechanism that had formed within -her during the nineteen years with her father. She knew how. The -mechanism worked all right, but the sense of the hateful thing resuming -activity within her was far harder to bear than the racket of Rufe’s -typewriter when she was trying to sleep. - -The fact that Rufe Melton was entirely cut off from the play of her -real powers; that he thought her ridiculous, and said so, when she gave -any notice of holding other than the standard American points of view -on politics and religion and social ethics; this was not so serious a -breach between them, as it would have been to a woman who had not come -into so startling a reaction as Pidge had, against the whole system of -knowing and not doing. All the knowledge that really mattered to Pidge -was that working doctrine which doesn’t announce or explain, but shows -itself in living the life. She was very sad, and continually sad, that -she had to work upon Rufe the iron of irony, the stab so subtle that it -astonishes before it hurts, and the self-control which disarms. - -Sometimes Sundays or in unexpected periods of leisure they had moments -of actual delight together. This occasionally happened when food just -pleased him, or when an acceptance from a magazine arrived at a price -which he considered adequate. (Rufus never neglected the price of his -things, as an indication of his getting on.) He uncovered a real levity -at such times, and their talk didn’t walk merely, then; it danced. - -“We’ll go up to Harlem,” he said one Sunday morning. “I used to live up -there in the colored settlement----” - -Figuratively speaking, Pidge waved her hand before her own eyes to -shut out the critical negatives which always arose when Rufe told of -living somewhere. They went and stayed gay. When he turned from her -innocently to consult a policeman in Harlem, she checked the first and -last, “I told you so.” They found yams that day--yams freshly arrived -from Georgia, and coffee said to be parched and dripped according to -an ideal of New Orleans first families. These satisfied Rufus, and -still they stayed gay. Even his, “I could take you around to a lot of -queer dumps in this man’s town,” didn’t upset anything. Altogether that -day was memorable.... Once in desperate fatigue, when there were moving -dark spots before her eyes in every ray of daylight, Pidge cried to -Miss Claes: - -“But he is lost to everything, entirely oblivious to everything but -himself and his work--his stories, his fame, his winning his way!” - -“I know, Pidge, but the world is on top of him yet. He is fighting his -way up and out. Romance can’t be entirely satisfying, you know, when it -has ambition for a rival. You’ve told me something about the thrall of -a book in yourself--how engrossing it is.” - -“That all goes out of me when I’m with him,” Pidge said suddenly. “I -never thought of it before, but all that old agony to produce another -book that I used to feel is gone. I seem to let him carry all that.” - -“That helps for the present, doesn’t it?” - -“Yes, and it isn’t all sordid--don’t think I mean that, Miss Claes. -Sometimes when he’s satisfied with his story, so that he can forget it, -we have such good times. He’s such a playboy, such a playmate. Some old -terrible longing comes over me when we are close like that, just to be -like one of the Mediterranean women, who know nothing but to replenish -the earth. But it doesn’t do to dwell on that,” Pidge finished with an -impressive quietness of tone. “One thing I learned rather well, before -it was too late.” - -“What’s that, Pidge?” - -“That this isn’t the time or place for us to bring a little baby into -the world.” - - - - -XXVI - -THE HANGING SOCK - - -NAGAR was changed. On the day that Richard Cobden reached Ahmedabad, -he encountered one of the surprises of his life. It was like meeting -a man out in the freedom of the world, whom one had only known before -in prison. Two years in the East had sharpened Dicky’s eyes to note -something in Nagar’s face that he had been unable to detect before. -Dicky called it cleanliness and calm, but this brought up the old -difficulty which he never missed in his work of writing--that at best, -words only suggest, only intimate. - -In America Nagar had looked dark; here he looked fair. There he had -moved in and out as one of the colored men; here he was one of the -elect. There he had lived in the midst of silences and mysterious -inhibitions, diminished by the garments of Western civilization; here -he was white-robed in the sunlight, like young Gautama in his father’s -garden. Of course, Dicky knew that the change was more substantial than -that of garb or place. He could only repeat that Nagar seemed free in -his own mind. - -In the first few moments at the station in Ahmedabad, Dicky had himself -felt unwashed and unwholesome, as no man ever made him feel before. -His hand went up to his chin. Yes, he had shaved that morning, but -realizing it did not help much. It wasn’t the grime of travel that hurt -him, but the smear of his recent mental and emotional overturning, the -ugliness of all those days in the red room at Bombay, and the sense -of failure and loss he lived with constantly since the coming of the -letter from Pidge. - -“... And the Little Man is actually here in Ahmedabad, and not a myth?” -Dicky had asked, as they drew out of the crowd at the station. - -“Not only that, but you are to go to the _Ashrama_ now, if you will. He -is eager to have you come.” - -“His house first?” Dicky asked. - -“It is also the house in which I live,” said Nagar. - -“You mean you wish to put me up in your quarters?” - -“If you would not mind our great simplicity.” - -“Thanks, I should like that,” said Dicky, “but I think it would be -better for me to follow the usual course of a foreigner and find hotel -quarters.” - -The _Entresden_ was not crowded and Dicky obtained comfortable quarters -in a northeast room where the upholstering was covered in clean tan -linen, and the _punkahs_ showed signs of life immediately upon their -entrance. Nagar prepared to leave as soon as Dicky sat down in the air -crossing between two shaded windows. - -“I will come for you this afternoon if you wish to go to the _Ashrama_ -to-day,” he said. “It is some distance from the center of the city.” - -“Sit down, Nagar; don’t hurry off.” - -“I thought you would prefer to rest until after _tiffin_.” - -“Stay and we’ll have it here. You’ll pour the tea like the old days in -Miss Claes’ room.” - -Nagar’s face was in the shadows, but there was a soft shining as of -polished silver in or around his eyes. At times, shutting his eyes as -Nagar spoke, Dicky could almost believe he was back in the basement -at Harrow Street. The way Nagar said to him, “my friend,” was almost -Miss Claes herself. That was the poignant part of finding the Oriental -again; that he brought back Harrow Street--even moments under the white -light. The day would have been joyous but for the aching emptiness of -heart. Dicky asked tirelessly about Gandhi, especially since it gave -him such a chance to study the new Nagar. - -“Mahatma-ji has burned away all waste,” Nagar said at length. “He -has narrowed himself down, body and mind, to an almost perfect -obedience--self-control. He measures action to all his words. The best -he knows, step by step, he performs.” - -“Where did you hear of him first?” - -“Here in India--of his work in South Africa. I went there to know him -better--followed the gleam, as you might say. I stayed four years. It -was he who encouraged me to go to America to study more of the spirit -of the West.” - -“What’s Gandhi’s message to these people?” - -“He believes that politics cannot be successfully divorced from -religion,” Nagar said. “His message always is toward the spiritualizing -of India’s political life and her institutions. The spiritual -predominance of India, which he idealizes as being the real destiny of -India, can only be effected by her rebecoming herself, by the return of -the Motherland into herself, by her ceasing to imitate all the ways of -western civilization.” - -“But if she returns into herself, making her own goods, cutting herself -off from all institutions of the present government--England will be -done for here.” - -Nagar bowed without the trace of a smile. - -“I’ve heard that every turn of a spinning-wheel in India takes part of -a turn from a power loom in Manchester,” Dicky added. - -Nagar further acquiesced. - -“And that isn’t politics?... I think I’ll go in for religion, myself.” - - * * * * * - -“It is very good to have you here,” Nagar said later. “Mahatma-ji will -also be glad. He has asked much about you and believes that you may be -a means of making many in America understand. It is a saying with us -here that ‘to understand is to love.’” - -“But I didn’t come here with any set idea, you know.” - -“The work you will do for us in America will be the better for that. -The more reason and rationale you bring----” - -“Evidently it’s easy for one to go off his head where Gandhi is,” Dicky -said. - -“His effect on some is subtle and strong.” - -“I’ll keep a stiff bridle arm. Say, Nagar, have you stopped to think -how I happen to be here to-day?” - -“Tell me, please.” - -“One hanging sock.” - -“I do not understand.” - -“One hanging sock. It was that which made me go out into the reception -room in the first place, that day you brought the story to _The Public -Square_. I heard the office boy say to J. H., ‘He keeps pulling up his -sock.’ I went out to see. So that’s what made me go to Harrow Street, -and meet Miss Claes and the rest and go to Africa, and come here. I -believe that’s what started the World War.” - -Nagar laughed. “I always had such trouble in the early days with -American clothing. I would get one part working and another would give -way----” - -“But, Nagar, what made it so imperative for you to have the two hundred -that day?” - -“A ship was leaving within twenty-four hours for the Mediterranean to -connect with South African ports. Mahatma-ji was greatly in need of -funds to carry on his work.” - -“I thought you were ill--possibly starving.” - -“I was ill from strain--self-consciousness. It was one of the hardest -things I ever had to do--to stand up against America in the office of -_The Public Square_.” - -“You certainly put it over. But what made you so silent in New York? -It’s an actual shock to find you chatty and human, like this.” - -“Certain of us in India are trained differently from American ways. You -perhaps have read that in the Pythagorean schools, a period of silence -was enjoined among the young men. It was so in my training. We seek to -silence all opinions, all half-truths, all thinking, in fact, in order -to _Know_. We postulate, of course, a center of Spontaneous Knowledge, -or Genius, above the mind. To learn obedience to this, one takes a vow -of silence----” - -“Ah, I remember! Pidge--Miss Musser--I mean Mrs. Melton, told me -something of the kind!” - - - - -XXVII - -THE MAHATMA AND THE MIRACLE - - -COBDEN heard the voice before he saw the man. Standing in a darkened -hall of the bungalow, spoken of as the _Ashrama_, the voice of one -speaking English in easy cultured tones reached his ears. When the door -opened, he saw several native young men sitting upon the floor and a -wasted Hindu figure in the center--a little man in a thin turban more -like a skullcap; a homespun loincloth, his bare feet beneath him upon -a mat of coarse cloth, a rough pillow at his back. The young men about -him had risen, but the central figure merely lifted and extended the -hand. - -“Mr. Cobden from America,” Gandhi said. “Nagarjuna has made us eager to -welcome you.” - -Even Nagar withdrew, but one of the boys returned bringing a chair. - -“If you don’t mind, I’ll try sitting on the floor, too,” Dicky told the -latter. “I’d feel perched with Mr. Gandhi sitting below.” - -The Mahatma smiled. “I quite appreciate,” he said. “I hope you will -find in India the same kindness that you gave Nagarjuna in New York.” - -Dicky had expected power; he found composure. His idea of power was -perhaps in part a hang-over from a boyish ideal of a certain American -financial executive. Nothing of that in this room; rather he was -conscious of Gandhi’s frailness and smallness. This presence called -forth impulses to be tender, to lower one’s voice, to hurry to bring -anything wanted. He was shocked a little at the twisted, battered -look of the features. The lips looked pulpy in parts and did not rest -together evenly. The smile was curiously slow--tentative, like one in -whom understanding dawns. Back of the iron-rimmed spectacles and tired -eyes, so inured to pain, was the essence of fearlessness. This was the -first commanding characteristic to the American. - - * * * * * - -“... Fear,” Gandhi was saying, “fear of death makes us devoid both of -valor and religion. There is no place for fear in the _Satyagrahi’s_ -heart.” - -“What is a _Satyagrahi_?” Cobden asked. - -“One who is devoted and pledged to truth, to _Satyagraha_. I coined the -word, to express our purpose in South Africa. _Satyagraha_ is the use -of Love-force or Soul-force.” - -Curiously, Dicky felt the cleanness of the house, the peace of it, the -humming of a _charka_ in the next room, a symbol of that peace. He felt -Gandhi’s face growing upon him out of the shadow, a face that had been -dried cleanly by many suns, the features fashioned by a life of direct, -unpredatory thinking--the face of a man incapable, even in thought, -of hitting below the belt. And now, there was to go with the hum of -the _charka_, the faint fragrance of dried fruit in the air, or that -sweetness one breathes in the altitudes where the sun is shining upon -the great conifers. - -“The world has talked much of the omnipotence of God,” Mahatma-ji went -on. “India, at last, is preparing to put her faith to test. Passive -resistance has been called the weapon of the weak; if this is so, -the Soul is weaker than the flesh. Passive resistance calls upon its -devotees to endure great suffering, even martyrdom and death. Those who -believe it is too difficult to carry out do not trust the Soul. They -are not moved by true courage.” - -There was no pose nor show, no straining for force, rarely an adjective -or simile, no shadings of sense--a direct approach, inevitably direct. -Dicky felt suddenly hopeless of ever understanding such directness. For -the first time in his life, he realized that all his training to live -and to write was less than straight. He had been taught half-tones, -shadows to accentuate lights. Here was directness. - -Gandhi resumed: “It is the sacred principle of love which moves -mountains. To us is the responsibility of living out this sacred law; -we are not concerned with results.” - -“No such thing then as righteous anger?” Dicky asked. - -“There is not for us. Anger is the misuse of force. Anger in thought is -an enemy to clear thinking, to understanding. To understand is to love. -Anger in action tends to become violence, and violence is the negation -of spiritual force. In fact, only those who eschew violence can avail -themselves of their real powers. Only those who realize that there is -something in man which is superior to the brute nature in him, and that -the latter always yields to it, can effectively apply this force, which -is to violence, and therefore to all tyranny, all injustice, what light -is to darkness. For the exercise of the purest Soul-force, prolonged -training of the individual Soul is an absolute necessity.” - -Just now Dicky was contending with the feeling that he was in the -presence of an evangelist or healer. He had difficulty for the moment -in recalling that Gandhi was world-trained; a lawyer of London’s -careful making; an opponent of governments in South Africa; a man -found powerful enough in his own person to be reckoned with by the -established laws of men of high place. - -“We have many things to ask of England,” Gandhi said, “and she has -promised us her attention, as soon as her present difficulties give her -freedom of heart and hand to attend our wants here. To press our wants -now, or to force our desires upon England in her crisis in Europe, -would be taking an unfair advantage. So this is a time for us in India -to cleanse and prepare ourselves for future action, sacrifice if -necessary----” - -At one moment Gandhi’s face was dull and unattractive as a camel -driver’s; again it shone with a high clear calm, like the ideal most -of us have of a saint or a priest. Now the instant came, as the words -stopped, that Dicky seemed to be looking into the Indian face actually -for the first time, and Gandhi was looking _into_ him. The American was -uncentered for a second or two, as he had once felt in the quick sag of -an airplane in a bit of rough going. - -It began to become clear to the caller that there were only a few -constantly vibrating themes in this man’s talk: the necessity for -nonviolence; the control of self, essential before the control of -others can be contemplated; the establishment of altruism as a basis -for all political activity; the return of India into her own destiny of -a handicraft civilization, which involved the making and using of her -own goods and the turning of her back upon the “monster of a mechanical -civilization”; freedom of speech, devotion to truth, fearlessness, -always that. - -Dicky now actually contemplated the look of unearthly calm in the -eyes of the man before him. Was it fanaticism--this fearlessness -which Gandhi put into practice? Was there a soul-calm back of the -human nervous system, a central calm that a man could reach and abide -in, that made anything negligible that men might do to the body? Was -there something really that Miss Claes and Nagar and this man talked -about--something that went on and on, that loved one’s enemies, that -loved one’s love, no matter what this life effected to keep them apart? -Was it worth going after, since every ordinary viewpoint seemed changed -in those who had touched it?... Surely India was getting him going--he, -Dicky Cobden, of the family of trowel makers! In amazement, he realized -that he was responding to some stimulus like the finest wine--that if -he didn’t get out of here soon, he would fall to telling his troubles -like a man who has had too many drinks. - -Gandhi was speaking of his workers and devotees here in Ahmedabad; the -manner of their life together: - -“So in our _Ashrama_,” he explained, “every child is taught to -understand political institutions and to know how his country is -vibrating with new emotions, with new aspirations, with new life.... As -for men and women living and working together in the _Ashrama_, they -must live the celibate life whether married or unmarried. Marriage -brings a woman close together with a man, and they become friends in -a special sense, never to be parted in this life or in the lives to -come; but I do not think that into that place of life, our lusts should -necessarily enter.” - -Dicky had scrambled to his feet from the floor. - -“I won’t take your time any more just now,” he mumbled haltingly. - -Mahatma-ji watched him with a look of gentlest understanding. - -Dicky backed out. He was in the street alone.... The young men had -not restrained him in the slightest. They had seemed to understand -that he must be alone. Even Nagar had only walked at his side a -moment in the hall, to say that he would come to the _Entresden_ -after dinner.... He was alone in the outskirts of the city with the -miracle. Somewhere among Gandhi’s sentences about men and women, it had -happened--somewhere in there, when he had spoken about--yes, that was -it, “about friends in a special sense!...” - -A pariah dog yelped, running out of a doorway, almost banging into his -knees. He was in a narrow street, and had to step upon a doorsill, -while two men passed dragging at a cart. He saw their bare ribs and -salt-whitened loin cloths. The sun was still high; the stillness and -heat almost fetid in the byways. He passed a native market place by the -river, and out of all the moving multicolored crowd, he remembered only -one parasol of jade green, though he did not see the face beneath. - -His American-trained mind scoffed against the thing that had happened, -but his heart held on serenely.... What did this little world-warrior -with the battered mouth know about love and living with a woman? What -did he know about lusts that he spoke so freely of? Did he ever give -three years of his life to the one battle--not to hate the woman he -loved most under heaven? Or was that particular battle so far back in -his experience that he merely spoke of it as one skirmish in the great -campaign of fifty years, called Life? - -Alone at dinner at the _Entresden_, Dicky conned every word the Little -Man had spoken about the young married people who worked together in -the _Ashrama_, of the celibacy they vowed themselves to, of their -becoming through marriage “friends in a special sense--for this and all -lives.” Yes, Gandhi talked as if it were a foregone conclusion that -there were other lives.... - -He wasn’t tasting his dinner.... He came up from the deeps of -reflection to realize a waiter was coming toward him, as if in answer -to a signal. He also discovered that he had been sitting over his -filled plate with one hand lifted--the thumb and fingers brushing -together, as if he were close to _her_, and it was a bit of her dress -or a wisp of her hair between his fingers. His mind could scoff all -it pleased, for his heart held serenely to the miracle, and this was -the miracle: that Pidge Musser, married or not married, was back alive -in his heart; and such a melting pity for her plight had come to him -as he sat before the Little Man, that he, the hardheaded, had to rise -abruptly from the interview and rush away, lest he fall to weeping and -explaining all. - - - - -XXVIII - -THE RACK OF SEX - - -DICKY and Nagar sat under the _punkahs_ in the room at the -_Entresden_--that stillest, hottest night. A fierce stimulus -was driving the American. Moment by moment he realized it more -clearly--that his love had come back to him, or some strange new fire -from it, as he had talked with Mahatma-ji. It compelled him, mind and -emotion now, and his questions were insatiable, but he was slow and -roundabout in getting to the core of matters that fascinated. - -“For instance, what makes him starve himself?” Dicky asked. - -“He has no illusions about fasting,” Nagar answered. “Mahatma-ji -objects to the distractions of the body. He keeps down this drum of the -senses by severity of handling, an old well-tried way of the East. Ask -an expert horseman what to do with a spirited saddle horse that has -a tendency now and then to take the bit and run away. ‘Cut down his -grain, and he will be easier to handle,’ you will be told.” - -Dicky was groping feverishly within himself as the other talked. “But -what has celibacy to do----” he halted and finished, “with politics and -all that?” - -“Mahatma-ji has made himself free from the rack of sex and the drum of -the senses--enough to realize his great work for others, for India. We -who follow him wish to do the same. We understand that we have not the -great gift for India, until we are free; that is, only a man who has -freed himself from his own desires can help greatly to free others, or -his country. We are not free agents so long as we are on the rack of -sex. We cannot hate ourselves off that rack; in fact, we must learn to -love more, not less, to escape.” - -“Tunnel,” Dicky said. “No man educated on the Hudson can get that sort -of thing. Have a heart, Nagar.” - -“It is my poor telling----” - -Dicky smiled and smoked: “I can’t see how he’d have anything left to -give the world,” he added--“a man who got on top of himself that way.” - - * * * * * - -The thing that Dicky had found in the same room with the Little Man -wasn’t happiness, but it was better than the deadness he had known; -good to feel the tissues of his heart alive again, not a leaden lump. - -Again the next day, he went to sit with Mahatma-ji, but nothing -happened, though he remained two hours. On one side he had come to -doubt the whole business; on the other he had been naïve enough half to -believe that all he had to do was to enter the presence of the Indian -leader to get this living thing back in his heart, this pain that had -the breath of life in it. Two days afterward, however, while he was -deeply involved with Gandhi’s explanation of _Satyagraha_, taking notes -so that he could put down the other’s words almost exactly, the sense -of Pidge Musser’s presence and plight was suddenly with him again, -renewed within him, the pity of it almost more than he could endure. - -There were hours also when Dicky could believe almost anything at the -_Ashrama_, where he was permitted to sit with the native students -(Gandhi often halting his speech in Hindi or Guzerati, to talk English -for the American’s benefit). And occasionally during long evening talks -with Nagar, on the banks of the Sabarmati or under the muffle-winged -_punkahs_ in the _Entresden_ room, Dicky’s mind had sudden extensions -of range. Still he had a vague foreboding that he would not be able to -hold all this hopeful stuff when he was away from India, for slowly and -surely he was being pressed to depart. - -“America needs your loyalty now,” Nagar said. “We will send for you -to come when the curtain rises here. The drama of India is not being -played now, but the Play is written. This that you have heard, so far, -is only a rehearsal of minor parts.” - -In June, a letter came from _The Public Square_, pressing its -correspondent to return to France, or at least to some of the points -where the American troops were gathering. - - ... As for magazine conditions, Dicky [John Higgins wrote], they - couldn’t be worse. Our little old _Public Square_ has fallen into - sorry ways.... If you’ve had a German neighbor for thirty years and - learned cautiously to respect the beast, you’re supposed now to - know him no more, in trade or whist or home or club, nor his woman - nor children. Old England’s bloomed out more seductive than ever, - and this country’s infatuated. You couldn’t believe it. We’re more - English than Canada right now. She’s borrowed everything in sight - and is so tickled over herself that she’s beginning to laugh at us - already. It’s a fact, her big business men can’t keep the joke any - longer.... But I only meant to tell you that _The Public Square_ - has nothing to say, nothing to do. We tried a critical study of the - architecture of a federal building in Des Moines, and we’re being - looked into for unpatriotic motives. A lot of American business - men, who once gloried in their breadth and toleration, have taken - positions in what they call the Department of Justice, and their - business is to probe into speeches and writings like ours. They are - looking for heresies of citizenship. If we’re not suspended for - making a croak, we’ll likely be forced to suspend for not having the - breath. Otherwise, we’re quite well, and the trade world--you ought - to be able to hear American business boom, even in India--if you’re - not too far inland. - -For the first time John Higgins’ views looked diminished to Dicky -Cobden’s eyes. This personal treason he laid to India. He made an -arrangement, however, to help _The Public Square_ to keep alive.... -Gandhi was called to Lucknow, and Dicky saw him into his third-class -coach, with a catch in his throat and a sadness of heart. A day or -two later he left Nagar at the station where he found him--and the -day looked dull and gloomy from the windows of the Bombay _Inter -Provincial_, as the American started south alone. - - - - -XXIX - -RUFUS’ PLAY DAY - - -RUFUS MELTON was having his coffee at Miss Claes’ table. It was noon -and July, 1917. The package of mail left at 54 Harrow Street had not -forgotten Rufus this morning. Another story had gone through, and he -felt that the day was all right. It looked to him like a very good day -to play and to shop. Miss Claes came in from the kitchen in a fresh -white dress and canvas shoes, nor did she come empty handed. A crystal -and silver marmalade jar was in one hand, and a plate of cold ham in -the other. These she placed on the cloth before him; and noting that -the loaf of rye bread lay uncut upon the board, she went to a drawer -for the knife. - -Rufus dropped a cube of sugar into his coffee cup and contemplated -Miss Claes’ ankle. His mind became industrious. He was thinking how he -would describe the ankle if he were using it in a story. He thought -of several narrow white things. There was a white greyhound, but you -couldn’t say a woman’s ankle was like that. There was a white pleasure -yacht on the river, with narrow lines and clipper bow that bore a -psychological likeness, but it would take a paragraph to put that over. -The boneheads would think of boiler plate. Then there was a birch tree -and a polar bear and a snowy church spire ... anyway the ankle was -fetching. - -“You look great this morning, Miss Claes, and see here----” - -He spread out his letter from a most rich and inaccessible editorial -room. - -“How interesting, Rufus. You are doing so well with your stories.” - -“Pidge thinks they’re rotten,” he chuckled. - -No comment from Miss Claes. - -“She’d have me sit in a cave and growl over a story--bringing one out -every three months for editors to muss their hair over and finally turn -down. That’s the life----” - -Miss Claes had turned to the cabinet of dishes, the double doors of -which were open. One might have thought that Rufus was now entirely -involved in the subject of Pidge’s idea of stories, but in reality he -was studying Miss Claes’ waist and throat and profile. Her particular -freshness from boots up this morning fascinated his eye. She took his -coffee cup to the kitchen to be refilled, and when she came back close -to his chair, Rufus’ arm moved engagingly around her hips, his face -turning up with a questioning boyish smile. - -“What is it, Rufus?” she asked, making no movement to be free from his -arm. - -“You’re mighty charming this morning----” - -“It’s a charming morning.” - -His arm tightened a little, yet she stood perfectly still. Rufus was -now in a quandary. This sitting posture had its diminishing aspect: -yet to arise and disentangle his feet from under the table, he must -loosen his arm or show an uncouth line to the camera, so to speak. -Rufus rarely broke his rhythms in these little performances; certainly -not when the going was as delicate as this. Miss Claes had become -especially desirable, because of an exciting uncertainty about her, and -an affectation, at least, of allegiance to Pidge. If he had only had -sense enough to turn his chair around, before taking her in. Presently -Rufus reached the conclusion that it was better to draw her down to -him, than take a chance of getting his arm around her again. - -She came--no resistance, no rigidity. His lips found her shadowy -cheek, and an indescribable and most disturbing fragrance from her -neck and hair. Or was it the extraordinary coolness of everything that -disturbed, or the words gently whispered in his ear: - -“You’re such a lonely boy. You don’t understand at all what you are -really dying for.” - -Rufe was disappointed. So hers was the mothering game. Besides his -position was uncomfortable, knees under the table, and his coffee was -getting cold. So he let her go after all, in order to reach a standing -posture, but by the time he was free of the chair and the table, Miss -Claes had vanished without haste into the kitchen. Rufus now stood -dangling inconveniently between his breakfast and her return. - -She came; he went to her. Her dark eyes were utterly calm, no traceable -deepening of the color in her face. She halted, but lightly held in -the two hands before her was a gold-edged dish, with a little golden -globe of butter in the center. - -Rufus dropped back in his chair and lifted his coffee cup. What on -earth could a man do with a woman holding a butter dish? “It’s hell to -be fastidious,” he thought, in regard to his own inhibitions. - -Something delectable had gone out of the July day. Miss Claes was no -nearer his understanding than before. Pidge would have the laugh on -him, because these women could never keep anything to themselves. He -didn’t mind anything about Pidge so much as her laugh. Altogether, this -little brush at breakfast left him unsatisfied--and this was a play day. - -“Thanks,” he said at the door. - -She gave him a pink, an old-fashioned white one. “The -butter-and-egg-man brought in some from his dooryard garden in -Yonkers,” she said. - -Rufe started upstairs. - -There were voices from one of the rooms on the main floor, but the -second was entirely empty and silent until a rear door opened and Fanny -Gallup looked out. - -“Hello,” she said in a far-reaching whisper. - -Fanny’s “hello” was one of the best of her little ways. She said it, as -one would cast a silken noose. - -Rufe looked back and down. On certain mornings he would have growled an -answer and tramped on, but there was something white and calling about -the face in the dim shadows this morning, and for a wonder the kids -weren’t squalling. - -“Oh, come in. Come on in!” was in his ears. Her bare arm was raised -and he saw the little muffler of dark in the pit of it. The lacing was -gone from the smock, moreover, and there was a pull for the moment -to Fanny’s sad little breast. The fact that the smock had once been -Pidge’s, Rufe thrust back into his mind for future reference. He -halted, looking around and listening again. Then he tiptoed in and the -door was shut. Not a great while afterward the door was opened, the -crying of children was heard. Fanny was moaning, “Don’t go ’way--oh, -don’t go ’way!” - -But Rufus breasted past her muttering within himself, “Never again!” - - * * * * * - -... Pidge and Rufe Melton went over to Bank Street for supper that -evening. Rufus wasn’t hungry. He had bought a golf suit that looked -very well on him, he said, but evidently now he was troubled how to use -it. He hadn’t done any work so far to-day and felt less like it than -ever. Pidge thoughtlessly mentioned that an Indian letter had come in -to the office from Richard Cobden that day. - -“You folks are dippy about this Cobden,” Rufe said. “Every time an -article of his comes out in the _Passé Square_, you gather together to -read it as if it had come from the Messiah. What’s he to you, Pan--a -little bit tender on your Dicky?” - -“A little bit tender,” she said. - -Rufus felt abused. He glared at her. This sort of thing had happened -before. Rufe had come to look at Pidge as his picket pin. He had a -long rope and everything was all right, so long as the pin held. But -her manner now would uncenter any man. - -“I’d like to get out of Harrow Street,” he growled. “Every time I put -my address on the top of a manuscript, I feel it’s a knock rather than -a boost. I’ve been tempted to get an agent, for no other reason than to -have his address for the magazines to work through. I was talking with -Redge Walters who bought this story to-day, and he said, ‘Rufe, you -sure fall for the little bobbed heads down in the Village, don’t you? -Why don’t you come uptown and live in New York?’” - -“I like Harrow Street,” said Pidge. - -“You don’t make a secret of it, either,” he went on. “Of course, Miss -Claes is kind and all that, but we pay for what we get, and there’s -no question in my mind about the pictures in her gallery being hung -crooked.” - -“If you’ve finished your supper, let’s go,” said Pidge. - -“She breathes! The Arctic princess!” Rufe shivered. - -Pidge didn’t answer. - -“And that second floor needs policing up,” Rufe resumed. “I haven’t -taken it to heart so much about living in the Village, but that second -floor’s a tenement patch. Every time I go up and down----” - -“Fanny’s my fault and Miss Claes accepts it with never a murmur,” Pidge -said, wide-eyed. “I’d look well running off uptown and leaving Fanny -there. Oh, Rufe, don’t you ever see any fault except on the outside?” - -Right then Rufe said something. - -“What’s the use of me looking after my own faults when you’ve got them -all in hand like Shetland ponies?” - -Pidge arose. Black waters were welling up in her breast. It was so -true. His faults were with her day and night, and the greatest of them -was his entire irresponsibility. Also it touched her in the sorest -quick to have him point out that Fanny lowered the values, not only of -the second floor, but of the whole Harrow Street house. - -Pidge never passed Fanny’s door but she was pressed by something within -to enter; yet her whole personal nature rebelled. Often for hours at -her work, there was a gloomy semiconscious activity within her that -kept urging its notice up to her mind. When she stopped to think, she -would realize that she hadn’t gone into Fanny’s room that day, or that -she must drop in to-night. It was so now, only more than ever, because -Rufe had located her private horror and brought it to speech. On the -second floor, returning from supper, she told Rufe to go on up, that -she meant to see Fanny for a few minutes. - -“What to--come on, Pan, let’s go to a show somewhere!” he said suddenly. - -She shook her head. - -“There isn’t a clot of work stirring in my brain pan,” he went on. - -“I don’t want to go out. I’ve got to see Fanny----” - -He caught her sleeve. “It’s too hot to go up. Let’s go somewhere. Let’s -get on a bus and go uptown----” - -She was too occupied in the thing she hated to do, to notice his -concern. He spoke again: - -“I’m not going up there alone. You’re colder than a frog to live with -anyway----” - -“Go out somewhere, Rufe, if you want to. Don’t mind me.” - -She didn’t hear his words, but she heard the crying of Fanny’s -children. The door opened. Fanny stood there, but looked past her, over -Pidge’s shoulder, and queerly enough Pidge thought of the words, “And -Jove nods to Jove.” The hall door was then shut. - -“Wot you coming in here for--to scold me some more, Redhead?” - -“No, Fanny, to see you and the----” - -“I know why you come, all right. To find fault--that’s why, and you -needn’t kill yourself, because I’m gettin’ along, so-so. Little old -Fanny’s holdin’ her own--and that’s more’n you’re doin’.” - -Pidge looked into the crib. A core of fetid vapor hung above it, and -Fanny’s words seemed to blend with it. - -“Think you can hold your job and hold a man, too, don’t you? Oh, yes, -Redhead knows how. Redhead’s got it all worked out. Redhead can tell us -all how to do it, oh, yes----” - -“What’s the matter, Fanny? Are you scolding, so I won’t start? I didn’t -come to start something. Just came to see you. Wouldn’t you like to go -out for an hour and have me stay with the--with the----” - -Pidge always halted this way. - -“Worried--eh? Worried about somethin’?” Fanny piped up. “Well, I’m not -tellin’ anything--except you ain’t got your little mastiff tied to no -corset string----” - -“What are you talking about, Fanny?” - -“Like to know. Wouldn’t you?” - -Pidge felt cold. She cared to know what the other meant. She didn’t say -so, however. She knew a better way--an effective way that seemed to -come out of depths within her that knew vast pasts and many lands, all -strategies of men and maids, all secrets of tent and purdah, lattice -and veil. - -“Don’t trouble, Fanny. I just came in to see how you were getting on. -I’m so sorry, you know----” - -“Sorry----” Fanny laughed. - -“So sorry, dear--that you’re penned in this way--and Albert missing!” - -“Sorry!” Fanny screamed her mirth. - -“Don’t you want me to be sorry for you, dear?” Pidge trailed. “Why, I -haven’t been nearly so good as I meant to be----” - -“Well, you dam’ little itch-face--talking to me about being sorry. -Who’n heller-you to tell me about being sorry? Who’n heller-you to -talk to me about me gettin’ penned in an’ Albert missin’, when you -can’t keep your own man--when you don’t carry your own babies? Who’n -heller-you anyway?” - -Then Fanny got down to business and spoke of life in the here and now. - -“Never mind, dear,” said Pidge. “We can’t attend to everything. I’m -going out to get you some ice cream. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” - -She was in the street. She brought back a paper pail without haste. -Fanny had begun to cry. - -“Don’t feel badly,” Pidge said, washing a saucer and spoon. - -Fanny cried on. Pidge served her a large dish, and a smaller one for -the older child. Then from the paper, she spooned tiny mouthfuls into -the face in the crib--spooned until there was sleep from the novel -coolness of the sweet. Then Pidge patted Fanny’s shoulder, as she -passed out, promising to come back some time to-morrow. - -Upstairs she found Rufe, shirt open at the throat, standing by the back -window. The light in the room was heavily shaded. He looked to her -covertly, half expectantly. - -“Want to read something?” he said in a pleasant tone. - -“No. I’m going to bed,” said Pidge. - - - - -XXX - -THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE - - -EARLY the next morning in the shadowy back room, Pidge moved softly -about as she dressed. She saw the new golf suit, and her lips twisted -into a smile. Another toy; another bit of acting. That was all of the -game he cared for--the clothes that went with it. She thought of the -night on the corner when the newsboy had pointed out Rufe as a movie -actor. She saw his desk by the window. It looked like a troubled face. -Here she was, as usual, furiously busy with his faults--so occupied -that he didn’t have to bother at all, sleeping serenely on. But he -didn’t understand, never could understand, that her agony was because -she saw them as part of herself; that in her own heart she couldn’t -free herself from responsibility; knowing deeply the _dis_-ease that -comes from that soul-deep question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” - -And there he was lying on his back, innocent as a child. The pain -darted into her heart ... the baby carriage at Santa Monica. His -complexion was almost as fresh, his black hair brushed back. It was as -if he had fallen asleep with a tear in his eyes, for a little penciling -of salt was on the thin blue-veined skin under the eyelid. His breast -was uncovered and that spoiled the picture, spoiled the pathos; for -Rufe, though the least athletic of men, was hairy and glad of it. - -She hadn’t slept. This, since coming home last night, was a show-down -time, as she expressed it. She had met the same several times with -her father, when the days became so black and evil that something had -to happen. Deep, under words and surface thoughts, lay the affair of -Fanny’s room. The dreary consciousness of that never left her, but -actual thinking of details was another affair. She couldn’t give way -to them, and keep the outer quiet she had determined upon. She had -been too honest to hide from herself, even in the beginning, that Rufe -habitually took life as it came. She never could forget his first -appraisal of herself in the reception room of _The Public Square_. - -So this hadn’t come in the nature of shock; rather it was a pitiless -uncovering of ugliness that had been vaguely subconscious before. What -hurt her most keenly, so that she was close to crying out, as she lay -beside him in the night, was the inevitable tramp of Fate, audible -through it all--their meeting in Dicky’s room; Dicky’s opening of _The -Public Square_ to him in the first place; her own bringing of Fanny -Gallup to this house; the weaving back and forth into one, of the -different lives--even her father’s. - -Rufe wasn’t at home when she returned that night. He hadn’t rung her at -the office, but she found word with Miss Claes that he had gone down -to Washington. She felt something was going to happen, but through the -day she had gathered her strength together to decide that she wouldn’t -be the one to bring it about. Underneath all was the old sense of her -responsibility. - -Pidge was half tempted to seek Miss Claes this night. She even went -so far as to learn that her friend was at home. It always happened -so, when she needed help: Miss Claes might be out any or at all other -times. A light was in the basement room, and no voices, but Pidge crept -back upstairs without speaking.... She had failed. She had run away -from her father, failing there; failing here. She must see this through -alone a little longer.... The next afternoon Rufe called for her at -_The Public Square_. His eyes held a glint of triumph. - -“I’m going to France,” he said, when they were in the street. “I’ve -arranged to do a big feature for Redge Walters and a Sunday newspaper -syndicate set.” - -“But how about the draft?” - -“Went down to Washington to start things going to fix that. Redge gave -me letters. Looks as if there won’t be much trouble. You see, the -Government needs the writers--public sentiment, you know.” - -It wasn’t that Pidge didn’t think of things to say on this point of -making public sentiment, but a great gray ennui was over her. She had -said enough about his faults. - -“You know, I’ve been smothering in Harrow Street--had to get away,” he -added. - -“Yes, I know, Rufe.” After a time, she said, “I think it’s a good -thing.” - -“That’s the way to look at it, Pan,” he said in a relieved voice, and -confided: “I need the experience, too, you know, because I’ve never -been to Europe----” - -It was out before she thought: “But how did you get to the Tunisian -sands?” - -“I mean I’ve never stayed long enough to look around. Of course, I’ve -passed through.” - -He grouched for the rest of the evening, but she felt worse about this -than he did. She had thought she was through nailing him like that. -It had done no good, merely an additional breaking out of her abysmal -temper.... On the night before he left, Rufe was at his best--the -playboy she loved so much; and, of course, she was pressed harder and -harder into the realms of the Arctic Princess, which was by no means -her natural habitat. At last, he had her crying, which was something, -because it hadn’t happened often. - -“Going to miss your Rufie,” he whispered, “sorry he’s going away?” - -“Oh, it isn’t that!” - -“What is it, Pan?” he demanded in the tone of the head of a household. -“Get it off your mind--don’t keep anything from me.” - -That started her to laughing. “It’s noth-nothing, Rufe. I’m all right -now,” she said brokenly. “I’m only hurt because I haven’t done it -better----” - -“What?” - -“Us.” - -“Forget it,” he said. “I never hold a grudge.” - - - - -XXXI - -TWO LETTERS FROM INDIA - - -LATER in July, Miss Claes received letters from Dicky Cobden and Nagar. -Each, it appeared, had been mainly interested in writing about the -other. She read Dicky’s first: - - ... I think I’ve seen the Man you wrote of, but I’m more interested - in our own Nagar--altogether different in his native dress. I never - knew how civilized clothes could slow up a man’s looks. If a white - man in New York were as good-looking as Nagar is here, the movie - folk would kidnap him, if necessary, for the screen.... Things look - differently over here. Sitting in this plain house of the one they - call Mahatma-ji, I seem to understand things that would appear absurd - in New York.... Nagar has opened up. He talks freely and laughs. He - is human, and his American years show in fine light. Try to think how - startling all this was to one coming up from Bombay, expecting the - old sphinx of your basement and halls.... I find myself frequently - at the _Ashrama_--a houseful of saints--young men and women devoted - to the Mahatma-ji, like Nagar, and who apparently have taken vows - covering self-sacrifices unlimited. Gandhi is a bit of old brass with - a mustache; terribly battered, only fifty they say, but he shows the - wear of greater years. I seemed to feel that he had been frozen, - that he had been whipped, that he had been burned. Some of his teeth - are gone.... He tells us that you can’t fight back and expect to get - anywhere. He says to answer a hurt with a hurt is to prepare for hurt - again. He says you never can understand your enemy by hating him. He - says that India can only triumph by returning into herself. Imagine - such unearthly affairs from a barrister educated in Middle Temple, - London! And Nagar appears to understand all this.... I haven’t the - organs to believe much. My training hasn’t prepared me easily to - accept miracles--more later, when I cool down. But Nagar is great to - me in himself. I think I find him more interesting, even than Gandhi. - Sometimes he seems to contain Gandhi. But it would smash everything I - have to work with, if I gave either one of them my entire belief. Yet - I dread the thought of going away.... - -The letter from Nagar was then read slowly twice, and the smile on the -face of Miss Claes gradually lost itself in a blur of white, as if -twilight had crept into the basement room. - - ... The American whom we know never speaks directly of the one he - loves; it does not seem to occur to him that we have sympathy that - enfolds his secrets. He asks questions--asks questions. He shakes his - head. His college-trained intellect does not reach up, does not hold - up its cup to receive the synthesis. It moves wearily from one to - another of its separate analyses, with only rarely a connective flash - of intuition. But his heart keeps burning, yearning all the time, - and as he learns, he acts. So he seems very safe.... I have wished so - often that he were going to you, instead of to his work in Europe, - but that, of course, is selfish. He has his work there. We must hold - him between us. He knows already that he will not be able to see and - feel in France, as he does here. It is his ordeal. I have told him - many times; every day, in fact, that what he sees and feels here, he - must remember there, and hold to, until it is made working knowledge - within him.... Our work is merely preparing. The Little Man, as - Richard calls him affectionately from that old story, realizes that - the hour is not yet. We work in the midst of many shades of darkness - and obliquity and inhibition. We are marking time, marking time.... - Our American will return to India in time to see the Day break. I - have promised to keep him informed. As Paul Richard says, “We must - prepare in ourselves that magnificent day.” - -Miss Claes sat in silence. Then she seemed to become aware that voices -above vaguely distracted. She went to the door, and listened. Fanny -Gallup was crying, with little care who heard. - - - - -XXXII - -FRANCE, 1918. THE YANK - - -DICKY hadn’t had his clothes off for several days. He was in the -“Oregon” Forest with Colonel Boulding who was no sort of man to tie -to for one who felt that a clean washrag was one of the necessities -of life. Dicky hadn’t cared for strenuous field work but it had -come to him in France; not the actions of the big fields so much as -the extraordinary little back-line dramas that break the laws of -perspective by rising more clearly, as days drew on. Four days before, -on his way in to Paris, he had met Boulding, who was taking out several -fresh battalions to relieve a hard-pressed front at St. Aignan. - -“I’ve got an extra horse,” said Boulding, “good old Yorick, steady as a -tram-car, and we’ll be back in three days.” - -Dicky stood in the twilight, half rain, half snow--one of the -interminable waits for order, Boulding back in the ranks somewhere. The -firing had died down and Dicky dropped his bridle rein to bang his arms -about to get some blood stirring in them. One of the problems of life -just now was why wet snow soaked through leather quicker than straight -rain water; another was why letters from home always dragged around -the wrong fronts before being delivered; another was how long was IT -going to last; another was hot coffee. - -His mount had turned gently away in the thickening dusk, turned on -his toe corks through the slush to follow a wind-blown leaf. Plop--a -water-soaked trench-siding gave way, and Yorick disappeared into an -unused pit. Dicky stared down into the inky dark. The beast snorted. -A flashlamp was procured from one of Boulding’s lieutenants and Dicky -found his way down into the trench. - -It became clear why Yorick couldn’t rise, even if unhurt. The trench -bottom was a six-inch paste of water and clay. Holding the flashlight -in front of him, Dicky approached the sprawled beast. Yorick looked -like a monster in the process of being born out of the mud. There was -something both humorous and hopeless about the gaunt lifted head that -came up into the ray. And now Dicky discovered that Yorick’s left -foreleg below the knee veered off suddenly to the left, at a decided -angle from the way it should lie. Dicky felt alone in a harrowing -under world. The leaf that had caused it all, or possibly one like it, -protruded from the snaffle ring. Yorick had come up to his leaf all -right, and then forgotten what he had gone after. - -“Pretty lucky old boy, you are,” Dicky said. “Work done, war over for -you, nice warm ditch to lie up in at the last, and I’ve got to take all -the responsibility.” - -He drew the pistol from his belt and placed it on the little twist of -hair halfway between the eyes. - -“I ought to take the saddle off first, but I’m not going to. So long, -old kid, and best luck.” - -The pistol banged in the dugout like a cannon cracker under a flower -pot, and the voice of an American sentry above was heard to say: - -“Some fool’s blowed his head off, down there. Why in hell can’t a man -be patient!” - -Dicky climbed up on the level ground, no sicker than before, but a -trifle more tired.... He was chafed. Yorick had done some of it in the -last four days, but not all. He was chafed in and out and over, chafed -from his boots and belt and helmet, but especially from his key ring. -This last had ground into him all day. He took it out now, as he waited -for coffee. Meanwhile he edged as near as possible (without murdering -anybody) to the trench stove Boulding’s cook had got going. - -There was the key to his mother’s house in Fiftieth Street--a thick -brass stubby affair that belonged to the door of a house where hardware -was well understood. This key couldn’t be thrown away. Though it was -practically unthinkable--a man might some time get home. It had been -done. There was a key to 54 Harrow Street. The woman who ran the place -had told him to keep it with him, because it was a symbol of something -which he had professed at the time to understand. Then there was a -long, old-fashioned inside door key, black and a little bent--the -meanest of all to dig into a man’s hip--this to the hall door of -certain rooms in the same Harrow Street house. Its duplicate was in -the hands of a girl he used to know. She had said she would look in -on the apartment while he was gone, but she was married now. No use -keeping it any longer. - -He took it off the ring, but put it back again. - -Certain things were good, but hard to get. Brandy was good. Coffee was -good, especially hot. Saddle-horse stew was good. Porkpie, pork and -beans, pork sausage and pancakes were reasonable and of good report, -but keys on key rings that gored a man while he rode or slept, and -stretched back into meanings of the Utterly Absurd that a man couldn’t -get straight in Paris, much less in this slaughterhouse of the Western -Front--keys on key rings were sheer perversities, especially when a man -wasn’t game to toss them into any one of these open sewers.... - -They were saying at home that his stuff was blurred and unconvincing. -Even John Higgins had been singularly silent of late. Chris Heidt, the -managing editor of his newspaper connection, had recently written: -“We miss that fine patriotic ring that we have come to expect from -our correspondent. Your stuff shows subtleties and innuendoes and the -dissatisfaction of the boys--the little things back of the lines that -make for disorganization, rather than the big doings at the front.” - -It was dawning on Dicky that there were two kinds of American patriots, -soldier and civilian; and that for keenness and fire-eating zest, the -man in the zone of advance was not to be compared to the paper-fed -folk at home. In fact, there were only two ways for a writer to -please the firesides of America, as the hot flames of Hun-hatred and -world-correcting benefactions went up the chimney. One was to stay at -home and write the war as you supposed it to be, and the other was to -remember how you felt, how the war seemed to you, before you reached -France, and write it from that angle. - -Blurred, all right, and chafed. One thing he was getting to understand -a little, and to have an affection for. That was the American -soldier--not officer, so much, but the ruffian in the ranks, _dogus -bogus Americanus_--the fellow fused of Irish, Scotch and Jew, of -German, English, Russian and French; something of each in the solution, -something of all. In the first place, this Yank was the funniest thing -ever turned loose on the planet. His officers were occasionally funny -in a different way. - -Dicky vaguely perceived that an abyss was slowly but surely forming -between this Yank and the patriots at home--an abyss only to be bridged -by silence. Quite as slowly but surely Dicky’s heart opened to this -enlisted man. One has to love something. Once or twice, things he saw -this laughing maniac from America do made him very much ashamed of his -own mental antics in a certain red room of Bombay. - - - - -XXXIII - -PARIS, 1918--HADDON AND AMES - - -SO far as Dicky was concerned, the things of great moment in his -experience in France all happened in the fall of 1918. He was in Paris -at the end of that shocking summer, and found a letter from Nagar -which reiterated that the curtain could not rise on the Drama of India -until Great Britain was through fighting in France and the land of the -Euphrates.... He was stopping at the _Garonne_. There was a knock at -his room door one afternoon and voices outside. It was Haddon and Ames, -correspondents out of New York, and they wanted money. Haddon talked -first: - -“... He’s off his head and in a mess. He mentioned your name. He says -he sniffed some gas out in the vineyards somewhere in April, and can’t -get over it. Either that, or the family he’s fouled up with is feeding -him ground glass.” - -“Who’s this you’re talking about?” Cobden asked, though he had heard -the name. - -“Melton--done some magazine stories,” said Haddon. - -“You say he mentioned my name?” - -“His French father-in-law picked on me first,” Ames put in. “Just -happened. I’m at the _Charente_, where a lot of Americans are putting -up. Told me a long story of wrongs to his only child--a female child -now married to Author Melton. Mentioned your name----” - -“He was gassed?” Dicky repeated. - -“He says he was,” said Haddon. “It’s an operation case, all right. -Melton will have to be cut out of that French house.” - -“I don’t know whether it’s gas in my case or not,” Dicky said, “but the -fact is I am not rightly aboard this conversation.” - -“The idea is to get aboard with some American currency,” said Ames. -“American in trouble--fellows all willing to help a little. Up to -somebody to get the fool out. Father picked on me----” - -“Let me get this straight,” Dicky heard himself saying, though all he -wanted under heaven at this moment was to be alone. - -Ames was one of the best Washington correspondents in the American -press, a fact-getter extraordinary, who had a semi-inspired way now and -then of putting down his stuff. He was fifty, a friend of John Higgins -and weathered to a fuzzy gray like a fence board. Just now he bluffed -out his embarrassment by speaking of one of Melton’s stories which -Dicky was professionally familiar with: - -“A short story in one of the weeklies--called _Dr. Filter_--hell of a -good story.... It’s nothing to me,” Ames finished. “Only the kid’s an -American, and he’s tight up against one of Paris’ prettiest ways.” - -Haddon took up the tale: - -“The Frenchman’s name is Ducier. Melton’s been living at his -house--mixed with the daughter--forced to marry. Now Parent Ducier says -the least he can do is to get a living for himself out of it--hard -times.” - -“Actually married?” Dicky asked. - -“Showed me the passport,” said Ames. “I couldn’t get a word alone with -Melton. He can’t leave his bed. One of the family always in the room.” - -Dicky was straining so hard that he resisted easy comprehension. It was -an intense moment. There was more talk. - -“Of course, whatever you want from me----” Dicky broke in. - -“What you can spare,” Haddon said. “The parents ask twenty thousand -francs, but they’ll take half that easy. Just now the boy’s too sick to -escape.” - -“Count on me for at least half of whatever it costs,” Dicky said. - -Haddon’s eyes widened. Ames looked astonished. - -“I’ve heard Cobden is rich, Ames,” Haddon explained. - -The gray one came closer and examined Dicky’s face. “I heard it, too,” -he said. “You really mean this?” - -“I would give you the amount now, but I understand that you aren’t sure -what it will be. I know Melton. I’m glad to help, of course.” - -“I’ve heard you were rich, too,” Ames repeated slowly. “But I didn’t -believe it.” - -“Why not?” - -“You’re too good a newspaper man,” said Ames. “I didn’t think a man -could have real money and be as good a newspaper man as you.” - -Dicky hardly heard the tribute. The two men were leaving. That was the -important thing.... He was alone. An intermittent geyser was at work -within him. Every few minutes a surge of hot hope boiled up in his -breast. It threatened to deluge him. Out of all the year’s work was -netted at this time one bit of working knowledge, as Nagar might have -called it, that he must _not_ be deluded by this hope! He tried to -cork it up; failing in that he stood as still as he could in the midst -of the surges. Gradually, he got the thing in hand, but it was bitter -work, this refusing to take the first real breath of life he had known -for years. - -He found himself in twilight. The day had slipped off, while he -struggled alone. His forehead was clammy with the effort going on. To -go back into that dreary hopelessness, and not be able to think out -the reason why! The force that he had to work with now came from the -painful mistake he had made in working for reward before; from the -shock of that realization in the red room, that underneath everything, -he had counted on his virtue being crowned with Pidge somehow coming -across. - -Now the fight changed. Persistently in the depths of him grew an -awareness that he had not done the full task called of him merely in -offering Ames money. This point became so ugly and evident--that he had -to laugh. More and more, as moments sped on, it faced him squarely. He -had no sentimentalism to tide him over; his emotions stayed ice cold. - -“But it’s like a fool Sunday-school story!” he muttered. - -Then again the words broke from him: “But living God, suppose she -doesn’t want the bundle back! Suppose she’s been trying to lose it, -and here I am running after her, saying, ‘You’ve dropped something, -Madame----’” - -But he couldn’t budge. - -Full dark was in the room when he rung Ames at the _Charente_: - -“I’ve been thinking over this thing, Mr. Ames, and I’m asking a -favor----” - -“Yes,” came coldly across the town. Ames believed he was trying to -wriggle out of his promise to pay half. - -“I’ve come to the conclusion that this thing is up to me--the whole -business, and I’ll thank you very much for Mr. Melton’s present -address.” - -“No. 16, Rue de Belville, Villancourt.” The tones had warmed. - -“Thanks. I’ll report to you presently,” Cobden said. - -“Sure you don’t want me--or one of us to go along with you?” Ames -persisted. - -“I’ll see what I can do alone first, if you don’t mind.” - - - - -XXXIV - -THE HOUSE OF DUCIER - - -QUEER drama, from eight to twelve that night in the little house of -Ducier. Four hours--as long as an uncut opera! The sick man moaned, and -interrupted everything, calling to Dicky Cobden: - -“For the love of God, don’t go ’way and leave me here! I’m done for, if -you leave me alone again.... Oh, Cobden, Cobden----” - -The daughter wept. It was her entire part. She had a brown mole upon -her ruddy rounded cheek, and very white small teeth in gums of a red -that Dicky had never seen before except in dental advertisements. She -was made of little curves, and all of them were required in the art of -her weeping. - -“What’s the matter?” Dicky asked her, during a halt in the proceedings. - -“You are taking him away!” - -“I don’t seem to be very successful about it.” - -“Oh, but you will--you are taking him away!” - -Dicky was glad to hear that he was going to get what he came for, but -the obstacles still looked serious. - -“Isn’t that what you want--to be rid and paid?” - -“My father--yes--but me--no, no! He is my lover--oh, such an adored!” - -It was new to Cobden’s experience just how obdurate an outraged -European can be. M. Ducier reiterated grimly that weeks ago in this -house, he had suddenly discovered a condition which destroyed all his -past and future. He had forced marriage, but that did not suffice. -Dicky turned to the bed at this point. - -“How did you happen to stand for marriage, Melton?” - -“Nothing to do with it--I was gassed!” - -Here the daughter’s cries arose, the hands of the mother were uplifted -to heaven, and the face of the father became more grim. It was against -Dicky’s training and heredity to stand for being bilked, yet he -hesitated to call for help. To start the police at work would mean -the American Legation before he was finished, and incredible delay. -Momentarily Melton made it harder. - -“If you go away and leave me after all they have said,” he moaned, -“there won’t be any need for you to come back! I am telling you, -Cobden, they keep me here--just as if my legs were tied.” - -Rufe spoke in English, which the mother and father did not understand, -but of which the daughter had plenty to catch the drift. Dicky did -not miss the fact that in the midst of her weeping there were subtle -affairs to confide to her father.... It cost him eighteen hundred -dollars to get Melton clear that night; but, at least, Melton was -thoroughly clear, the marriage certificate and receipt for heartbalm -in full, in his pocket. He watched curiously now to see if the tears -of Daughter Ducier were dried--but no, though Melton spurned her last -proffer of a kiss--at least with her, money was not all. - -In the days that followed, Dicky wasn’t able to get any rest from a -sense that he had done well. With every ounce of his returning strength -Rufe Melton yearned to get out of Paris. He had been abused; he was -frightened to depths hitherto unplumbed. He lived in a mortal dread day -and night that the Duciers would come for him again. - -“I can’t get a passage for you at a moment’s notice,” Dicky would say. -“Besides, you’re not fit to travel for a few days yet. I don’t want to -send you back to New York looking like a hounded Apache. Let me do this -thing right, Melton, while I’m in on it.” - -“But don’t go away and leave me here!” Rufe moaned. “Let me go out with -you when you go.” - -“You needn’t have the slightest fear from the Duciers.” - -The hands came up and waved hopelessly. - -“You don’t know them! You don’t know her!” Rufe moaned. “I want to get -out of here. I want to get on the ship. I don’t want to be left alone.” - -And this was what he was getting ready to send back to Pidge! Once, -when Dicky was really hard driven, a sudden chill of rage came over him -and he proceeded this far with a sentence: - -“Why, Melton, I really ought to put you----” - -The other words--“to death,” he somehow managed to keep from speech. -Dicky suffered especially from the feeling that he was playing the -boob. To be sincerely in wrong was his pet aversion--dating from the -night of the Punjabi dinner. Besides, he was tortured with the thought -that Pidge Musser wouldn’t thank him. Surely, for her sake, his mind -repeated, it would have been better even to put old Ames straight, and -let one American meet Paris unaided. But Rufe had called for him in his -trouble, had mentioned the name of Cobden to the others. - -One of the strangest things to Dicky now was that Pidge’s husband could -accept all this--somehow as if it were his due. Like a family affair. -Rufe seldom spoke of Pidge. Apparently getting back to New York meant -her; apparently they weren’t separated. Rufe had the most extraordinary -sense of taking her for granted. If he had any money or resources in -Paris, he didn’t let the fact be known. It was Dicky who purchased -his passage for New York. Again Dicky’s capacity for astonishment -was stretched, because Rufe seemed able to comfort himself with the -fact that he had it all coming. He had never been sick before. His -present infirmity was entirely engrossing. “I was gassed,” covered all -discrepancies of word and deed. - -Back in his room, after packing Rufe aboard the steamer, Dicky found -himself nervous, tired and irritable. A servant came and took out the -extra bed Rufe had occupied. The place was stiller than ever, after -that--no moaning, no fears, no complaints; but it wasn’t all relief -as Dicky had fancied it would be. He missed something--the world was -so crazy anyway--something that had taken him out of himself for two -weeks; something at least, that had played upon a different set of -faculties. Suddenly it dawned upon him, though he couldn’t tell why, -that Pidge would be glad after all. If you play orderly and guardian -and benefactor to a child--of course you miss the wretch. And Pidge was -a woman, and she had said--what had she said, about there not being two -ways? Now Dicky felt better. There had not been two ways for him. The -chapter was ended at any rate.... - -Another event of this fall of 1918, so far as Dicky Cobden was -concerned, was the Armistice. You can tell how inactive hope had become -within him at this time, and within the breasts of tens of thousands -of others, when he hadn’t believed that any other than a state of war -could exist. - -And finally, in December, six weeks after the Armistice, at the time -of the greatest rush in history for trans-Atlantic steamers, when -Dicky had about concluded that the quickest way home to New York would -be around by Asia, a _sepoy_ on leave crossed the city of Paris from -the cantonments in Lourdenvoie, and asked to see the American at the -_Garonne_. - -“You are Richard Cobden?” the young Hindu said, when the room door was -closed. - -Dicky nodded, a certain gladness in him that he did not understand. -At the same time he was intent in a scrutiny of the caller’s face--a -youth, but very worn. Something about the eyes made the American think -of a camel. - -“You have been to Ahmedabad, Mr. Cobden?” - -“Yes.” - -“Might I ask the name of the river there?” - -“The Sabarmati.” - -“Are you expecting a message from an American in Ahmedabad?” - -“No.” - -“From any one there?” - -“Yes.” Now Dicky knew that it was the patience in the young Hindu’s -eyes that made him think of a camel. - -“Is the name Juna?” - -“Nagarjuna.” - -The soldier bowed. “It is well. I was told to be assured, before giving -you the message. It is this: _That the curtain has risen, the play -begun, and that a seat is reserved for you._” - -“Is there need of haste?” - -“_No haste, but no delay!_” - -“My plan now is to go to New York----” - -“That need not be changed, since it was added for me to say--that it -will be well for you to travel westward rather than to the East.” - -“To Ahmedabad at once?” - -“You will do well to go first to Bombay.” - -“Thank you. Is there anything I can do for you?” - -“Only say to Nagarjuna--that I, too, hope to come for the end of that -play.” - -“Your name?” - -“He knows his messenger. Here I am not a name, hardly a number----” - -“A cigarette--a drink?” - -“I will not tarry since it is far to the cantonments.” - -The _sepoy_ bowed and departed. - - - - -XXXV - -FANNY HEARS THE DRUM - - -PIDGE MUSSER had moved around in an indescribable “deadness” for -several days following Rufe’s departure, before it landed on her, theme -and all, that she could do a book. Almost four years had elapsed since -she wrote the _Lance_. One Sunday morning after the new work was begun, -Pidge took out the old story from the drawer under the wavy glass, and -glanced over the pages, a puckered smile on her lips. Then she took the -manuscript down to the kitchen range, and there was a hot fire for a -while. - -The new writing was not so simple and flowing. In the first place, -there were only Sundays and an hour or two in the evening; but more -than that was the fact that she had learned so well what stories long -and short are not! She was now in the toil of technic, which is a -long passage. First the freedom of ignorance--“A man’s a fool before -he learns technic,” John Higgins had said. “He’s a cripple while he’s -learning it. When he’s learned it, and forgotten he’s learned it--he -begins to be a workman. That’s the freedom of knowledge.” - -The old editor didn’t know he had “said it all” for Pidge Musser that -day as he looked up from Rufe Melton’s story. She wouldn’t forget. Edit -and rewrite--some evenings with nothing but a torturing inhibition -to go to bed with. There was no other way. She was tough and broad -shouldered. She could toil. She had an instinctive awareness also, that -the deadliest danger in the whole scheme of things for her, at least, -was to brood inactively. Piled up energy to Pidge meant inevitable -disruption. - -_The Public Square_ was staying alive under the energy amassed by -the family of trowel makers, but John Higgins wasn’t standing the -punishment of the days. Pidge saw him falling into the fear of small -things. Among other institutions he hated was the U. S. Department of -Justice, but this department was hot after him and he was bluffed at -last. The climax had come upon the arrest of a famous pacifist, when -John Higgins was cornered with the necessity of silence. Since there -was no outlet in protest, his venom turned in on himself. His periods -of “illness” were frequent, and Pidge had a great deal to do. His old -reaction against her marriage was apparently forgotten, though his -temper was unreliable. He was using her now as never before. Once in -a while, he would look at her long and queerly, and often he said, “I -wish Dicky were here.” - - * * * * * - -In April, 1918, about the same time, a book and a boy were born in 54 -Harrow Street. Pidge was present at both deliveries. The enactment of -the boy’s coming required a full night; and during the next day, her -activities at _The Public Square_ were remote to Pidge, who had shrunk -so deeply into herself from nausea and a new kind of fright, that the -meaning of outer events was distorted and ungrippable. John Higgins -didn’t miss the fact. In the drag of the afternoon, she was called to -the telephone--Miss Claes on the wire: - -“You’d better come, Pidge!” - -An hour later, between five and six in the afternoon, she was in the -Harrow Street house, looking down into Fanny’s face which squirmed from -side to side. The eyes moved around the room and finally fixed on Pidge. - -“That you, Redhead?” - -“Yes----” - -“You was a hell of a long time comin’.” - -“I know----” - -“That dirty animal hurt me----” Evidently this referred to the doctor. - -“I’m sorry. He didn’t mean to----” - -“Know all about it, don’t yer? Know all about everythin’, don’t yer?” - -Pidge didn’t answer. - -Fanny lay a moment in pallid anger. Then her eyes slowly opened wider, -stretched, filled with astonishment, part rapture, part fear. - -“Why, Musser,” Fanny said in an awed tone, as one listening to a far -sound, “Holy Christ, I’m dying!” - -She was the last one in the room to know it--except the baby. - -A queer little dud with his black hair that stayed combed. No telling -what he knew any of the time. He didn’t open his eyes so that anybody -could catch him at it for several days, but the nurse never would have -done raving over his black lashes. Finally Pidge heard the news--that -the eyes weren’t black after all, as the hair and lashes would -indicate, but a dense blue. - -“He’s going to be a soldier--such a soldier!” the nurse exclaimed. “I -know I’ll die when I have to leave him.” - -Pidge’s lips worked without sound, and then a funny little twisted -smile stayed there--that made Miss Claes love her as never before. - - - - -XXXVI - -RUFE HURRIES HOME - - -RUFE MELTON came home to find life not the same. Matters had evolved -while he was away about his country’s business, matters that didn’t -please him now. He had rushed to Pidge. As the steamer approached -New York, a novel and unforeseen eagerness awoke within to get to -her, but she hadn’t put off her Arctics. Besides, off duty from her -editorial job, there was an infant in her arms for the most part--a -seven-months-old male infant with combed hair, that had looked into his -face and begun to yell. Rufe took this as a personal affront. He had -supposed it hers at first. - -“Sometimes, I forget that it isn’t,” she had said. - -Harrow Street furnished the statement and proof, however, that it was -Fanny Gallup’s, who was dead. - -“But why don’t you adopt the other two?” he asked. - -“Miss Claes has found homes for Albert’s children,” Pidge said. - -Rufe stood it for two days. “This can’t go on, Pan. I’ve got to get to -work--no nerves to work in this racket, since I was gassed----” - -“Of course not.” - -Under his surface anger, she saw the old look of hurt wonder that -harrowed her so. - -“Come back--any time, Rufe--come whenever you can. Always a place here, -you know.” - - - - -XXXVII - -JOHN HIGGINS’ CODE - - -WHEN Dicky Cobden reached New York, he found that Pidge had been -called to Los Angeles, because her father was ill. It was an evening -in mid-January, 1919, and he went at once to his mother’s house in -Fiftieth Street. The strain of waiting for his home-coming had been -almost too much there. Grandfather had flickered out; his bed and -chairs gaped and would not be comforted. Dicky went into the living -arms, however, and found rest and gave it. His mother and aunt and -sister livened up like plants, newly-watered. He was queerly astonished -to learn that Pidge recently had called upon his people--“just a social -call,” his mother said. - -Outwardly things looked as hopeless as possible at _The Public Square_. -From his latest retirement to his rooms for a change of luck, John -Higgins had been taken to the hospital, instead of returning to his -desk. It was a gray-faced old man that Dicky found in the early morning -of his first full day at home, in a room that smelled of drugs. The -face didn’t look at him squarely. The light hurt John Higgins’ eyes -and made the features writhe. Dicky wanted to move around to the other -side of the bed, so the face would be shaded, but his old friend was -gripping him with both hands. - -“We have been looking for you a long time, Dicky,” he kept saying. - -It wasn’t the unshaven white stubble that changed the face so much as -the quiver of the upper lip, when John Higgins spoke. - -“What’s the matter, John?” - -“Indigestion--all kinds of indigestion. Damn ’em, Dicky, they’ve made -me eat my own words----” - -“Who?” - -“The most pestiferous public nuisance ever organized--Department of -Justice.” - -Dicky did not need to be warned against the _bête noir_. Its shadow was -upon John Higgins’ face. - -“I rather liked yesterday’s issue,” he said, “and they tell me that the -next two numbers are practically made up.” - -“You’ve been to the office then?” - -“No. I called up from home at breakfast. That’s how I heard you were -here. Just off ship last night----” - -“Bert Ames got in three weeks ago. You were a long time coming----” - -“My turn didn’t come--everybody dying to get home since the racket -stopped.” - -“Your paper’s alive, Dicky--that’s the best that can be said.” - -“My paper----” - -“I’m looking for you to buy the rest. My equity is on the market. _The -Public Square_ is alive, but it’s not my fault.” - -“Whose?” - -“Didn’t they tell you that ‘The Weekly’ was away?” - -Dicky looked bewildered. A glint of the old humor had come back to John -Higgins’ eyes, as he added: - -“The woman thou gavest me.” - -“You mean about Pidge Musser being called to Los Angeles?” - -“Suddenly discovered she had a father who couldn’t be denied. Ripped -out of here on the fifth and left a hole in every department.... They -say I’m done with the desk for a time. I knew it without them telling -me. I’d have had to wire her to-day or to-morrow to come back, if you -hadn’t turned up.” - -Dicky’s thoughts now became busy adjusting to the fact that John -Higgins wasn’t returning to the desk at once. - -“I know when I’m done,” the old man repeated. “It’s taken nearly sixty -years, but I know. You’ve heard about the serpent that stings itself to -death in captivity?” - -“It’s just the chafing of the muzzle, John. You’re not stinging -yourself to death----” - -“We all have our little code, Dicky, and I haven’t been true to mine. -Your paper’s alive, in spite of what I would have done. My code pulled -me the other way--against you--but that little thing stood by your -interests. You’ve got her to thank, not me.” - -“Tell me----” - -“They were doing things in this country that I knew about----” the old -man shut his eyes, as if in nausea--“but she kept me still. Then they -arrested an old friend of mine--man I’ve known for thirty years--man -who loves his country _all the time_--as I do not--and they arrested -him. One Sunday morning I wrote my little say about it all, and as I -wrote, I heard them singing ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee,’ in a church down -the block from my rooms. That’s what I called the article. I was sober. -I wrote for all days, and every year I had lived went into it--all I -was. I was willing to throw you--a little matter of money which you -could afford. I was throwing myself, but I was pleased enough with the -story to show it to her Monday morning, instead of sending it down to -the composing room.” - -The narrative halted for several seconds. Dicky moved around the bed to -rest the old man’s eyes. - -“That little tumult had me bluffed from the beginning. She barred -the way to the printer, that’s all. I thought she was done for when -she married Melton, but she came back stronger than ever.... Barred -the way, Dicky--put her arms across the door. ‘You can’t do it, John -Higgins, you can’t send that down. It’s just wanton destruction. It -won’t do what you hope. It won’t help your friend, but make life harder -for him and for all the C. O.’s. This isn’t your property to waste. My -heart’s in it and Dicky’s money’s in it----’ Well, she had her way--and -the thing turned in on me--my own words. My organs of assimilation -weren’t strong enough to get away with it.” - -Dicky gripped John Higgins’ shoulder. The old man added impressively, -“Dicky, I’ve sat at the desk for hours and studied how I could ever -tell you this one truth! I haven’t written a decent line since that -article! My old side-wheeler doesn’t work--that’s the size of it.” - -He was pressing his hand to the top of his head, as he went on: - -“I’ve studied how I could tell you. It doesn’t seem quite so hard this -morning at the show-down--but she’s written all the decent stuff that’s -supposed to come from the Desk.... I mean what I said. I’m for sale. -I’ve put it to you straight--the worst. But the paper’s alive and the -books are for you to look at. Times are getting freer. The next two -issues will get out themselves. It’s all I’ve got----” - -“But you can take a leave of absence, and keep your income----” - -“No. That would be a drain. That’s morals possibly, but not business. -I want to sell, Dicky, and what I ask won’t break you. I thought for -a while I was done for, and I made out my part to her. That would be -simple--but the old hulk still floats--so I have to have some money.” - -Now Dicky dwelt reverently upon the old man’s secret. Only one thing -could have prevented John Higgins from getting his masterpiece into -print; also John Higgins had made out his single possession in the -world to Pidge--when he thought he was done for. This thought now -electrified Richard Cobden. He wanted events to turn out this way with -such one-pointed fury that he forgot for an instant that it entailed -the death of his friend. But some time Pidge must have this gift--some -way--John Higgins’ life work! Dicky arose. The fact that he could do -nothing right now required extraordinary self-control. - -“I’ll look the whole property over to-day and tell you to-morrow -morning, John. Be sure it will be all right for you. We’re----” - -Dicky didn’t know what he had started to say. The old man beckoned him -back. - -“... Bert Ames can help you for a few days until she comes back. No -better Washington man, anywhere, but Bert knows the desk work, too.... -Wait. I’ve got to tell you before you go how he dropped in to see me, -day or two after he came back from France. I asked him if he’d seen -you. He rather allowed he had--and launched into the story of your -saving young Melton from the clutches of the French family. Couldn’t -stop him in time. He hadn’t the slightest notion that the woman at the -desk yonder was Mrs. Melton.” - -Dicky was pale. - -“It didn’t knock her out. That’s the queer part,” John Higgins added. -“... Get Bert Ames. There’s one man who isn’t doing any damage to you -as he loafs around New York.” - -“I’ll be back to-morrow morning,” Dicky said. “Where’s Melton now--Los -Angeles?” - -“No, here in New York. I’ve heard he’s stopping at the Vici Club.” - - - - -XXXVIII - -AN OFFICE OF THE WORLD - - -DICKY was in the street and it was still only ten in the morning. The -first thing he did then was to telegraph Pidge of his arrival; that all -was well, and for her not to hurry. He spent the day at _The Public -Square_ offices studying the books, reading up in the files. He fancied -that he found an aggressive sort of integrity here and there through -the systems, that was familiar. The publishing property had weathered -the war; it was a building base. Dicky found much that he liked, but -fought enthusiasm--fought back a rush of possessive impulses, until he -was tired. - -At six, when he reached Harrow Street, for the first time, he was not -permitted to use the key to the street door that he had carried so -long, for Miss Claes met him at the basement entrance. He had heard -her voice over the telephone in the morning, but had not remotely -anticipated the stir of feeling that the sight of her awakened. No -emotionless reporter about Mr. Cobden at this moment. He followed her -to the open fire; the door was shut. They stood together in silence, -and he had never seen her look so well. - -“Why, Miss Claes, you are just the same!” he was saying. “I mean, all -day I have been seeing the ravages of the war years in the people at -home, in John Higgins, in everybody. But you----” - -“Your coming makes me happy.” - -Firelight and a fragrant room, and the stillness of Harrow Street. Miss -Claes was speaking of Nagar--of Pidge--of Pidge and the child--of Rufus -Melton--of Fanny Gallup--of himself--as if they were all one, all blent -in destiny.... Pidge had taken the child to Los Angeles. - -A ring at the street door! Dicky watched Miss Claes’ face as she left -the room, purse in hand. She returned in a moment with a telegram for -him. - - Welcome home. So glad to hear, so relieved. Needed here a little - longer. - PIDGE. - -The door shut again.... Miss Claes had heard of everything--even of his -experience with Rufe Melton in Paris, and from Pidge what Ames had told -John Higgins. - -“I should have put Ames wise about that,” Dicky told her. “It was -pretty hard to have Pidge hurt that way.” - -“She brought home the news exultingly,” Miss Claes said. “Hurt, of -course--her old sorrow for Rufus Melton, but a compensating gladness, -too. You would have to be a woman, to feel exactly what it meant to -her. Pidge learned that day that you were close enough in sympathy to -share her work. That was light to her out of the depths.” - -Dicky studied the shadowy face. - -“Pidge accepts no revelations from the sacred writings,” Miss Claes -added. “Only messages of action count with her. Your action in Paris -freshened up her life--that you had been brave enough to help her with -her task. And how richly Pidge will pay!” - -“It wasn’t hard to do, but hard to know that it was the thing to do.” - -“All that matters now is that it is done. One crosses a goal, or one -does not. The rest is forgotten.” - -He told her of John Higgins and _The Public Square_; of his talk in the -morning and the day with the files. She inquired regarding details, -mechanical and commercial--her same old rational grasp upon materials. -Of course, he did not speak of John Higgins’ secret, nor of his own -possible purchase. It was a matter of mercantile tradition in the -Cobden house not to discuss an incompleted transaction; but he told her -of Pidge’s part at the time of the arrest of the editor’s old friend. - -“John Higgins calls her ‘The Weekly,’” he added. “He says it was Pidge -who kept the paper going.” - -Miss Claes turned to the fire to smile. Dicky didn’t notice. He was -lost in the problem of how John Higgins could give half-interest to -Pidge, and sell it to himself at the same time.... They were speaking -of India. - -“Of course, I’ve arranged to go,” he said. “Nagar promises the story of -the age----” - -“Nagar sent his message here for you, in case you did not receive word -from the _sepoy_ in Paris--‘No haste, but no delay.’” - -He started. This house of Harrow Street seemed like an office of all -the world to him to-night. - - * * * * * - -“... The hardest part is with my people--for me to go away again,” -he was saying, a little later at the door. “Of course, they can’t -understand--my mother and aunt and sister. Everything looks all right, -except that--leaving them so soon again.” - -“Perhaps I can help a little. I’ll go to them often--while you are -away.” - -“That’s quite too good for me to think of,” he said, and told her of -Pidge’s call. “Why, Miss Claes, I haven’t known what it meant to be -rested and straightened out like this--since Ahmedabad,” he said at -last. - -Her hand was raised before him: - -“Don’t think about it. Don’t analyze. Just--go to them--and come back -when you can. This also is your home always.” - - - - -XXXIX - -SEVEN FLAWLESS DAYS - - -DICKY was riding westward through the citrus groves of the last fifty -miles into Los Angeles. Eight days in New York; there had been no -public announcement of a change in ownership of _The Public Square_, -although John Higgins had retired and new energies were actively in -operation. The old editor’s faith was gone in himself, but anchored all -the tighter to the son of the trowel makers. - -The great Range was crossed. All the forenoon the air had been clear -and cold, but at noon the Limited had slipped down into San Bernardino, -into summer and fruit fragrance. Now it was two in the afternoon -and Dicky looked out upon one little town after another, the like -of which he had never seen before. Sun-drenched and flowery towns; -breathing-spaces between the houses and vine-clad trellises; and -everywhere the great orchards, sometimes palm-bordered and often with -rose-covered fences of stone. - -“Sit tight, sit tight,” he said to himself. - -A hundred times he had repeated this to-day. There was loose in him -a power of feeling which made the days of his straight unemotional -reporting look like a feeble affectation. Coming into the harbor of -New York less than two weeks before, he had learned to accept the -emptiness of life. But since then, curiously enough, a new order of -content had filled him. Was it necessary to be emptied of the old -entirely in order to be filled with the new? - -Pasadena was behind; the Limited was running down grade into Los -Angeles; then momentary halts with Mexican faces turned to the car -windows--Chinese faces, a tangle of freights--finally a slow down, and -on one side, groups of up-turned faces, expectant, some strained to an -intense kind of pain to catch the eyes of their own.... The bags had -to be put out. There were people in front of him; he was shut off from -windows. - -“Sit tight, Dicky----” - -A white limp-brimmed straw hat pulled down over her ears like a -bonnet! A taller Pidge--no, she was standing on her toes to look over -the shoulders of the crowd. Now she saw him; her eyes blinked, her -shoulders lifting quickly. He moved slowly, positively not crushing -anybody. Her hands were raised--one higher than the other, the fingers -apart. They stayed so, until he pressed against them. She was taller. -Their faces were so close--both shaded for an instant under the wide -brim of her hat. He had been looking into her eyes; then they were too -close to look into. It seemed neither had anything to do about it. He -hardly dared remember. - -Some one near by knew a happiness that shrieked. They walked away from -the many voices. Then he realized that he was carrying his two hand -bags. - -“Where’s the parcel room?” he asked. - -“I’ll show you the way. The station is very old and dingy.” - -He checked them. They walked to the other end of the yards where the -big palms called. - -“How’s your father?” - -“I think--he’s better. You heard about the baby--Fanny Gallup’s baby?” - -“Yes.” - -“I brought him west with me. He’s in Santa Monica now, so I’ll have to -hurry back. You’ll come?” - -“To Santa Monica?” - -“Yes.” - -“Shall we get a motor car?” - -“No. The interurban. I’ll show you.” - -“Is there a place to stop down there?” - -“Oh, yes, I’ll show you.” - -“My steamer trunk can wait here for a day or two. I’d better get my -small bags----” - -“Yes.” - -He unchecked them.... In the city car to the interurban station, she -said: “Oh, Dicky, it’s so good.” Then after a pause, she added: “We -don’t need to talk about ourselves.” - -“I understand.” - -“It’s days before your ship?” - -“Yes.” - -“I can show you around. It’s hard for me not to be troubled about _The -Public Square_----” - -“Everything’s all right there. I’ll tell you everything when we get on -the other car. You’ll like it all.” - -“And must you really go to India?” - -“I arranged with Nagar, before I left. It’s the story of the age, he -says. After that----” - -“Yes?” - -“After that--New York.” - -They were in the Santa Monica car, on the way down to the ocean. She -had shown him Hollywood, pointing out some of the moving-picture -plants.... If he could only keep calm now--and not rush out to seize -the incredible little attractions of the moment! It seemed so important -to keep calm right now--as if this were a sort of trial trip. He must -be able to move right into this light without flinching--must endure -all delight in stillness. It wasn’t like repression--this that was -called of him now, but faith. The wonder of it all was her perfect -fearlessness with him. Their old word came back to him--_comrade_. He -almost spoke it, but stopped in time. He must live it. But why all this -holding back--after years of holding back? - -“... So he won’t be coming back, I’m afraid,” he was saying of John -Higgins. “He understands that his desk is there for him as long as he -wants it, but he doesn’t encourage any one to believe he’ll use it -again. I told him he could do Washington, and leave Bert Ames on the -desk for the present, but he only shook his head.” - -“I saw it coming,” said Pidge. “Oh, I’ve seen it for a long time. There -was never anything I could do to help him. I never can really help when -I want to.” - -He felt she was thinking of Melton. She was, but she was thinking of -Fanny Gallup, too. - -“He has no relatives,” Dicky went on, “but it’s arranged for his income -to keep up; anything he wants to do for the magazine----” - -He saw her look of sadness. - -“John Higgins is so helpless,” she said softly. - -“We’ve taken on young Bothwell for the advertising, and given him a -little fund to work with,” Dicky reported. “Bothwell isn’t a plunger, -steady sort of genius in his game. The idea isn’t to plunge in any -department--just to work softly and slowly and steadily, giving -everybody his money’s worth. Also, if a story or article just suits, we -mustn’t let the price stand in the way any longer.” - -She nodded wonderingly. - -“Bert Ames has two or three good ideas to work out at the desk before -he leaves for Washington.” - -“But who after that?” - -“_Sit tight, Dicky._” - -... He coughed. “It isn’t like the desk in the old sense. We have -talked about that. Pidge, I’m wabbling a bit, but the desk is yours.” - -They were sitting in the windy front seats. She appeared to be looking -into the back of the motor-man’s neck. - -“When you get back,” he added. - -Her eyes did not move. - -“This isn’t reward, this is your place; no other can hold down the -job. You’ve done it for months. There wouldn’t have been any _Public -Square_, if you hadn’t. I know all about the ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee’ -story, and the editorial paragraphs and how you have kept up the -reviews, and somehow got stories without money and without price. John -Higgins told me everything. It isn’t giving you reward. It is only -going on as you were, with some money to work with, and two or three -good men to help, and a salary for yourself that will make up in a -small way for the pittance you’ve been living on for years.” - -“There mustn’t be any desk, Dicky,” she said queerly. - -“What do you mean?” - -“I mean we’d be the laughing stock of New York, if I perched on a desk, -calling myself the Editor.” - -She halted, thinking of what Miss Claes had advised about her -authorship of _The Lance of the Rivernais_. - -“You’ll take it, Pidge?” he said with deadly calm. - -“I’ll do what I can until you come back. It must be managed very -silently. No announcements. I’ll be there as I was. I’ve been thinking -a lot. _The Public Square_--I know how dear it is to you, Dicky. It is -to me, too. It will be wonderful to have some money to work with. I -know about Bothwell. He’s the right man for the advertising.” - -“I left it open--for you to choose the one to help you when Bert Ames -goes over to Washington.” - -Her eyes turned to him directly now, searchingly. There seemed to be -something intelligible for him in them, but he did not divine the -meaning. - -“That’ll all work out,” she said presently. “We mustn’t try to plan it -all now.” - -Her eyes filled with laughter. - -“Oh, Dicky,” she said, “if I’d ever get self-conscious about feeling -all the responsibilities of _The Public Square_ resting upon my -shoulders--I’d muddle the whole business in a day!” - -“They have rested on your shoulders, Pidge.” - -“Yes, but I didn’t stop to think.... In another minute you’ll be able -to see the ocean!” - -They were silent. Then she pointed over the motor-man’s shoulder, and -he saw a vast stretch of leveled azure, like sky ironed out smooth. - -“And--you’re--going--across!” she said suddenly--“still after the Big -Story that you’ve always been looking for. And oh, Dicky, I’ll go to -see them when you’re gone--your mother and aunt and sister.” - -“It did a lot for me to learn that you had called.” - -“Dicky,” she said solemnly, “when they told me what you’d done in -Paris----” - -“Let’s not--Pidge.” - -“And when I remembered that Sunday afternoon you took me to your -house--and what a beast I was--oh, how that hurt! I’ve been so sorry -and so grateful.” - - * * * * * - -He had seen Pidge with the baby in her arms. He had held the baby -himself, in fact, while she got breakfast one morning, and their -laughter had disturbed Mr. Adolph Musser, who felt that the world was -no place for such laughter with his nerves in the condition they were. - -“His back feels so funny,” Dicky had reported concerning the infant. - -Pidge gave him a look, and went on timing the eggs. Mr. Musser’s egg -had to lie three and one-half minutes in water that had ceased to boil. - -“And his hair stays combed,” Dicky added. - -He had held converse with Mr. Musser, which was an experience. Mrs. Rab -Gaunt Hastings had gone her way after a series of such experiences, -her fortune undivided. It had been said that the undivided nature of -her departure was in a measure responsible for Mr. Musser’s nervous -breakdown, though he explained it metaphysically. Since he could not be -left in his weak state, it was arranged for him to return with Pidge to -New York. - -“I have known for many months that the field of my labors was to be -amplified,” said Mr. Musser, with one of his sudden hopeful flashes. -“My illness is but a cleansing in preparation. Always the wrecker -before the builder. My throat, for instance----” - -Pidge called at this point from the fig tree back of the bungalow. It -was their last day.... For seven days they had walked the sunny silent -mesas, traced the interminable canyons, and miles and miles of curving -shore of the sea. To-night for him, the Valley train to San Francisco; -to-morrow afternoon, the Pacific Mail steamer.... She had spoken of -Rufus Melton for the first time. - -“You think he was really married in France?” she asked. - -“They frightened him into it,” Dicky said. “It seemed to me as if Rufe -looked upon it as a way out--then found that they didn’t mean to let -him escape, even then.” - -There was no suffocating emotion about this talk. It was only in -moments like this that he understood that he had earned something -through the years. They had to go back to the bungalow for lunch with -the elder and the child, who objected to each other. There was only -a little while alone in the afternoon, because he had to be in Los -Angeles for his train at six. - -“I started things going among the agents in New York, for a serial,” he -said at the last, “but you’ll have to decide. We want a corking long -story, Pidge--one that has brain and brawn----” - -Her face was turned away. - -“Just the right one should be lying around somewhere,” he added. - -“I’ll look,” she said. - -She would have gone into the city with him, but he objected: “You would -have to come back alone!” - -Their real parting was on the Palisades, and there were few words about -it. - -“It’s work, now,” he said. “We go opposite ways for the same job--the -Story of the Age.” - -“And after that--New York,” she answered. - -They stood in the superb sunlight at the edge of the escarpment. -Hundreds of feet below was the old abandoned bathhouse, and the three -white lines of surf pressing into the land, like tireless fingers of a -modeler upon the clay. To the left was the portal of the Canyon, to the -right the fallow lands with feathery brushes of eucalyptus against the -sky. - -“We’re all meshed yet, Dicky--meshed in wantings and struggles, all -tracked up with recent experiences. We can’t see each other clearly -yet----” - -He was looking into her face in half profile. Quietly it had dawned -upon him that he couldn’t have spared a single one of the hard days -of the past five years, not a single one of the black patches, even. -They were the dark rooms in which this present striking film had been -developed. - -“We can’t--what?” he said strangely. - -She was speaking, but still he didn’t hear, for that moment in the -superb sunlight, he saw Pidge Musser as he had never seen her before. - - - - -XL - -THE YANK DEVELOPED - - -DICKY reached Calcutta toward the end of March, 1919, and had no -difficulty in learning that the Little Man would be in Bombay within -a week. Where Gandhi was at any given time in the Indian Empire these -days was the most public of all facts. It was as if one entered a house -and asked the children where their mother was. Both the native and -English press were full of his sayings and doings, though he was seen -and heard, of course, from different angles. The Rowlatt Bills had just -been passed, and Dicky painstakingly looked into the nature of these. - -He heard that Gandhi was ill; that he scarcely could stand, in fact; -but that he was speaking to great throngs every day. A few days ago -he had talked to thousands on the Beach at Madras. Since then he had -traveled to Trichinopoly, to Tuticorin, to Negapatam where he had -addressed a monster gathering in the Nazir gardens, pledging the people -to _Satyagraha_ by thousands, and warning them with terrible warnings -before they pledged, that the step they took meant self-suffering; that -they must not use violence against the Government in thought or deed. - -Dicky crossed to Bombay immediately, hoping to find Nagar there. On -the train a young officer of the military who had come from Singapore -on the same ship with him, met an elderly friend of the civil service. -They talked in Dicky’s presence. - -“But why don’t they arrest the fanatic?” the soldier asked. - -The elderly departmental officer smiled. “That’s what they all ask at -first,” he said. - -“But, if he’s preaching sedition----” - -“He is also preaching nonviolence. British Government hasn’t a better -friend in India at the present hour than this same little barrister. -The people are upset over the Rowlatt Bills, and Gandhi is calming them -down. Arrest him, I think not!... We have much to thank Gandhi for. He -helped along enlistments, and now he preaches nonviolence. It’s all -religion with him. He’s a political saint. The thousands follow him -like a Messiah. Pretty safe sort of thing, to have a Messiah around -advising the multitudes to turn their other cheek. Not that we’ve -slapped one, you know.” - -In the sweltering core of the native city, Dicky found the house which -Gandhi used as headquarters while in Bombay. Here a letter awaited -him from Nagar, written at Lahore, advising him to look to Mahatma-ji -for counsel; and hoping that they would soon be together. In his room -Dicky sent out for an armful of recent newspapers and publications, -determined to get the situation further in hand. - -... No question about India being a bit stunned over the passage of -the Rowlatt Bills two weeks before. These measures provided that -the ordinary criminal laws should be supplemented, and certain -emergency powers added by the Government to deal with anarchical and -revolutionary movements. The shock to native India lay in the fact -that she had been led to expect that the measures adopted during the -War would be mitigated, rather than intensified at this time. And -Mahatma-ji was on the war path of the Soul. - -Gandhi reached Bombay on April third. He was followed by a great -crowd from the railroad station to the house of his host. Dicky, who -had watched from a distance the emerging of the Indian idol from his -third-class coach, wondered if he were ever again to get the Little Man -alone in a room as in Ahmedabad. He hadn’t been in the hotel an hour, -however, before he received a message to accompany bearer to Gandhi’s -headquarters. - -The native led him through the crowd without difficulty, and to an -inner room where Mahatma-ji sat alone, both hands extended. Dicky sat -down on the empty cushion before him. - -“It is good to see you again, Mr. Cobden.... I regret that I was not in -Bombay when you arrived; especially since it happened that Nagarjuna -was needed in the north at this time, but we cannot think first of our -own affairs. I am expected in Lahore on the tenth, but doubtless you -will start for there or for Amritsar, which is very near, before that. -Nagarjuna is now in Amritsar.” - -“I will wait and travel with you, if you permit,” Dicky began. - -The other smiled. - -“My way of travel is not yours, I am afraid. It might be interesting -enough for just one journey, but I question the judgment of it. To be -seen too much with me is to become persona non grata to the English. -This would prove a detriment to the work you are to do. Remember that -you are an American, and that basically the American spirit is above -partisanship.” - -Gandhi was slightly changed. The wasted body was even lower on its -cushions. The look of intense weariness was still apparent, but the -look of fearlessness was enhanced. Dicky heard the humming of the -_charka_ in the next room as before. The fragrance returned to his -nostrils. The old feeling stole over him of eagerness to do something -for the physical welfare of the man before him, something to make the -mere enduring of life easier. - -“Physicians tell me that I should be very quiet,” Gandhi explained with -a smile. “It is true that I was unable to keep all my appointments to -speak on the other side of India, but in the main I am very active. -The human body may be made to do what is required of it, after a -fashion.... Yes, there are many changes. Our position is rapidly -becoming one of direct opposition to Government. We were slow to -realize these things.... Our movement depends for its success entirely -upon perfect self-possession, self-restraint, absolute adherence to -truth and unlimited capacity for self-suffering. In this manner only -may we dare to oppose the Rowlatt legislation, and resist the spirit -of terrorism which lies behind it, and of which it is the most glaring -symptom.” - -Dicky’s reaction was queer. He understood the point about the -Government daring to leave this man at large, but didn’t Government -see deeper than this placid mask? Of all keepers of the peace, Gandhi -was apparently master; but in the fearlessness of the eyes that gazed -on him now, Dicky fancied for a moment, at least, that he saw what -British Government did not. The Little Man suddenly appeared to him as -the living embodiment of the Enemy to all existing Governments, utterly -terrible in stillness and poise. At the same time, Dicky didn’t lose -for a moment his feeling of pity for the wasted figure before him, that -tenderness which he could not even have explained to an American. - -“... I see you have been faithfully at work, Mr. Cobden,” the Little -Man was saying now. “Some time I would have you tell me of your days on -the French fields--what you found there after India--whatever you care -to speak of experiences which evidently have brought you forward in -kindness and understanding and peace----” - -“I am glad you find----” Dicky began in an embarrassed tone. - -“It is well for me to tell you, but that is sufficient,” Gandhi added. -“These are our affairs, not yours----” - -“I’m afraid I don’t understand that.” - -“We have a saying that one who is coming forward in attainment must not -delay his progress by pausing to contemplate or analyze himself. One’s -attainment rightly is the joy and affair of every other being but that -one.” - -Dicky now felt that there was something to report to America in the -story of Gandhi and his following of millions. For three days he -was with the Little Man, morning and afternoon. Very sternly he had -impressed upon himself the fatuousness of expecting anything like the -old “miracle.” There was no need for that miracle now, Dicky informed -himself gravely and repeatedly, for something of Pidge Musser ceased -to be alive in his heart at no time, though much pain of yearning was -connected with it and pity and human questionings. He had learned well -by now that all really important experiences are spontaneous and can -only steal into a mind that is emptied of anticipation and its own -inferior pictures. - -But on the third day something came to him--as fruits from his dreary -months of France. He had been speaking to Gandhi of the hideous -directionless campaign days there. Suddenly, as he himself talked, the -American Soldier in composite was unveiled before him--the game and -grinning Yank, who had held fast in faith to but one thing under smoke -and sun, against shock and night itself--his sense of Humor, the fun of -the thing. - -Dicky _saw_ the Yank, now. That was all there was to it. In the dark -room of France the picture had developed and the presence of Mohandas -Gandhi now brought it out to the light. It was Dicky’s for all time, -and his eyes closed with pain that his old friend John Higgins had -missed it--the one thing that one needed to know, to keep one’s faith -in America, and to gamble even to life itself that the new order of -nobleman should one day arise with laughter. - -... He walked the streets of Bombay afterward, and then wrote to -Pidge late at night, though he was leaving for the north early in the -morning. It seemed he could not wait to tell her. All the meanings -of New York that he had caught as a New Yorker, in his own home and -in the house of Miss Claes, as an exile in Asia and correspondent in -France--fused into a sort of splendid synthesis at last. - -He saw ships coming from all Europe to New York Harbor--coming in -through The Narrows bearing the emigrants of all Europe--passing under -the Statue of Liberty--tiny seeds diffusing into the vast crucible of -The States, running out from the meeting point of Manhattan on all the -red lines of railroad, into all the green rivers, planting themselves -in all parts, for the emerging of the New Race at last--the Laughing -Men, the dense physical model of which he had seen in France. - - - - -XLI - -UNDER THE MANGOES OF CAWNPORE - - -“NO haste, but no delay.” Gandhi had used the very words in suggesting -that it would be well for Dicky to join Nagar in the north. The -American telegraphed that he would reach Amritsar on the evening of the -ninth, and made his way northward leisurely, stopping over in Cawnpore, -for a full day. It was in Cawnpore, toward midday, after a two hours’ -ramble in white dust and the killing colorless heat, that Dicky halted -in the shade of a little grove of mangoes. He took off his helmet and -mopped his brow with a piece of silk already damp. In the shade, at a -slight distance (his left foot twisted into the ground), sat an ascetic -who kept on with his muttering, not turning the way of the American. - -The look of an iron statue suggested itself. There were ashes, and -worse, in the holy man’s hair, and in one empty eye socket. The hands -were held out in space--twisted, seared hands, but so moveless that -Dicky thought of the iron statue again. The wrists were thick and -very strong. Cobden squinted his eyes back toward the pitiless Indian -street, and then he perceived the Hindu’s face turned to him. A single -vivid eye held him, as by the scruff of the neck. The voice was deep -and resonant as from one who had learned to breathe, a rare art. The -words in English were quietly spoken: - -“It is written, my son, that you are to come to the end of your search -within six days.” - -Dicky edged closer, and asked courteously: “Do you really get it that -way?” - -“So it reads in the crystals. To one who truly reads, the tale is -one--whether read in the crystals or the stars.” - -The holy man lifted from between his thighs a handful of stained and -rusty stones. - -“You will go to a wall,” he added studiously. “You will enter through -the gate of the wall----” - -“What wall, father?” - -“Who knows? I see the wall. The end comes within six days, and there is -tumult.” - -“The end of my life?” - -“There seems no surety of that, but it is possible.” - -The deep voice of the _hathayogin_ went on: “The crystals foretell, but -the wisdom and daring of man forestall. Had you not come to this tree, -there would be no hope. As it is, you may come again to-morrow at this -time.” - -“I’m afraid not, father. Whatever wall it is, I shall be one day nearer -it, to-morrow.” - -Few would have noted the faint film of pallor under Dicky Cobden’s tan. -As white men go, he knew something about the Indian holy men. The more -he learned, the more he respected certain rare types. There is a saying -in India that the real mystic never begs. Dicky determined to learn -the quality of the man before him, for he arose now to depart without -offering a present in money. - -“Perhaps, father, from this meeting, I shall be wiser to face the fate -that awaits me at the wall.” - -“You should be wise enough to take one day from your journey.” - -“I cannot take what is not altogether my own,” the American laughed. “I -am saying good-by now.” - -He walked slowly out of the shade of the trees. With each step, his -blood chilled a little, in spite of noon heat. He thought of _The -Public Square_, of Pidge Musser at the desk there, of Harrow Street. -Death had to come some time, but life wasn’t boring him just now. The -sunlight of the open stretch stung his eyes with great weariness. The -deep voice called from behind: - -“Stay, my pupil!” - -Dicky halted and returned, looking down into the apparently guileless -and desireless eye. “Alms for the temple in Cawnpore,” the lips intone. - -“By all means, father,” the other said, no visible change upon his -face, as he placed in the palm of the beggar several bits of silver -from his purse. In the burning day again, he lifted a tired smile to -the sun. No true mystic, perhaps, but what had this man seen in the -crystals? - - - - -XLII - -LALA RELU RAM - - -NAGAR took him by the hand at the railway station in Amritsar on the -evening of the ninth of April, 1919. The need for many words seemed -past; there was quiet gladness. Dicky took up his quarters in the -_Golden Temple Inn_. Under the lights at the entrance, as he passed -in with Nagar, groups of Mohammedans and Hindus stood together, with -self-conscious but eager shows of mutual friendship, and the American -rubbed his eyes. - -If there was one thing in India that could be counted upon like -Government itself, it was the mutual hatred of these two great -divisions of native life. Dicky had heard in recent days much of -the swift breaking down of these barriers, under the influence of -Mahatma-ji, but he had seen no example of it working out like this -under the lights of the Inn. - -“But what do the English think when they see the Hindu and Moslem -_kowtowing_ to each other--as at the door below when we came in?” Dicky -inquired. - -“The Deputy Commissioner, the highest English civilian of Amritsar, -looked upon a similar spectacle to-day,” Nagar said. “I did not hear -him, but he is reported to have remarked, ‘There’s going to be a row -here,’ and drank much cold soda water.” - -“What is your work here, Nagar?” - -“I have been working among the students at the college of Lahore, and -now here in Amritsar, working with the young men and women.” - -“Preaching Gandhi’s sort of peace?” - -“Yes,” said Nagar. - -“I still wonder that the English don’t ‘get’ the Little Man, Nagar.” - -“The Government regards him as harmless because he speaks of -Soul-force. It deals with precedents; Mahatma-ji with ideals----” - -“You think the Government will arrest him sooner or later?” - -“Oh, yes.” - -“Won’t that stop or hurt the work?” - -“I remember,” said Nagar, “hearing the school children in New York -sing, ‘John Brown’s body lies a-moldering in the grave, but his Soul -goes marching on.’ A spiritual beginning never stops. Mahatma-ji has -already brought his few spiritual principles into matter, into action.” - -“Tunnel,” said Dicky. - -“Night and day Mahatma-ji has been preparing his entire people to stand -quiet and hateless; no matter what happens to him,” Nagar went on with -a smile. “He tells them that in the event of his imprisonment, or even -of his martyrdom, they would only wound his spirit, by answering the -shedding of blood with blood----” - -They talked late. For fully an hour after Nagar left, Dicky sat by the -open window, smoking to keep the insects away. Tobacco did not entirely -quench the stale tired smell of the town. Even after he put out the -light, sleepless hours passed, so it was late in the forenoon when he -awoke, hearing cries in the street below. He crossed to the window. - -“_Hindu Mussultmanki jai!_” a voice cried. This he took to mean a -native impulse to promote Hindu and Moslem unity, or something of the -sort. Also he heard the cry repeatedly, “_Mahatma Gandhiki jai!_” Also -Gandhi’s name associated with the names of “Kitchlew and Satyapal,” -native leaders in Amritsar, of whom Nagar had spoken last night. -Presently there was a knock at his door. A serious but friendly young -Hindu in student’s garb bowed, entered and walked to the center of the -room, saying in careful English: - -“From Nagarjuna I have come to be at the service of Cobden Sahib for -the full day.” - -“Thank you. Is Nagar busy?” - -The student bowed again and proceeded: “My name is Lala Relu Ram and -I am glad to come and make you acquainted with the disposition of the -city.” - -The shouts were raised again outside. - -“What’s in the air?” Dicky asked. - -This was too much for Lala Relu Ram. - -“I mean the shouts below--is this another holiday?” - -“My people are gravely disturbed. Doctors Kitchlew and Satyapal have -been sent for by the Deputy Commissioner Sahib. It is feared for them -by my people.” - -“What have they been doing?” - -“In the terms of public speech they have cried out--also against -the Rowlatt Bills, and for the amity of all peoples in Amritsar, -Dr. Kitchlew being a Mohammedan and Dr. Satyapal a Hindu, which is -anomalous.” - -Dicky was still unshaven, and there were some notes he wished to put -down. - -“I’ll be ready to go out with you in an hour or less,” he said. “Would -you not like to go down and get a line on what is going on?” - -The student confessed that he would, but plainly the American idiom -“get a line on” fascinated him. He paused to inquire, and Dicky -explained. - -“That is very good,” the student observed. “We are taught that the -language of the future is to be made of most flexible symbols. I will -get a line upon what is in the air and return.” - -He was back within a half hour saying that the worst had happened. -Doctors Kitchlew and Satyapal had been arrested under the Defense of -India Act, ordered to write farewell letters to their families, and -been driven out of town, their destination unknown. - -“My people are gathering to go to the bungalow of the Deputy -Commissioner with a _faryad_ (petition) that will remonstrate very -firmly,” the Hindu boy said. - -“We had better be there, don’t you think, when the doings begin?” Dicky -inquired. - -“Doings?” - -“When the performance is pulled off.” - -“Ah, _tamasha_!” - -“I think so,” said Dicky. - -They heard the slamming of boarded shop windows in all the native -streets. The word for suspension of trade had gone abroad. The two -pressed through gathering groups all making their way in one direction. - -They had passed through a stretch of bazaars and before them now was -a carriage bridge over the railroad right of way. On the bridge, they -were packed tightly in the throng by the railings on either side. In -a moment, the crowd in front halted and surged back. Lala Relu Ram -gripped his arm queerly. Now they heard voices far ahead--angry voices -in English--demanding the people to disperse. The van of the crowd -had been confronted by a police and military piquet, but the pressing -forward did not cease. - -“My people are refusing to be stopped. They claim the right to make -their plea,” the student whispered. - -Dicky was sinking himself into the purpose of the populace. As ever -from his training, he sought to clear his mind of preconception and -self-interest--so that the events might write upon a clean surface. -Just now a shot was heard; a bullet sang overhead--then a volley. It -was not until that moment that he remembered the dusty twisted ascetic -in the mango grove at Cawnpore. But that was only two days ago, and -where was the wall? - - * * * * * - -He found himself in the very quick of the Indian people--under the -cuticle of India herself. India the timid, the terrible; India talking -of Soul-force; India running with its _faryad_ to the ranking English -representative of Amritsar; explaining her griefs and her hurts to -herself and to the English, seeing neither the humor of her plight on -one side, nor its grimness on the other; India led about on a string -which she might have broken with the flick of a finger. - -That was what India had always seemed most like to Dicky -Cobden--_hathis_, the elephant, gentlest and strongest of creatures. -For many generations she had been banged about by the shouts and blows -of the white _mahout_, who was not in the cult of elephant lore, never -a native of her habitat. He had made her stand around according to -his own ideas--India, the great female elephant, full of tremors and -flutterings; of vast strange delicacies and uncomputable powers.... Now -she was leaving her white _mahout_ to follow about a little black man -with an invisible string. - -“_Mahatma Gandhiki jai! Gandhi Maharajiki rai!_” - -Dicky heard the voice raised now in the lull that followed the first -volley.... A little black man with an invisible string, called -Soul-force. - -One with the crowd, he felt its galvanic jerk of ugliness pass through -himself. The murmur of protest that now arose from the open mouths -was like something from himself--as if his mouth, too, were open with -sound. A bearded native in soiled white garments turned suddenly and -pressed him back. This man had felt a stone under his bare foot and -he was making room to reach down to pick it up. Dicky saw his fingers -stretch toward the muck. He understood. Here was one of the primal -impulses of the human body in a stress of fear and hate. Far ahead, -the English officers roared commands for the natives to go back. The -voices of native leaders standing with the English, also implored the -people to disperse. But the people had their _faryad_. They wanted -talk. Also there were dead and wounded on the earth before the eyes of -the front ranks. Another volley sounded. - -Instead of being driven back by the second pelting of shots, the -native crowd crushed its way across the bridge. In the opening on the -other side, it halted, now in the Civil Lines, no longer jammed by the -narrow rails of the bridge. The throng had not yet become insensate; no -individual had seized the office of leadership. This was the instant -of all to Dicky Cobden, the turning point. The native gathering might -still have been reasoned with, as it stood leaderless, looking upon -its own dead; but instead of reason, came the third volley from the -soldiers and police, the prod of the ankus that turned the elephant -_musth_. - -The shuddering of revolt that the people felt passed through Richard -Cobden as well--whipped up in his own breast. Then he was carried -forward with the mob. Nothing gentle or yielding about the bodies now, -a rough, bruising, muscular mass pushed from behind by incredible power. - -Dicky glanced about to look for Lala Relu Ram, and that instant was -whacked to the ground, a slug from the pistol of one of the troopers, -gouging his left shoulder. He arose to one knee, still turned back, a -laugh on his lips, looking for the student. - -And now a most extraordinary shock was meted out to the son of the -trowel makers. A running native with gray, patchy face, completely -carried away by mob impulse, halted, stood above the kneeling white -man, struck him in the face with both hands, emptying his mouth -at the same time. Some of the natives immediately behind, without -questioning but that Dicky was one of the English, now tramped over -his body as they ran. Though fallen, he still preserved a final waver -of consciousness--face down, head covered in his arms. Finally he was -caught by the arm and jerked to the side. - -It was Lala Relu Ram who had pulled him out of the crowd and looked -down into a face covered with blood and mud, and a welt or two. The -only white about that face now was the lips which smiled and repeated -a word which the Hindu student had never heard in all his linguistic -studies of the East and West. - - - - -XLIII - -_HATHIS_ LAMENTS - - -DICKY really came to back in an apothecary shop on the way to the -Golden Temple, where Lala Relu Ram had carried him. The filth of -that face that had opened upon him as he looked up from his knee--a -shudder about that, something he would never be able to tell. It had -been uglier to take than the blows. As moments dragged on, he fell to -wishing Nagar would come. A curious wonder played incessantly in his -mind about the twisted ascetic under the mango trees in Cawnpore, but -where was the wall? The crystal gazer had repeated that the thing which -was to befall would be within a wall. - -“... The bullet didn’t think enough of you to stay, Mr. Cobden,” the -young English surgeon said after examination. “It merely bit out a -chunk of muscle and went its way. Since there is no cavity for it to -drain into, it means nothing but a stitch or two, and a clean bandage. -But you’ve been considerably mashed about the face. There’s going to -be a strain on your drainage system for a few days to carry off dead -tissue.” - -He was taken to his room at the Inn, much bandaged, and Lala Relu Ram -sat by his bedside, his face often turned to the open window that -looked out over the street. - -“I’m all right--don’t stay,” Dicky urged, as he began to understand the -sacrifice of the student in remaining with him instead of following the -mob. - -“Nagarjuna did not say for one hour, or for half of one day, but for -the full day,” Lala Relu Ram declared, “and who knows but that I too -might have disobeyed the orders of Mahatma-ji and become violent?” - -Dicky hadn’t much of a grin left, but such as it was, he was free to -let it work under the folds of gauze. He sent the student below on -one pretext after another, knowing that the young man was exhausting -himself from strain to hear all that had happened. - -“It is more terrible than we supposed,” the student reported, as the -long day ended. “Enraged by their dead and wounded, and being prevented -from carrying their request to the Deputy Commissioner, my people have -burned buildings, bank buildings--the National, the Chartered, the -Alliance banks----” - -“That’s hitting them where they live,” said Mr. Cobden, impelled to -Americanisms as never before. - -“Sir?” said Lala Relu Ram, bending forward on the scent of the idiom. - -“A Government bank is an English nerve center, Lala Ram,” Dicky said. - -The student was thoughtful, and then resumed: “It is with sorrow that I -have to confess that my people have forgotten themselves in the case of -Mr. Stewart and Mr. Scott of the National Bank and Mr. Thomason of the -Alliance Bank----” - -“Hurt?” said Dicky. - -“Dead,” said the student, with a dramatic pause. “And that is not all. -Miss Sherwood was most brutally assaulted, and outside the city a -railway guard named Robinson, and a havildar in charge of the Electric, -named Rowlands, were beaten to death where they live, and the station -goods yard burnt----” - -Dicky’s eyes squinted under the cloths. “And what of your own people?” -he managed to ask. - -“Oh, many have been killed!” - -This was an item that did not require the enumeration of details. -_Hathis_ had gone _musth_, but not for long. _Hathis_ was horrified -at the awfulness of the thing she had done. _Hathis_ was back in her -pickets again, not realizing her own hurts, anticipating a clubbing on -the toes, and in the immortal way of _hathis_, half suspecting that a -clubbing was deserved. - -“I’d like to doze a little,” said Dicky. - -The student rose, but lingered. - -“Would Cobden Sahib permit me to ask one question?” - -“Why, of course, shoot--I mean--ask it.” - -“It is about that moment when you fell,” said Lala Relu Ram. “Rather, -it was when I reached you, and had driven off my people who thought you -were one of the English----” - -“Yes.” - -“You were partly out of the body--unconscious. Yet your eyes were open -and you were speaking some word that I have never heard--several times, -as you would speak the Holy Name in devotion, with breathing.” - -“What was that name?” Dicky inquired, pulling the bandage down farther -over his eyes. - -“It is not one which I have ever heard in my speech or yours--that is -why I ask. It was like this, ‘Pid-gee--Pid-gee.’” - -Dicky laughed. - -“That is--the fact is, that’s right curious,” he said. “I must have -been ‘out of the body,’ as you say. That--that is a little expression -we use in childhood!” - - * * * * * - -As Nagar stood under the light that evening, Dicky saw that his eyes, -too, were burning with strange sorrow. Lala Relu Ram bowed himself out, -walking backward. When they were alone, Nagar came to the bedside, -drawing a chair, and his hand found the American’s. - -“We have not done well in Amritsar to-day.” - -“I don’t think you understand it quite,” Dicky said. “I was there this -noon, at the place they call the Hallgate Bridge----” - -“There was violence,” said Nagar. - -“There were three volleys----” - -The Oriental smiled. “It is not the provocation that we deal with, but -the losing of oneself in anger. Nothing remains to us but the fact that -Amritsar lost its self-control.” - -“You think the Little Man will be unhappy about what has happened, when -he comes?” - -“Mahatma-ji was arrested this morning at Kosi, served with an order not -to enter Punjab, nor the district of Delhi, but to confine himself to -the Bombay Presidency.” - -Dicky studied his friend. He couldn’t help feeling if Nagar had been at -the Hallgate Bridge---- Finally he spoke: - -“I’m just a reporter, Nagar. I’m not granting that Gandhi knows it all -or that the natives to-day are all right, and the English all wrong. -Still, I can’t help wondering at what you ask of your people--as a -reporter would ask, you understand. They turned the other cheek! They -took the first volley and the second. I was there. No man has three -cheeks. I saw it all in that minute between the second and third -firing.” - -Nagar’s hand pressed his and Dicky lowered his voice, though his tone -had not been loud. - -“Anything might have happened that instant had there been a bit of -leadership,” he added. “The people wanted to talk to their father--the -Deputy. You would have wept for their forbearance, or stupidity, as you -like. Their dead were at their feet, the cries of the wounded in their -ears, and still they weren’t maddened. They only wanted to show their -_faryad_. If there had been the right Englishman on the spot--why, the -crowd would have been allowed to go forward with its document. I’ve -an idea that it was something dangerously like funk that caused that -third volley, and that nobody will ever be so sorry for what happened -to-day, as England herself. I call it human the way your people lost -their heads.” - -“Mahatma-ji’s ideal isn’t human, Richard. It is of the Soul. We shall -suffer and India shall suffer--for to-day.” - -“I’ve got a lot to learn about this man’s India. I can see that,” the -American said queerly. - - - - -XLIV - -THE SLATE AND THE SPONGE - - -PIDGE was choosing a serial for _The Public Square_. The choice lay -now between two manuscripts on the desk before her eyes. One was by a -maker of the “new” American literature, named Carver, who had dared to -perform the work in one sustained, slow movement, bound to ward off -excessive popularity, a thing of drabs and tans and grays, but earnest, -even in its hopelessness. It consistently portrayed a cross section -of life, a fine piece of human observation, but altogether unlit with -intuition. - -The other book was a novel of New York, by a woman whose name was -entirely unheard of. This manuscript had been refused several times -as a serial in the past year, and several times as a book prospect. -The letters of refusal from the different editors were also on Pidge -Musser’s desk. One said, “This book is too much of a gamble for an -unknown name.” The united opinion of all professional readers was that -this story was unquestionably an augur for the future of the novelist, -rather than a compelling announcement of her arrival. - -In her own heart, Pidge believed that the woman’s story would interest -more readers than Carver’s. Also, _The Public Square_ would be saved -considerable money in taking the woman’s story, for Carver stood out -for rather a high price for his first American serial rights. - -“It isn’t the freedom of ignorance,” she said at last, about the -lower-priced book, “but it isn’t the freedom of knowledge, either. ‘A -man is crippled while he’s learning technic.’... No, I can’t take the -chance!” - -So the novel by the unknown woman went back to Harrow Street with its -refusals, and found a resting place in the drawer under the mirror that -waved; and only Miss Claes and the author, herself, knew who was hurt. - - * * * * * - -Mr. Adolph Musser, in New York with his daughter, began to have -callers. The two small upper rooms in Harrow Street were not adapted -for callers, even in the adaptable Village. Especially this was so -because an adopted male child of one year was rooted and ramifying in -the place. One of the ramifications was a female lodger and one-time -nurse who looked after the child while Pidge was away at the office. -Mr. Musser, during his first week in New York, before he found an -apartment in the Sixties, had pronounced this woman too heavy-footed to -live with. - -Though Pidge had received an important increase of salary, dating -from the first of this year of 1919, she did not find herself in a -greatly improved condition when the additional expenses of nurse and -her father’s separate maintenance were considered. However, something -happened which she had not foreseen. Mr. Adolph Musser became rapidly -self-supporting. According to his predictions, New York proved to be -suffering from a “biological hunger and thirst” for his very sort of -metaphysic. Los Angeles had been sated. One had merely to move from -temple to temple in Los Angeles. Cultists of all colors were there; -light-bringers from all lands. Mr. Musser, according to predictions, -found New York a virgin oil field and he was not long in getting his -derricks up. - -Late in May there was a letter from Richard Cobden, mailed at Bombay -in early April. Though it was written to Pidge personally she saw in -it Dicky’s first real work, his first actual grasp and retention of -essentials, to her idea. It opened to her, also, the lineaments of the -Big Story they had talked so much about. She read the letter through -twice on the day it arrived, and that night took it home to read to -Miss Claes, who came to the upper room in the latter part of the -evening, as she had come to hear _The Lance of the Rivernais_, over -five years ago. Their faces were close together, and Pidge read low and -rapidly: - - I have been with Gandhi several times in the past three days, and - early to-morrow I start north for Amritsar to join Nagar. I hadn’t - thought of writing this until just now, on my way to bed, and the - subject of the Little Man suddenly filled me. I feel an unadulterated - American to-night, and there may be an advantage, at least an angle, - in a study of Gandhi from that point.... He is very ill, can scarcely - stand, but more than ever full of his kind of light and power. In - the last three days with him, I have come to understand _you_ as - never before--and America and the American soldier. I have found - out, Pidge, what you mean by stating and living the fact, that it - isn’t how much one knows that counts, but how much one does. Gandhi - is a doer. I used to hear in church something about the Spirit being - made flesh, and now I’ve got an inkling of what that means. Gandhi’s - genius doesn’t dream. _It does._ The sun shines on all India, but - Gandhi has become a lens. The rays focalize through him. The ground - burns under his feet.... He is called a bigot, a fanatic, a living - Blue Law, and it is all true, Pidge. He is drawn in black and white. - He has no half-tones, no twilights, no afterglows. He is devoid of - atmosphere as the moon. His lines of light and shadow are never blent - or diffused. He is vivid noon where his light strikes, densest night - where light ends.... It is not that he loathes the West, but that he - knows the East. He has become a specialist, as Nagar says repeatedly. - He has withdrawn his attention from the world to India, Herself. He - has brought in his eyes from the future, to the Now. He sees the next - step which India must take, and leaves to the dreamers of the world - to point out the glories and the penalties. He stands in the road in - front of India to-day, like a man before a runaway horse---- - -Dicky had ended the letter suddenly, saying he was sleepy, but had more -to say later. The two women talked low, because of _another_ in the -room. This other was not to be disturbed. They stood over him now. He -would not have approved at all of their gayety and know-it-all manner, -had he been awake. His lids were down, however; the black curving -lashes reposed in their hollows; the world, which was the big horse he -must some time ride, was away minding its own business. - -“I’m glad to hear this much before I go----” Miss Claes stopped and -took both of Pidge’s hands. - -“Before you go--where?” - -“This little slate of Harrow Street is all written over. It is to be -rubbed out now, Pidge. My part is finished here--I don’t know how well, -but it’s finished. I am leaving New York.” - -“Why, that--that seems--insupportable!... Why, I thought anything could -happen but that--to my New York!” - -“Only you are to know, dear,” Miss Claes said moments afterward. “Yes, -it is India----” - -“To Nagar--you are to be with him--the Hills!” - -“Don’t, Pidge. It isn’t for words----” - -“Forgive me----” - -“These are terrible days for India. It means work--work--tests for -every one’s courage. Little Harrow Street is still and steady, -compared.... But this is dear to me--the thought that I go ahead to -make ready for you another place to come----” - -“My upper room,” said Pidge softly. “My upper room.” - - - - -XLV - -AMRITSAR, APRIL 13, 1919 - - -TOWARD the end of the afternoon of Sunday, the 13th, Richard Cobden -ordered a carriage. He was still bandaged about the head, his left arm -in a sling. This was his first descent from the room since his hurts -on the 10th, and meanwhile General Fyatt had taken control of the -city, bringing in troops from nearby stations. Dicky had met Fyatt in -France, and was on his way now to pay his respects to the General at -his Headquarters in the Ram Bagh. He was getting it very clearly just -now that if it were observed that he had any sort of affiliation with -the natives, he would promptly be placed out of reach of all Punjabi -events, even as a spectator. - -The American was personally and intensely interested in Nagar and -Gandhi, but still he did not feel that he had taken sides in the least. -He looked upon Gandhi’s work as visionary, and the work of the British -in India as substantial, and the more likely to endure. He had seen -Nagar but a moment or two each day since the 10th, and had kept in -touch with developments through the English sources. - -The air was still furiously hot, though it was after four in the -afternoon. The streets were crowded, this being the day of the -_Baisaki_ fair, and thousands were in from the country. Dicky heard -the roar of a ’plane over the city, and craned out of the window of -his half-closed carriage for a glance at its flight. The pilot was -making circles over a point at a little distance ahead--a low peculiar -hovering. - -Dicky inquired of his driver the meaning, and was told that the -’plane appeared to be hanging over the great crowd assembled in the -Jallianwalla Bagh--that thousands of the visitors attending the fair -were there, listening to the speakers, as well as many townsfolk. - -“But didn’t the General give orders for no public assemblies?” - -The driver had not heard. Dicky reflected that the ’plane didn’t appear -to be there for the amusement of a crowd--no circus ’plane, but an -effective bit of government property, rather, with an air of business. -It rose now and vanished over the city. - -The carriage continued on the way to the Ram Bagh, until it was halted -for the passage of troops in the street. A half-hundred Gurkhas and -Baluchees, two motor cars with English officers and civilians, the -whole outfit trailed by a pair of armored cars, and moving in the -direction where the government ’plane had hovered. - -“Where are they going?” Dicky asked of his driver. - -The man was not sure, but suggested the Jallianwalla Bagh. - -“What is that place?” - -“It is a _maidan_,” the man said, “a big open square, a public place.” - -“Public square,” Dicky muttered. “Turn in short after the armored -cars,” he commanded the driver. “Follow close.” - -“Ram Bagh is not so.” - -It is a difficult proceeding, requiring formalities, to alter one’s -orders in Asia. - -“Listen. I am changing my purpose. Not Ram Bagh, but Jallianwalla. Turn -in after the soldiers--now!” - -The driver obeyed, but was hurt and murmuring. - -To Dicky, that afternoon, Amritsar was a place of heated and offensive -stenches. As they passed through hot and narrow streets, certain of -these odors startled his comprehension, because they were so subtly -vindictive. The thought occurred to him, as he watched the naked -children playing in the wet shadows, of what a correspondent had -remarked in Cawnpore: that it was hard to tell whether the streets -soiled the children, or the children soiled the streets. The movement -forward was very slow, and Dicky bent to inquire at length if they were -still moving toward Jallianwalla Bagh. - -“Yes, it is very near,” said the driver, churning at the lines with -both hands. - -The American did not let himself think further. He fell into his old -queer absorption; the reporter of his makeup taking him over. He shut -out Amritsar from mind; the Native Idea, the English Idea, and his own -that hovered between. He was just a stranger in a half-closed carriage -looking out from under a bandaged brow. He heard the flies in the air. -He did not seem to have any mental guard to shut out that distracting -buzz--flies winging across the vapors of filth. They came to a narrow -lane, a _kucha_, the driver called it. The armored cars ahead were -having difficulty in this constricted place. Finally they halted and -Dicky heard a British soldier on the nearest turret call out that the -cars could proceed no further. - -His own carriage was of course blocked. The _kucha_ appeared less than -eight feet wide. He was still lame, and had not intended to do much -walking about in the furious heat, but beyond the armored cars he had -glimpsed the Gurkhas filing forward and the officers stepping out of -their machines. He let himself to the ground, ordered the driver to -wait, and followed the soldiers through the wet trampled lane. - -A minute later he was in the broken ranks of the Gurkhas--little -muttering men with big sprawly hands holding fast to their rifles, -fingers running loosely over breech and stock and barrel. The halt had -come because there was a sudden rise to the ground--a mound of earth -closing the lane, and running at angles to each side. The soldiers were -ordered up and deployed along the mound; equally divided to the right -and left. - -Now Richard Cobden, in the midst of the officers and civilians who -had occupied the two motor cars, also gained the eminence with some -pains; and at this point he saw the man he had started out to find -that afternoon--General Fyatt, a significant picture, indeed, here in -Amritsar, who had been but a small obscure exhibit in the broad gallery -of France. - -Fyatt didn’t see him, and the American looked over the vast assembly -of natives in the burning light. On a raised frame toward the center, a -Sikh speaker stood. Dicky could hear his words, but did not understand. -He saw, however, that the coming of the soldiers had interrupted the -tenor of the speech and that many of the people were frightened and -drawing away. An English officer beside him, after listening a moment, -spoke with an ironical laugh: - -“_We have nothing to fear. Sarkar is our father and our mother. -Government would not injure its children_----” - -Dicky realized that the young officer had quoted a translation of words -the Sikh speaker had just spoken to the people--from twelve to fifteen -thousand in the _maidan_, he reckoned. All faces were now turned to the -soldiers--waves of faces. It was as if the color of a tree had changed -by a steady pressure of wind that showed the under side of all the -leaves. A nervous laugh from the young Englishman who had interpreted; -then from General Fyatt, the low single sentence: - -“You may give the order.” - -“Fire!” the young officer called to his Gurkhas. - -To Richard Cobden it was quite incredible, but another officer on the -far side of the lane repeated the command, and the line of leveled -rifles spurted on either side. Dicky winced at the crashes. He had been -in the firing pits many times, but one can never remember how these -concussions close by hurt one’s head and spine.... Of course, they were -firing blanks. This was Martial Law. The people had been ordered not -to assemble and they had disobeyed--twelve thousand of them, or more. -General Fyatt had undertaken to impress upon them that his word was -Law, Martial Law. Of course, this was also the English answer to April -10th, at the Hallgate Bridge. A bit uncouth to stampede a big crowd -like this. - -Surely Fyatt couldn’t have realized what this firing of blanks would -mean. - -They were trampling themselves to death already. This wasn’t English -humor. It was more like the fool who yells, “Fire!” in a packed theater. - -The great open place was walled. There were no broad exits. The several -narrow vents had locked of themselves by the pressing of bodies against -them. “Why,” Dicky thought, with a wrench and shiver at the sight of -the monster throng in the process of constricting itself, “why, this is -a womb of death!” - -Cries were sustained at the end of this April holiday--cries of battle -and accident and pestilence, the cries from a great ship going down. - -Dicky thought of a pot beginning to boil. He thought of a yard of -leaves suddenly caught in a swirling wind. He thought of all the old -stale similes used and over-used since bloodshed began, and his mind -sank back in the hollow of hopelessness. It couldn’t be told, but his -faculties tried again and again, even though his heart sobbed with the -people. - -A great square of colored cloths in the sunlight--from twelve to -fifteen thousand human beings listening to a man who cried out -against violence, who cried out that _Sarkar_ couldn’t hurt his -children--suddenly being ground in the great crush of Fear, being -sprayed with rifle fire--blanks, of course--but to a result almost as -deadly, for the people were destroying each other. They didn’t mean to, -but they were trampling each other to death. Thus his mind viewed and -reviewed--all this in a matter of seconds. - -Now Mr. Cobden saw something he didn’t understand. Down in the _maidan_ -on the ground, not fifty feet away--a giant Sikh in white turban, -running forward with raised hands, like a messenger--a close-up -possibly for Dicky’s eyes alone--suddenly halted, spun and slapped -limply to the ground with a curving fling. A glorious fall, if it had -been a bit of acting--the fall a man makes when a bullet hits him. - -But Dicky was quite possessed with the idea that the soldiers were -firing blanks. - -At this point, an English officer roared at his Gurkhas, who apparently -had been firing high. His words were in vernacular, but the American -saw the little dark men shorten their range. - -Thus it dawned upon him slowly, as if he were a very stupid man, that -Fyatt was punishing Amritsar indeed--in fact, that the General was -making a day of it. Also at the same time it dawned upon him that the -public square was walled. He had seen the wall before, partly formed -of buildings, but it hadn’t properly registered in connection with the -words of the twisted ascetic of Cawnpore. - -Now he knew also that the several narrow throats of the walled square, -none so wide as the _kucha_ through which he had entered, had become -points of intensified death, because the great throng had divided to -crush itself against these impossible apertures. The English officers -appeared to be directing the fire of the soldiers toward these points -where the maddened masses were most dense. - -Almost directly across the square the wall was low, less than six feet. -Hundreds were jammed against it, but their bodies were so locked by the -pressure from behind that no one could climb or be pushed over into -safety. - -The Gurkhas looked like monkey men. They stamped queerly as they -pumped. They were being told what to do and were in a great -concentration to obey exactly. They emptied their magazines, each man -taking his own time, and halted to fill them again, carefully avoiding -with their fingers the burning metal of the barrels, as they refilled -and fired. - -An English civilian, an elderly man, face livid, bumped Cobden’s -wounded shoulder, as he lurched past, muttering: - -“My God! I can’t watch this.” - -Another Englishman followed him, venting an hysterical laughter--both -faces Dicky had seen in one of the motor cars. For an instant it seemed -the only sane action left in the world--to rush out into the lane the -way he had come, as these Englishmen were doing, to cover face and -ears, to rush forth, to continue to the ends of India and the uttermost -parts of the earth. - -Dicky started to follow, but turned back.... No, he wouldn’t rush off -to be sick. This was the wall that he was to come to. It was something -else.... What was it? Oh, yes, it was the Big Story that he had been -pacing up and down the world to find.... Of course, it would be like -this. He would find himself in the midst of it, without knowing at -first. - -He ducked forward under the rifles of three _sepoys_ to reach the -staff. He couldn’t go away without paying his respects to the General. -Was not this what he had started out for to-day? He stumbled over a -soldier on his knees--a Baluchee, vomiting with all his might. He saw -Fyatt a few paces forward--Fyatt, grizzled, square-shouldered, behind -a field glass. A mocking laugh rose in Richard Cobden’s heart. A man -didn’t need a field glass to cover the _maidan_. One could see the -faces; one could see the fallen; one could see the writhing cords of -human bodies. Oh, no, one didn’t need a field glass. One could see -the thousands on the _maidan_ now--as one up-turned face, the face of -a child betrayed, but unable to believe. Fyatt merely chose this way -to cover his own face. His back looked stiff and blocky as he swung -slowly around behind the glasses. His shoulders and neck didn’t move. -He turned from the hips, Dicky perceived, as he touched the General’s -sleeve. - - - - -XLVI - -THE HOOKED MAN - - -A NOTE of unison had come to the great cry from the people at this -moment--one note that tugged at the white man’s soul--the deadly hurt -of a child.... General Fyatt was not tall for a soldier, with square -lines of figure; square of chin and temple and shoulder and elbow, -pivoting on his hips. But there were two remarkable curves in the -ensemble, the sidewise curve of the hooked nose and the bow of his -booted legs. Now as the American stood by, a new key presented itself -to the man--that hooked smile. It opened other hooks--hook of the -eye-corner, as well as the corner of the mouth and the bent nose, hook -of the fingers on the field glass. The face turned to him--a white welt -from the glasses on the bridge of the nose. - -Dicky felt the horrible slowness over everything--that somehow there -was not in this man’s volition the power to order the firing to cease. -No recognition showed in Fyatt’s eyes. He stared. It was like the -man who had stared at him on the docks in Bombay, when he heard that -America had entered the War. - -“Well, sir!” - -Dicky felt rebuked. Then came to his ears again the terrible drowning -cry of the children, and he saw Fyatt differently--not as England; at -least, not all of England--a black crooked finger operating merely--the -face of England turned away. - -“I only wanted to ask----” Dicky stopped and raised his voice above the -tumult of shots and voices. “Cobden of New York--saw you in France!” - -It was utterly ridiculous to yell one’s identity. He had forgotten that -his face might look different under a bandage. The field glass that had -been partly raised again was whipped down. The hooks tightened. - -“Ah, Cobden. Heard you were in town. Busy, you know!” - -“I see!” the American yelled back. He felt like a maniac. “I see! I -merely wanted to ask, General, if you had gone mad--or have I?” - - * * * * * - -A young officer ran between them reporting that the ammunition was -running out. - -“Sixteen hundred and fifty rounds, sir. Mainly used up. Some of the men -finished----” - -“Ease them off back to the armored cars. Let the others finish -firing--fire low.” - -“Not much wasted--only at first, sir!” - -Fyatt turned to Cobden, shouting staccato sentences: “Didn’t catch what -you said. Teaching Amritsar a lesson! Plover says we ought to take a -thousand for one! Teach them to assault women----” - -“Isn’t the lesson taught?” This time Dicky didn’t yell. - -“They haven’t dispersed yet.” - -“Dead men can’t disperse, General. The rest can’t get out----” - -Dicky walked away. He had looked again at the _maidan_. Everything was -overturned. The thousands were prone or kneeling.... If one steel rifle -bullet plows through sixteen inches of oak--how many human bodies will -it plow through? How many will 1650 steel bullets?... No shots wasted -since the first minute or two. They couldn’t be all down--wounded or -done for. Suddenly Dicky realized that many of the people were now -praying. He was back at the head of the lane, moving in circles like a -man who has been beaten on the head.... A black-coated Englishman with -a clergy’s vest, grasped him by the arm, peering into his face--eyes -gone utterly daft. He shook Dicky’s arm and pushed it from him; then -ran to a soldier near by and peered again. - -“Tell it to the General,” Dicky called absurdly, but his words weren’t -heard. - -Now he saw one of the elder civilians who had escaped a few moments -before, coming back. This person scrambled upon the mound from the lane -side and inquired of the earth and sky: - -“I say--can’t he stop?” - -“He’s dispersing the people,” Dicky answered. - -The firing was desultory now. He heard orders for it to cease entirely. - -“We might need a cartridge or two in the streets going back----” a -voice behind him said. - -“We’ve got the armored cars----” another answered. - -Then Richard Cobden happened to look at the west and found the sun -still high in the sky. This struck him as altogether peculiar. - - - - -XLVII - -IN THE WARM DARK - - -COBDEN found himself in the lane, turned away from the _maidan_, his -hands lifted and clenched. From behind still came the sounds of a ship -going down--all but down, the firing ceased. In front of him, the -_sepoys_ were running low as if to escape. It made him think of ball -players leaving the field in the summer dusk after a game, running -through the crowd to the clubhouse. The armored cars were backing out -before him. - -“... Of course,” he kept telling himself, “it had to come this way--end -of the old story, the beginning of the story of the age. This isn’t an -English-Indian story. It’s a story of all the world.” - -Only natives were about him--ashen-lipped, muttering, frightened, -dazed. He continued through the _kucha_, following the armored cars. -He must get to the hotel. He had something to write, copy to file. But -this delusion did not carry him far, before its absurdity struck home. -The outer world would never hear of this story, until it leaked through -by letter or word of mouth. The cables had been tight before. They -would be drum-tight now. - -Vaguely and dully he realized that all things were changed for him -for all time. The reporter in his makeup that had blithely set out -for Jallianwalla Bagh was done for, all aloofness of the spectator -gone--the little poise of ego which had carried him so well and so -long, so far as associations with men went, up and down the world until -this hour--that ego poise was leveled and smeared. Amritsar’s public -square--the massacre in the _maidan_ had cloven him, and into the -opening all India had rushed. The face of the hooked man came back to -him--hard unto silliness, the English stare against the sinking city. - -He had overtaken the nearest of the armored cars. He looked upon them -strangely, their sleek integration. They had not been needed; India had -died and been born again without them. Something similar had happened -in himself. No casual reporter now--one living emotion, rather--one -fire, one fury, a burning of unqualified pity in every cell that held -his life. - -The driver of his carriage hailed him. Cobden lifted his hand in -return, but halted. Suddenly he realized that he didn’t want to go back -to the _Golden Temple Inn_. The thing alive in him now was bigger than -a story to be written, bigger than the finding of a free cable, which -was not in India. He paid the driver and stemmed his way back against -the people that thronged the lane. He knew now that he must keep his -mouth shut in an altogether different way; that a new life, terrible in -its potency, had seized upon him, was somehow being born in his flesh -and brain. He must hold still--hold still. - -“Sixteen hundred rounds in ten minutes,” an English voice reiterated. - -Dicky’s head bowed under his helmet. He was slow to believe that the -firing had lasted only ten minutes. It amazed him now that this was -still a world of hot daylight. He looked back upon his coming through -this lane as one does upon the last memory before a great sickness. He -had to memorize and register again and again upon his faculties that -he had alighted from his vehicle only fifteen minutes ago, and this -was all one day, all one afternoon, all one quarter of an hour. In the -interval there had been death and birth for India and for himself--a -mysterious conception, at least. - -“God forgive me for losing my head,” he muttered, for there was -something in him that still counted losing one’s head as the first -moral offense. He was thinking of the moment standing before Fyatt. -He would move very quietly now. As he reclimbed the mound where the -_sepoy_ firing line had stood, it came to him that a man might lose his -head for a moment, at least, to find his heart. - -He let himself down from the mound to the bloody ground. There he found -presently a man wedged under the bodies of two already dead. He dragged -this man loose, only to find that he was apparently bleeding to death -from a shattered knee. He unwound a turban from one of the dead men -and wrapped the wound, knotting it tightly above the flow of blood. -His own left hand was impeded by the sling. Presently, he freed it -entirely, his personal scratches appearing ridiculous in this broad -field of bloody men. Thus began his work. It was as if he had entered -single-handed upon a task to alter the sewerage system of a city. - -There were no English about, no police or native soldiers. Martial Law -had done its part and gone to supper. The people flocking into the -_maidan_ with moanings and horror-stricken cries now were those looking -for their own. From the farthest parts of Amritsar they were drawn, -from many houses to which one or more did not report for the evening -meal. Living men and women--hurrying, bending--hands reaching down, -hands pressed to faces--the quick and the dead. - -A while afterward he looked up to find that the sun had gone down. His -knees were wet with blood. He felt the wet spreading heat upon his left -shoulder. His wound had opened from exertion--a smile at that. - -He had worked a little on battlefields before, but they weren’t like -this. A persistent thought held him that this was the field of his own -dead! He didn’t understand how his brain could deal with such weird -stuff. He concluded that he was in a half-dream where thoughts appeared -veritable that wouldn’t hold water when he fully waked. - -Now he had extricated from the mass near the Hasali Gate the body of -a trampled girl child. She was warm, possibly not dead. She smelled -of the earth and tears.... His heart thumped, and pity like a warm -breath surged through him--pity, which some one said was the pain of -love--oh, yes, that was Miss Claes’ expression. He touched the girl’s -long coarse black hair in the thick twilight. - -His lips formed with explanations and thoughts as he worked--the things -he would tell Pidge, the way he would tell these things to Pidge. He -placed the unconscious one down at the feet of a native doctor who was -binding wounds, but often raising his eyes to heaven in prayer that the -soldiers might not come back. - -Dicky stood up in the warm dark, lifted his helmet and mopped his -forehead with his grimy right hand. He could actually smell what horses -smelled (as he remembered in France and Arabia) when they snorted -and ran aside.... The dead would never end--hundreds of dead--public -square covered with dead. And what was pulling at his brain--something -trying to gain admittance? He had it now. Pidge Musser was close again; -close as she had come in the _Ashrama_--not weeping, horrified, not -in the least dismayed or hopeless by all these lifeless ones on the -ground, but the spirit of swift-handed helpfulness, utterly in accord -with him in thought and purpose, no words being necessary. So this -was why he had been standing in the dark with uncovered head, rubbing -his hand over his brow--that her closeness might come through to him! -Not so weird, after all, that he should know this, standing upon the -soaked turf of the _maidan_. Things of this kind had often happened to -soldiers on the battlefields of France. - -Was this what it was all about then--the separation, the struggling--at -last to become connected to her this way, though across the world? He -mustn’t study it too closely. He had a warning that he would spoil it, -unless he kept on heartily with the work. So he continued separating -the wounded, but every little while when his hands were free he would -stop and uncover his head to the moist warmth of the evening. Would she -come nearer and nearer through the years?... And these were her dead -and her dying, and she had blessed the little Hindu girl with coarse -black hair. He smiled at the absurdity of his thoughts. - -Now it was full dark and the cries of the living women across the -_maidan_ were raised in agony because they must leave the Bagh before -the curfew sounded. Hundreds were still searching. They had not found -their own, but it was close to eight o’clock and this--the dead on the -field--was what had come of breaking Martial Law to-day. It did not -matter that lives might still be saved if the wounded could be taken -out from the dead. _Sarkar_ had fired upon them to-day. _Sarkar_ would -come with more death, if they disobeyed. Husbands dragged away the -women whose faces turned back. - -Richard Cobden stayed on. He had the sense of not being alone. -Moreover, there was much to do. There were voices to answer. He heard -cries and callings from the windows of the houses that overlooked the -_maidan_. No English came that night--but the pariah dogs from all the -city and outskirts. They moved like ghouls in the shadows. There were -mysteries everywhere--white vapors from the ground. He saw and felt the -unutterable; became rich for future years in that one night with the -fruits of sadness. - - - - -XLVIII - -“INDIA’S MESSENGER” - - -COBDEN walked back from the _maidan_ through the streets of Amritsar -in the dawn. He did not feel like a foreigner. That which had happened -during the night had furnished him with what rarely comes to a white -man--the Indian point of view. He was in the Indian fabric for the -moment, at least; no longer a spectator from the West. He did not -hate England, not even the crooked finger that had mismanaged for -England. He knew something right now that he might not be able even to -remember--more sorrow than anger. - -As he approached the Golden Temple, near which was the Inn, Nagar -appeared in the street, and they walked together in silence. As he -tottered a little, Nagar’s arm swung around him and Dicky said: - -“Don’t. I’m very dirty.” - -Now that the light was coming on, they saw people hurrying to the -Jallianwalla Bagh. - -In the room, Dicky said: - -“Make a lot of tea, Nagar. Sorry you won’t join me in a little drink -from the flask.” - -A moment later, he said: - -“I think after all, you’ll have to help me get off this shirt. I’m a -rubbed-in mess of blood and dirt.” - -Nagar perceived that the body of the American trembled full-length; -also that his clothing was soaked with blood from the wounded shoulder, -as well as from stains received from handling others. - -“... Some of them crawled about in the dark!” Dicky was saying. “A -woman sat there moaning through the whole night. The pariahs came--I -heard them lapping, lapping. From the windows of the houses around the -Bagh came the cries of the women who dared not disobey the curfew.... -Why, that ten minutes of firing was longer than whole years I lived as -a schoolboy, but the ten hours since dark--that passed, Nagar, like -a man walking by a house, not a lame man.... I saw your India, oh, -yes. The gentlest-tempered crowd I ever moved through, but something -dangerous and deadly in its pain and grief. God help us--when you wake -up----” - -Nagar helped him. Dicky bathed his neck and face and hair copiously -with one hand, and then washed the left arm. With Nagar’s help the -wound was packed with clean lint. Dicky drank hot tea, filling his -goblet several times and shivering, though the heat of the night was -still in the room. Finally he sat down in his bathrobe by the open -window and lit a cigarette. The sunlight had found the gold of the -Temple dome. - -“... I actually forgot myself,” Dicky repeated. “When an American -forgets himself, Nagar, you can be sure a big show is being pulled -off.... I’ve smoked too much, talked too much. I am going to lie down -for a little--until breakfast.... Bed! Think of having a bed, in -Amritsar. A bed with sheets.... Out there so many were lying on the -ground. Oh, I say, Nagar, where will they put them all?” - -The Hindu’s cool, slim fingers reached over and touched his hand. He -didn’t speak, just kept his hand still, and Dicky found it easier to -stop talking, because of that hand; easier to endure the furious forces -of activity in his brain. Finally Nagar spoke: - -“I had to stay with the students. They wanted to go to the _maidan_. -That would not have been well, but it was well for you to be there--to -forget yourself there through the hours. It will come forth from you -for years--not as the voice of an American, but as a citizen of the -world. You have prepared long; last night India found you prepared, and -dared to show you something of herself. Miss Claes would be very glad -to be here with us this morning.” - -Dicky’s mind fumbled with the idea that he had not only come closer -into the Indian heart, but into Nagar’s as well. - -“You might sleep a little until breakfast. I shall not leave you -until after that. You are very tired and spent, but you will not be -injured from last night. When a man forgets himself, as you say, he is -strangely replenished.” - -But Dicky did not sleep. They breakfasted early and Nagar arose, saying: - -“... In the days that you remain in Amritsar finishing your work (for -last night will mean more and more to you as the days go on) you and I -shall not be much together. What you see in Amritsar--you must watch -without feeling or partisanship. One cannot tell--you may see strange -things. Remember, always remember, that you are American; that as an -American you have no enemies, and belong to the world. In the fusion of -all Europe, which America is, to form a new type of nobility, remember -that no country has furnished a nobler ingredient--than England. And -forgive my many words, Richard, if I ask you to remember this also: -that anything which might happen to me here in Amritsar in the days you -remain, must never make you forget that you have a message to carry to -America.” - -“I don’t understand, Nagar.” - -“It is difficult to say. I can only repeat: Anything which might happen -to me in this city must not arouse in you a personal or partisan -effort to help me. We must be strangers--unless I come to you alone. -The English are beside themselves; they know not what they do. You -must have no feelings about me--to betray you. Go further into the -English. Forget me--except as a part of your own source of kindness and -strength.” - -Nagar was gone. As Dicky conned all this, he began to wonder if he -would see his friend again. All the days before this in Amritsar, he -had been waiting for things to get quiet so that he and Nagar might -really begin to get together.... “India’s messenger,” he muttered, as -he fell asleep. - - - - -XLIX - -PIDGE TRIES GRAMERCY PARK - - -THE second part of Dicky Cobden’s letter about Gandhi written after his -three interviews in Bombay, reached Pidge fully a fortnight after the -first. Of course, it interested her, as it could no one else. - - ... From several angles I placed before Mahatma-ji, the concept of - dreamers of all countries--the dream of the mating of the East and - West, that the New Race is to be born of this mating; that globe - means globe, and a world citizen must belong to all; that as Goethe - says, “above the nations is Humanity.” This thing, you understand, - has attracted me merely as a concept, not with the dreamer’s fire at - all. Short work Gandhi made of the mating of the East and West. The - damsel, New India, is not ready for marriage. She is not clean. She - has not found herself, therefore has not herself to give. (These are - not his words, but the idea.) She must become free, before she has - anything to bestow. She is just a perfumed body, which the West has - already desecrated and begun to despise--merely an offering now, not - a wife. What Gandhi arrays himself against to-day is the fact that - India has already fallen under the lure of the West. She has felt the - fascination of his big toys, the glamour of his mighty works. The - Little Man has made me see that a woman who “falls for” a man, can - never become the man-maker which a wife must be, maker of her husband - as well as child. Queer, how it came to me that way first, before - I saw the man’s side of it--the great thing you have done, pushing - me back, forever pushing me back into myself, until that day when I - shall be able to _stand_, not “fall for” you. I am learning--learning - so slowly what I bargained for that night at the Punjabi Fireplace. - “... Go back into your house!” Gandhi cries to India. (Not his words, - you know; merely my picture of him.) “Fast and pray. That is safe. - Fast and pray and spin! Pray to the hum of the _charka_. Forget your - lover. Find yourself. You are the East, the inner. Already you have - been lured by his brutal boyish games. You have flattered him, but - already he despises you. What does he bring now, but a bloody carcass - to your hearth, saying, ‘Arise. Gut and skin.’”... Mahatma-ji is on - the ground. Now, To-day, seeing but one step--the next step--crying, - “Go Back!” This is the most extraordinary part to me, that his very - limitations appear to be in use! - -In early July, Pidge made her first move since coming to New York. The -spirit had gone out of the house in Harrow Street for her, with Miss -Claes’ departure. She sent the boy-baby up into the country and took a -room at the _Sennacherib_ in Gramercy Park, a step of which Rufe Melton -strongly approved: - -“You were getting stale down there, Pan,” he said, one night when he -came to dine. “The Village is all right for a novelty, but real New -York hasn’t time for that sort of thing. I see you’re running Carver’s -novel in the _P. S._ What did you get in on that for? Did he give it to -you?” - -“Rather not. It cost real money.” - -“A hang-over from John Higgins’ desk?” - -“No, we took it after--after----” - -“Carver could never have slipped that over on you, Pan,” he broke in, -“if you had lived uptown. But no, you never would listen to me, that a -thing isn’t great because it’s nasty----” - -“You think it isn’t a successful serial?” - -“Not a chance----” - -There was truth in what he said. The new novel was rapidly unreeling in -generous installments, without much gratifying noise from the readers. - -Rufe confided that he was doing a long story, and that Redge Walters -was very much interested in it as a serial prospect. - -“What’s it on?” she asked. - -“Business,” said Rufe. “Shipping--grain--iron--packing-houses. -Everybody’s panting for business since the War.” - -“Sounds American.” - -“Epic of the Great Lakes, Pan. Never knew what I was about, till -now----” - -She was thinking of Amritsar--of the first Amritsar mail recently in -from Richard Cobden, posted at Pondicherry, French India--of _hathis_ -and her new _mahout_--of British bulletins, native documents, and -Dicky’s own straight story of April 10th and 13th. It had been -difficult for Pidge not to become too excited by all this. For the -first time Dicky’s work had carried her off her feet. That had been -days ago, and she had not altogether trusted her fiercely fresh -enthusiasm, but it didn’t subside, and at the present minute, the epic -of the Great Lakes sounded to her like a forlorn side show. Moreover, -Dicky’s Amritsar story, about to be printed in _The Public Square_, -took away most of the disappointment in that Carver’s novel hadn’t -proved a powerful stimulus to circulation. - -“Its capital is Chicago,” Rufe further divulged about his book. “Funny -how you have to get away from there to see that big town. All the years -I lived in Chi--never got next to her, as I have since I came to New -York.... Yes, it’s booming along. Haven’t been really right until just -now, since I was gassed.” - -“I’m glad, Rufe.” - -“It’s got a _mahatma_ in it,” Rufe chuckled. - -“A what?” - -“What’s the matter with you, Pan?” - -“That word--from you!” - -“You look as if you’d seen the Dweller----” - -“The what, Rufe?” - -He chuckled again. “Didn’t know I’ve been going in for the occult, did -you? Say Pan, there’s one fine thing about you. I never feel as if you -could be disappointed in your Rufie.” - -“Why is that?” She was entirely off his trend. - -“You haven’t started to expect anything of me.... Oh, yes, had to have -a _mahatma_ in the story. It’s the new thing. Everybody’s got one -since the War. Not enough to go round.... This _mahatma_ of mine in Chi -is wise to the stock exchange. It’s his tip, you know, that the whole -tale turns on. Reader never thinks of it--until it’s pulled.” - -“Where did you get your model?” - -He laughed again. “Right in the family, Pan. Been going to hear -Adolphus. Say, you never did appreciate your father. Bad habit of -yours, Pan, honest to God--to lose respect for a man just because you -live with him.” - -Pidge was in a whirl. Her hands dropped down to the seat of her chair -on either side and gripped hard. The world looked about as big to her -as Delaware; Amritsar and New York signaling to each other. - -“Heard him this afternoon--in the ballroom of the _Pershing_--swell -crowd out,” Rufe pursued. “Talked on Lytton’s _Zanoni_. I’m going -to read that book. And didn’t Adolph put it over to the damsels and -dowagers! Just what I need for my white _mahatma_. Where does the old -man get all that? It’s a wonder you haven’t gotten in on your father’s -stuff, Pan.” - -She wanted Miss Claes as never before. This was too much for one small -person to hold. When she really listened again, Rufe was asking to go -upstairs with her to see her room. - -“It’s just a common room. What’s the use?” - -“Little afraid to see me alone, eh, Pan?” - -“Not afraid--only what’s the use?” - -“You might see it different----” - -“I might have once, Rufe----” - -“Say, Pan----” - -“Yes?” - -“Does Mrs. Melton want to be free?” - -Her hands dropped to the seat of her chair again. She saw the new want -in his eyes and something else--the old captive thing. - -There were two possible answers to his question, and it took every -minute of her twenty-five years, and all that had gone before, to -choose. This is what she said: - -“Mrs. Melton will never be free!” - -“What--what do you mean?” - -“Ask your _mahatma_, Rufe.” - - - - -L - -DICKY’S IDEA WORKS - - -PIDGE felt the hugeness of life around her at last. Doors were being -opened as never before. She saw as clearly as if Rufe Melton had -confessed to her, that it was he who wanted to be free. She could -grant this well enough; having been forced to it, in effect, from the -beginning. He would doubtless come again soon, making it plain that he -wanted her to agree to divorce. The point was that certain barriers and -limitations in her own life were suddenly lifted. It was as if she had -emerged from a city, to the shore of the sea, and before her eyes was -an unbroken horizon line. - -The abrupt extension frightened her. The story of Amritsar now -unfolding for her from the Indian mail--in its hatelessness, in its -devotion to truth and unsentimental love for the people--unveiled for -her eyes a _man_--not Gandhi, not Nagar, but Richard Cobden, himself. -The few sentences he had inserted in his letter about Gandhi, “--the -great thing you have done, pushing me back, forever pushing me back -into myself, until the day when I shall be able to _stand_, not fall -for you!”--in these words there was for Pidge an invincible call. - -She had searched the language for another expression to convey -what that little slangy verb “to fall for” meant. It was one of her -treasures. When one “fell for” a person or thing--one couldn’t stand -for the same. One was captive, not co-worker. Here was the difference -between infatuation and romance. Dicky had found it out. There was -expressed in his letter more than she had dreamed as possible; and this -time words thrilled her furiously, because she believed they had become -working knowledge, before it had occurred to him to express the idea. -She saw this knowledge working out in his studies of Gandhi. He did -not “fall for” the Little Man. He did not rush into eulogy; he sought -to understand. In a word, he stood for Gandhi. But now that Dicky was -ready to stand for her, she was ready to fall, and all her horizons -were being pushed back to give her room. - -... She was very weary. She had not known it before. _The Public -Square_ thrived. It was strong pulsed with new life. For the first time -in her experience she sensed from the magazine’s field, following the -issue of the first Amritsar story--silence, the perfect tribute, the -instantaneous readjustment of all other journals; then crowded mails, -the answer from people everywhere. Something about Gandhi touched -hundreds of people to the point of saying so, in a letter to _The -Public Square_. - -Yes, she was weary. She had held grimly to the post. She wanted to turn -it over to Dicky Cobden now.... It had been like this once before--on -the night of Somebody’s Shoulder. She had wanted to give him what he -wanted that night--the tiredest and most hopeless girl in New York. -Only that night it had been--for what he had. Now it was for what he -was. - -John Higgins lost his bearings in the city traffic. A copy of the issue -containing the first section of the Amritsar story was in the old -editor’s hand when he fell in the street. She was with him for several -hours, until the end. He looked at her long and strangely--eyes more -“run-out” than ever. He did not seem to hear her words, but if she -remained in silence too long, a little frown gathered on his forehead, -and his hand would pull at hers. He had waited for the big story. Once -he said: - -“I wish Dicky would come,” and that brought Pidge’s slow tears. - - * * * * * - -The next day a solicitor called at the office and Pidge still felt -squally. She couldn’t grasp what he was saying. She thought it had -something to do with a secret society that was going to attend an -absurd matter, known as “obsequies.” She was deluged in words. - -“... Be perfectly calm, Mrs. Melton,” the solicitor said at last. “This -isn’t exactly bad news, but I’ve known lasting injury from the one, as -well as the other----” - -“Please--what are you talking about?” - -“Your legacy----” - -“My--I don’t----” - -“From the late John Higgins----” - -“But it was only last night!” - -“The late John Higgins, nevertheless. The demise----” - -“And what about it?” - -“That he has left you--this paper in my hand being the memorandum--his -interest in _The Public Square_----” - -“Me----” - -“A half-interest in the ownership, to be exact----” - -Pidge glanced around the room. The man was sitting. The first and -terrible obstacle of life was to remove him, or escape from him. - -“What have I to do?” - -“Just sign----” - -But he was still sitting, after she had signed. He wanted to be -sociable.... She was on the car going home. She hopped off at Eighth -Street, and was turned into Harrow, before she realized that she didn’t -live there any more but in Gramercy Park.... Curving Harrow Street -was quiet and calling. She went in to the curve and stood before the -old green front. A sign on the door announced “Rooms, Permanent and -Transient.”... “What kind of rooms are transient rooms?” she thought. -The curb and doorstep thronged with memories. “Oh, Dicky, it’s too -much,” she whispered at last. “Come soon, and prop me up!” - - - - -LI - -“WE LOOK UPON WOMEN AS SACRED” - - -“_DO you people want peace or war? If you wish for war the Government -is prepared for it, and if you want peace, then obey my orders and -open all your shops; else, I will shoot. For me the battlefield of -France or Amritsar is the same. I am a military man and I will go -straight. Neither shall I move to the right, nor to the left. Speak -up, if you want war. In case there is to be peace, my order is to open -all shops at once. Obey orders. I do not wish to have anything else. -I have served in the military for over thirty years. I understand the -Indian sepoy and the Sikh people very well. You must inform me of the -budmashes. I will shoot them. Obey my orders and open shops. Speak up -if you want war._” - -General Fyatt was talking to a large company of Amritsar’s native -representatives, lawyers, merchants, doctors, in the _kotwali_, the day -after the massacre. - -The Deputy Commissioner added: “You have committed a bad act in killing -the English. The revenge will be taken upon you and upon your children.” - -The large company of natives listened. Not one spoke of the -Jallianwalla Bagh, or of the dead which still lay there. Richard Cobden -reasoned with himself; neither did he speak. Out of all the burn of -feelings and the great waste of ineffectual thoughts, it was dawning -upon him that in their own good time, the dead of Amritsar’s public -square would speak for themselves. - -In the days that followed Dicky worked quietly, worked from the -standpoint of the English almost entirely. He “exposed” himself like -a film to the aftermath of the tragedy. He went after facts and -statements. It was never to be ascertained, the number of killed and -injured. The English granted about three hundred dead; the natives -claimed five times that, even more. He was much at Headquarters; and -confined himself altogether to the Civil Lines. Through Lala Relu Ram, -he received certain secret reports from the native point of view, and -guarded these little tissues assiduously. A cigarette case contained -them all. - -He went each day to the Crawling Lane, as one doing a city beat for a -newspaper would call at city hall or recorders’ court. This was the -place where Miss Sherwood was assaulted by the natives, on the 10th. It -was narrow and thickly populated, with double-story buildings on either -side, and numerous blind alleys shooting out of the lane. - -The crawling order remained in force for eight days. Although General -Fyatt called it “going on all fours,” and it had been called the “hand -and knee order” by the press, the process consisted in the persons -lying flat on their bellies and crawling like reptiles. Any lifting of -the knees or bending thereof brought the rifle butts of the soldiers -and police on the native backs. - -“But, General,” Dicky said cheerfully, “people are forced to crawl -through there or go without food and medicine--people who have never -seen Miss Sherwood, much less taken part in the assault.” - -“She was beaten,” General Fyatt declared. “We look upon women as -sacred.” - -“Ah,” said the American. - -In the Crawling Lane and elsewhere were erected _tikitis_ for flogging. -These were triangles of wood, upon which the hands could be suspended -and tied. A general order was issued for all the native population -of Amritsar, a city of one hundred and sixty thousand, to _salam_ to -English in the streets. Those who did not _salam_ were arrested, often -flogged. Many of the people were so terrified, that they dared not sit -down anywhere outside of their own houses, lest one of the English -appear suddenly and not find them standing and in position to _salam_. - -During the late days of April, Richard Cobden did not see Nagar, though -occasional brief messages reached him from his friend through the -students. One of these was a suggestion, which Dicky followed, to send -off whatever mail he had ready, in care of one of the young men who was -leaving for Pondicherry, French India. Finally there was the episode of -the tennis court, in the Civil Lines. Dicky drew up to the crowd. - -A set of doubles or singles was not in progress. This was a game of -triangle--a _tikiti_ in the center of the court; a naked native strung -up and being whipped. Dicky had seen about enough of this, and was -ready to turn back, when something of the carriage of the native’s head -arrested his eye, and started a peculiar sinking in his heart. - -The bare back was toward him, but the face turned sidewise revealed -the profile of Nagar. His hands were strapped high toward the top of -the great frame formed in the shape of the letter A. Nagar had been -stripped to the loincloth, his head bare, his white robes and turban -cloth flung upon the turf. The stripes were being put on by one of the -native police. The whip was a rigid canelike affair, but longer than -a walking-stick. A detachment of native soldiers was drawn up on one -side, police on the other. Two young officers of the military, one of -whom Dicky knew, were in charge of the affair. - -Dicky had halted, hand to mouth. Each stroke blinded his eyes; his body -became, for an instant after it, like a house in flames with every -curtain tightly drawn. Then he would see the sunlight before the next -stroke, and the naked man with bleeding back. He had direct need to -turn his back upon this thing--the old nausea. It never occurred to -him that this was his own great test, greater than Nagar’s, for such -tests of the human heart do not come announced; but out of all past -experience, one thing stood in the midst of a rocking universe--that if -he did anything in this red blindness, he would do worse than nothing. - -He walked away, his elbows jerking up as another stroke fell. The thing -that saved him was already accomplished. The turning of his back was -all that was required, apparently, since in this instant he got a -life and death grip on the word _Messenger_. Was he Nagar’s friend or -India’s messenger? - -Then he knew just one furious smearing doubt. What of human loyalty--to -stand by and allow this thing to go on? He was answered in his mind -from Nagar’s own words, “Mahatma-ji’s ideal isn’t human, Richard. It is -of the Soul.” Action of a foreigner in behalf of a native would only -intensify the English fears and the native’s plight. To rush in was -John Higgins’ code. Evidently there was another. - -He walked around to meet Nagar face to face. Ten feet away, he stood -until Nagar’s eyes came up to his. Had Nagar’s hand been free to lift -and command _Silence_, his lips free to speak, the word could not have -been more fiercely impressed. Indeed, the word _Silence_ seemed to have -been shot into the American’s consciousness. - -A blow fell. Nagar’s eyes closed; his lips stretched out as if struck -by an invisible hand. Then under the trailing eyelids, Dicky saw a look -of inexpressible gratitude and relief--the barest beginning of a smile. -Nagar had found him fit to trust. It was another moment of real life, -that moment of the look, another instant of essential recognition. - - * * * * * - -“Oh, I say, Cobden--have you seen a ghost?” - -It was Langoyer, one of the young English officers, who spoke. He was -leaning upon his cane, to flick a cigarette stub off the court with -his boot. Langoyer paid no attention to the flogging. The men attended -to that, you know. One had to stand by--as one would wait for his horse -to drink. - -Dicky was now being lashed to the quick himself. He had seen -clearly--but a sort of hideous night had settled upon him again. He had -to watch his temper. - -“How many does this man get, Langoyer?” he managed to ask. - -“Thirty.” - -“What for?” - -“He knows more of the sedition of Kitchlew and Satyapal than he’ll -tell.” - -The figure had gone limp on the triangle. - -“Fainted,” gasped Richard Cobden. - -The whipping stopped. A tin bucket of water was brought and dashed -upon Nagar’s face and shoulders. A moan came from him because he was -not quite conscious. Then the knees drew up and his feet felt for the -ground. - -The lieutenant stepped forward taking Nagar’s ear in his right hand and -calling aloud: - -“Will you tell the truth now of Kitchlew’s plot against Government?” - -Nagar looked at him without hatred. He tried to speak twice before the -words came: - -“I have already told the truth----” - -“How many stripes have been given?” Langoyer asked. - -“Twenty-six.” - -“Finish the thirty, then take him to _kotwali_. A few days more will -make him tell all right.” - -The American remained. One--two--three--four. - -The hands were unstrapped. The robe was cast about the shoulders. Nagar -could stand. Dicky left the officers and followed his friend and the -native policemen to the station, feeling like a pariah’s whelp. - - - - -LII - -THE OLD FACE - - -DICKY reflected that there were two ways of looking at a person or a -thing, a fact proven several times in his experience. There had been -a moment in the presence of Gandhi, after many minutes of talk, when -the face, that had been dull and unattractive as a camel driver’s, had -suddenly appeared to him with memorable, essential significance. It had -been so with Miss Claes: also the moment when he had really seen Pidge, -as they stood together on the Palisades of Santa Monica. Recently he -had caught an immortal something in the look from Nagar on the rack. - -He did not see Nagar again in Amritsar, but up to mid-May the students -reported that his friend was still imprisoned. The sound of those -falling strokes was slow to die out of the corridors of Dicky’s memory. -They awoke him in the night. It was far easier, however, to recall -the splendor of gameness in the way Nagar had taken his beating. -This satisfied every American instinct; and even above this, was the -mystery of compassion for the English, in Nagar’s face. Here was a man -on a tennis court in a remote Punjabi town, hardly heard-of in this -war-racked world, plainly putting over the thing he had marveled at, as -a small boy in Sunday school: “Father, forgive them, for they know not -what they do.” - -Apparently the same majestic composure. Life held many things; yet -Richard Cobden couldn’t be sure altogether, that he had not outraged -the spirit of friendship in failing to register his protest of word and -deed. Of course, the consequences might have been disastrous, but, at -least, a certain man-to-man loyalty would have been satisfied. - -If further tortures were inflicted upon Nagar, Dicky was not informed. -The Amritsar story was no longer on the outside; it was in Richard -Cobden’s brain and heart. He wrote some of it and his letters were -forwarded, but still he conned and brooded. Having held still through -the whipping of Nagar, he found it easier to stand in the midst of -current events without losing his head, or letting emotion or opinion -have right of way. - -Late in May, a student brought word that Nagar was free and had -gone south. This was all that Dicky had been waiting for. Crawling, -salaming, flogging, imprisonment and forced testimony had long since -become to him a full and bitter cup. At the station, as he waited for -his train, a student, edging near, managed to whisper two words: - -“_Ashrama_, Ahmedabad.” - -The American’s head bowed slightly. He had meant to go to Ahmedabad -anyway. - -He was not met at the station there, but a servant at the _Entresden_ -told him to go at once to the _Ashrama_. He obeyed, and found himself -listening for the voice of Mahatma-ji, as he entered, but his eyes -searched the shadows of the hall for Nagar, a kind of breathless pain -about it all. - -As the door of an inner room opened, at last, and the native who -conducted him drew back, Dicky saw a woman standing in the dimness. Her -face, turned toward him, was a mere blur of darkness, but there was a -leap toward her in Richard Cobden’s breast. Then he stood before her, -in a daze of joy, one hand in hers, one upon her shoulder. - -“It happened very quickly in New York,” she told him. “A letter saying -that I was coming could hardly have reached you before the steamer that -brought me----” - -“But, Miss Claes--New York! What are we to do--no Harrow Street?” - -“You will know what to do,” she said. “And about the things that were -in your rooms. I had them carefully boxed and sent to your mother, who -was well when I left. Also your aunt and sister.” - -He took from his pocket the old dark key to the “parlor” door. She bent -and touched it. - -“Keep it, Richard,” she said, “until I send you another.” - - * * * * * - -“And Nagar----” he began at length. - -“He is here.” - -“And well? I could get so little word.” - -“Nagar has been hurt, but is healing. Look----” - -Dicky turned to find his friend standing behind them at the door. -He had felt a presence there, but thought it was the native who had -brought him. Nagar’s eyes looked very large in the wasted face. - -“Oh, yes, all is well with me,” he said. “I have been sorry to leave -you so much alone in the north.... Yes,” he added, “it was harder -for you than for me--the test that day on the tennis court. You were -brave, my friend. I knew all was well--when the instant passed and you -remained silent.” - -“How do you mean--all was well?” - -“I knew that the message of India would get to America--since you did -not spoil it by defending me.” - -Nagar turned to Miss Claes, adding: - -“I saw the fury and fright rise in his eyes, and all the impulses -of ethics of the West--then silence over all. It was as if we were -cemented----” - -Dicky remembered that last word afterward. - -As he moved about and talked, he was vaguely conscious of watching the -other two together. It was as if Pidge would want to hear of every -gesture and detail. Miss Claes was less Indian here than in Harrow -Street. There he had thought of her as belonging to the East; here she -seemed of the West. Something of the composure he had noted on the -tennis court had come to stay in Nagar’s eyes. As moments passed, Dicky -knew that they contained deep vitalities of meaning that would appear -in coming days. - -It was as if his limitations were being stretched, but by consummate -hands. There was repeatedly brought to him, from them, something that -he refused to hear or dwell with: that he had done well, that he was -deeply approved of in their sight; that there was much more to take -place between them as a group, even though they were to stay in Asia, -and he was leaving for The States.... Then all faces turned, and in the -doorway stood the Little Man. - -No one spoke, but to Richard Cobden it was one moment of his life -that he thought of as religious. Mahatma-ji came in between them, and -Dicky felt the old urge somehow to help with his hands; the sense, -too, of all India thronging, whispering around them. For a moment the -four had been standing in silence, when they heard the _sweep_ of bare -slow feet in the hall, and now an old dark face was in the doorway, a -smile serene as nothing else on earth but the Hills themselves--a dark -wrinkled old face, and she came forward and stood very low and little -in the midst of them--Gandhi’s comrade. - - * * * * * - -In San Francisco, waiting for the departure of his train east, a card -was sent up to Cobden’s hotel room. It was from Chris Heidt, the -managing editor of his former newspaper connection. - -“Hello, Cobden. Just noticed you were off ship. What did you bring -back?” - -Dicky reflected. “The story of Amritsar,” he said finally. - -“Amritsar, what’s that?” - -“The first big story I ever ran across. I feel like one of Job’s -servants, who said he alone remained to make a report.” - -Mr. Heidt had been much on trains during the past few days, and had -missed the fact, so far, that _The Public Square_ had begun to publish -the story. - -“Not going to bury it in a weekly, are you?” - -“I have much more than _The Public Square_ could use in months. It -really should get out into the broad market. The end of one world -and the birth of another took place that Sunday in Amritsar--all in -miniature, you understand----” - -He spoke of Gandhi, whose name had scarcely been heard at this time in -America, and touched upon the story of _maidan_. - -“Sure,” said Mr. Heidt. “Sure, it’s a big yarn, but months ago. No way -to substantiate it. You’re a little out of perspective, Cobden, seeing -it all first hand that way.” - -“I can substantiate it,” Dicky said queerly. - -“I know, but the whole story’s a trouble-maker. Far as I can make out, -this Gandhi is a sort of sanctimonious Lenine, and we’re not promoting -any kind of Lenines just now. Red roughhouses all over the world, but -we’re not advertising the fact. The best newspaper interests here -and in England are letting that sort of thing die down. Everybody’s -healthily intent on getting back to business right now. Make a corking -fiction setting--your Amritsar--series of short stories that would do -no harm.” - -Thus Richard had his American perspective restored. - - - - -LIII - -THE WHITE LIGHT AGAIN - - -DICKY was considerably subdued. India had permitted his ideas to -romp at large. He had forgotten that, home again, these ideas must -be brought down to an orderly trudge. America, as a whole, seemed -one-pointedly trying to get back to work after the War, calling all -protestors untimely and in bad taste. Dicky thought out the situation -minutely and severely during the three full travel days to Chicago. At -the end of each day he was somewhat exhausted from the big bonfires -that had taken place within him--piles of rubbish, glamour and the like. - -In Chicago he procured two numbers of _The Public Square_ preceding -the current issue, and before his eyes was the manner in which Pidge -had “sprung” the Amritsar story. He felt the magic of her working with -him in an altogether new way. The latest number confessed, not without -grace, that the story of Gandhi and Amritsar had aroused the more -open-minded element of the American public, as nothing else since the -War; but thanks to Chris Heidt, the returning correspondent watched the -rising tide of public interest in his work, as a spectator unexpectant, -instead of a performer who fancies he has the world by the tail. It -dawned on him, however, that Chris Heidt hadn’t known quite all that -was going on in America under the homely thunders of trade. - -He reached New York in the early evening and went to Fiftieth Street at -once. There he had dinner, and an hour of talk, before he rang up Mrs. -Melton at the _Sennacherib_. - -“Is this Mr. Cobden?” a voice asked presently. - -“Yes.” - -“Mrs. Melton left word for you to go to 54 Harrow Street--to the parlor -on the second floor, the card says.” - -Mr. Cobden didn’t take out his own car that night. Perhaps he didn’t -feel as if he could keep his mind on getting himself downtown. He sat -back in the cushions of his mother’s limousine; and Conrad, whose -career as Cobden coachman had changed to Cobden chauffeur nearly twenty -years ago, handled the big box like a hearse. - -“Sit tight, Dicky,” he breathed, and never once urged Conrad forward. -In fact, Dicky didn’t speak, until it became necessary to show the way -a little, for Harrow Street is tricky to find from Washington Square. - -“Don’t wait--yes, you’d better wait, Conrad,” he called, crossing the -walk to the door. - -The outer door was unlatched. He hurried up one flight. The same -curtain, the white light. - -“Pidge----” - -She came forth from the inner room. She halted a few feet from him, and -he saw her searching, imploring look. His shoulders straightened, his -hands dropped to his side. The finer elements of his understanding -sensed the great need of a woman, which his brain did not actually -register. To answer her need in action, however, was instantly more -dominant within him than his thirst for herself. - -She came a step nearer. Light was filling her eyes--the shining of an -almost incredible hope. - -“Oh, Dicky, you can! I believe you can!” - -“Yes?” - -She was nearer. - -“And I can come and rest--a little?” - -“Yes, Pidge----” - -“I want to rest so badly, you know.” - -She had come to him under the light. - -“... And, oh, since I knew you were coming, everything has been -different. I haven’t been _me_ at all! I’ve never played--and now -everything--all work--is silly, unimportant. Dicky, everything seems to -be done!” - -“I’m on the job, Pidge; you can play----” - -“Until I find myself--you--you will stand for two?” - -“Of course, Pidge.” - -“All my things, your things, Dicky--so I can rush away and breathe?” - -“That’s what I’m here for.” - -“Rufe Melton and my father and the desk--all yours?” - -“And the baby, too, Pidge.” - -“Dicky--Dicky--don’t dare to look! I’m going to cry!” - -“... Since your telegram from San Francisco--it seemed I could hardly -stay alive! Oh, it’s so good to rest!” - -“Not a hurry in the world!” - -“Everything seemed done--and no place for me!... Rufe and a rich girl -uptown--oh, they’re in full blossom and he wants to be free! My father -caught on in New York--no need now for me. _The Public Square_ on the -high road at last; your Amritsar story capturing the whole field; -nothing to do but to feed the presses more and more; Miss Claes gone, -and the Legacy--oh, Dicky, I saw your hand back of that! I couldn’t -miss it. It touched me--touched me----” - -“It was his idea first, Pidge. All I had to do was to help him carry it -out.” - -“All happened at once--all the strains lifted--no one depending--no -one needing me!... I’ve been dying to be a woman just once. I’ve never -dared--never had time. It’s so terrible to feel like a woman and not be -able----” - -“Why not now, Pidge?” - -“Don’t think, Dicky! I’m just resting a little. We must work together a -lot. We must clear our heads with stacks of work--and then maybe we’ll -know if we can play.... Fanny Gallup did that for me, and Rufe Melton -is as much a baby as his infant. Other girl, or not--Rufe will always -need--us!” - -“Pidge, listen! I couldn’t stand any more than that now. To have you -say that--_us_! To have the work with you--to have earned that--to have -your faith; that you dare come this close--to have years to make the -big moments we have known apart, come true together--I couldn’t stand -more, right now; that’s the fact of it--quite!” - -She stepped back from him looking strangely into his face again. - -“Dicky!” - -“Yes?” - -“The boy has come back to your face--that you lost in Africa--but the -new and lasting Boy!” - -He laughed and looked around the room. It was furnished, but barely, -the “parlor” having reverted to a sleeping room. - -“But how did it happen--that we should come here, Pidge?” - -“I couldn’t let you come to Gramercy Park. I remembered that you waited -to see me here after Africa, not at the office. I came down this -way--the afternoon of the Legacy and saw the sign, ‘Rooms, Permanent -and Transient.’... I’m better now. It’s been hours, hasn’t it?” - -He thought of Conrad, whom he had told to wait. - -“... This room’s all paid for,” she whispered. “I mean we don’t have to -stop to speak to anybody--only walk out.” - -Their eyes held. - -“Dicky!” - -“Yes----” - -“Let’s go--now.” - -“I’m--I’m ready.” - -“Dear Dicky, the years have done so much for you! The blur, the maze -has gone out from between us. It’s so much more wonderful, isn’t it, -than that other night here, when I almost, almost----?” - -He waited for her to reach the hall curtains, before he turned off the -light. In the dimness of the hall, he heard her low, slow tone: - -“Fanny’s room was back--at the far end on this floor----” - -“... I remember once, Pidge, I went up the next flight and knocked at -the door of your little back room----” - -“That’s gone now,” she answered. - -“Gone?” - -“My two books that were written there--and all the rest! I can tell you -everything now--and of the book that is still to be written--our story, -Dicky.” - -“A continued story,” he said. - -They went down into the street, into the car. - - -THE END - - - - - -NOVELS OF SUPREME LITERARY ART - - -=THE GLIMPSES OF THE MOON= - -By EDITH WHARTON - -“I can think of no American novel, written within the last few years, -and dealing with contemporary life, to compare with it. And not only -does Mrs. Wharton write better than anyone else, but she knows how to -unfold a more exciting tale.”--Katherine Fullerton Gerould in the _New -York Times_. - - -=THE MIRACLE= - -By E. TEMPLE THURSTON - -A keen, human story of the west coast of Ireland, with peculiar -fascination in the rich background of Irish folk lore. - - -=THE VAN ROON= - -By J. C. SNAITH - -An unusual and totally absorbing plot, delightfully told, and a -remarkable set of characters, unmatched since Dickens. - - -=THE MOUNTAIN SCHOOL TEACHER= - -By MELVILLE DAVISSON POST - -How would Christ act if He appeared in the world today? Through Mr. -Post’s story of the Kentucky mountains runs an impressive allegory. - - -=ABBÉ PIERRE= - -By JAY WILLIAM HUDSON - -This charming novel of life in quaint Gascony has proved that a novel -that is a work of true literary art may be a best seller of the widest -popularity. - - - D. APPLETON AND COMPANY - New York London - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - - Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - - Emboldened text is surrounded by equals signs: =bold=. - - Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. - - Archaic or variant spelling has been retained. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PUBLIC SQUARE *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. 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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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Public Square</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Will Levington Comfort</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: September 23, 2022 [eBook #69035]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: D A Alexander, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by the Library of Congress)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PUBLIC SQUARE ***</div> - -<div class="figcenter hide"><img src="images/coversmall.jpg" width="450" alt="" /></div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<h1>THE<br /> -<span class="bb">PUBLIC SQUARE</span></h1> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> - -<p><span class="xxlarge">THE<br /> -PUBLIC SQUARE</span></p> - -<p>BY<br /> -<span class="large">WILL LEVINGTON COMFORT</span><br /> - -AUTHOR OF “ROUTLEDGE RIDES ALONE,” ETC.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_logo.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<p><span class="large">D. APPLETON AND COMPANY</span><br /> -NEW YORK       ::       ::       MCMXXIII</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="center">COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY<br /> -WILL LEVINGTON COMFORT<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="center">TO<br /> -<span class="large">DOROTHY MOSHER</span></p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS</h2> -</div> - -<table> - -<tr><td class="tdr"><small>CHAPTER    </small></td><td class="tdr" colspan="2"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">I.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">54 Harrow Street</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_1"> 1</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">II.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">The Colored Man</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_10"> 10</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">III.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">A Fish Omelet</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_17"> 17</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">IV.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">Lambill Knocks</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_23"> 23</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">V.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">Luncheon at Sharpe’s</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_31"> 31</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">VI.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">Enter, Fanny Gallup</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_36"> 36</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">VII.  </td><td> “<span class="smcap">The Freedom of Ignorance</span>”</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_47"> 47</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">VIII.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">Somebody’s Shoulder</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_52"> 52</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">IX.  </td><td> “<span class="smcap">You Both Have Keys</span>”</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_61"> 61</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">X.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">April Breathes Again</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_69"> 69</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XI.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">The Baby Carriage</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_75"> 75</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XII.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">Under the Same Lamp</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_81"> 81</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XIII.  </td><td> “<span class="smcap">Mother</span>”</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_87"> 87</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XIV.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">Isolation</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_93"> 93</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XV.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">The Cobden Interior</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_99"> 99</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XVI.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">Dicky Feels a Slump</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_109"> 109</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XVII.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">New Lodgers for Harrow Street</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_113"> 113</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XVIII.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">An Outer Change</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_118"> 118</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XIX.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">Fanny Dries Her Tears</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_120"> 120</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XX.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">They Walk in Circles</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_124"> 124</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXI.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">The Dinner Coat</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_129"> 129</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXII.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">A Letter from Pidge</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_136"> 136</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXIII.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">The Red Room</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_143"> 143</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXIV.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">Miss Claes Speaks</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_149"> 149</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXV.  </td><td> “<span class="smcap">Be It Ever So Humble</span>”</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_154"> 154</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXVI.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">The Hanging Sock</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_161"> 161</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXVII.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">The Mahatma and the Miracle</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_167"> 167</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXVIII.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">The Rack of Sex</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_175"> 175</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXIX.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">Rufus’ Play Day</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_180"> 180</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXX.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">The Head of the House</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_190"> 190</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXXI.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">Two Letters from India</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_194"> 194</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXXII.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">France, 1918. The Yank</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_197"> 197</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXXIII.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">Paris, 1918—Haddon and Ames</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_202"> 202</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXXIV.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">The House of Ducier</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_207"> 207</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXXV.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">Fanny Hears the Drum</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_214"> 214</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXXVI.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">Rufe Hurries Home</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_218"> 218</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXXVII.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">John Higgins’ Code</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_219"> 219</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXXVIII.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">An Office of the World</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_225"> 225</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XXXIX.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">Seven Flawless Days</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_229"> 229</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XL.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">The Yank Developed</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_239"> 239</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XLI.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">Under the Mangoes of Cawnpore</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_246"> 246</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XLII.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">Lala Relu Ram</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_249"> 249</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XLIII.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">Hathis Laments</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_257"> 257</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XLIV.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">The Slate and the Sponge</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_263"> 263</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XLV.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">Amritsar, April 13, 1919</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_268"> 268</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XLVI.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">The Hooked Man</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_277"> 277</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XLVII.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">In the Warm Dark</span> </td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_281"> 281</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XLVIII.  </td><td> “<span class="smcap">India’s Messenger</span>”</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_288"> 288</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">XLIX.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">Pidge Tries Gramercy Park</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_292"> 292</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">L.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">Dicky’s Idea Works</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_298"> 298</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">LI.  </td><td> “<span class="smcap">We Look Upon Women as Sacred</span>”      </td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_302"> 302</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">LII.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">The Old Face</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_309"> 309</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">LIII.  </td><td> <span class="smcap">The White Light Again</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_315"> 315</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[1]</span> - -<p class="ph2">THE PUBLIC SQUARE</p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">I<br /> - -<small>54 HARROW STREET</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">A  GIRL of nineteen had just arrived in New -York, with one fat bag. She turned into the -curving silence of Harrow Street, which is -only three minutes’ walk from Washington Square, -but some trick to find. Several times she changed -her bag from one hand to the other, sometimes putting -it down and stepping around it, until she came to a -door with a room-to-rent sign. This house was painted -fresh green, the only thing that distinguished it from -all the other houses of the block, except the number, -which was Fifty-four.</p> - -<p>“Here goes me!” she said, starting up the stone -steps.</p> - -<p>She rang. The door before her didn’t open, but -the basement door below did. A woman’s voice called, -“Yes?” in rising inflection.</p> - -<p>The girl trailed her bag down to the walk and around -the railing to the lower entrance where a dark-faced -woman stood, regarding her with almost concerned<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[2]</span> -attention—dark eyes that saw too much, the girl decided. -The face was un-American, but its foreign -suggestion was vague. It might even have been East -Indian. If her skin was natively white, it had certainly -known the darkening of much sunlight. As the girl -drew near she sensed a curious freshness from the -woman; something hard to name, having to do with -the garments as well as the shadowy olive skin.</p> - -<p>“I want to rent a room—a small back room. I saw -your sign on the door.”</p> - -<p>“I have a room, but it hasn’t much air,” the woman -said.</p> - -<p>“I don’t need much air——”</p> - -<p>“Come and we’ll look. It is on the upper floor, -but it is not quite back. Leave your bag here in the -hall.”</p> - -<p>It was eleven in the morning, but the smell of coffee -was in the dark basement corridor, and laughing voices -were heard behind the shut door to the right. A man’s -voice said in a stimulated tone:</p> - -<p>“Believe me, and I’ve been around, Miss Claes is -the deepest-dyed sport I’ve ever met. You could drag -her the length of Harrow Street and she’d come up -fresh from the laundry——”</p> - -<p>“That reminds me, I’m going to start a laundry,” -a woman’s voice announced.</p> - -<p>“I’m going to start something myself——” came -another voice.</p> - -<p>The girl, following through the corridor, heard a -little breathless sort of chuckle from the woman ahead<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span> -of her on the dark stairs. The place smelled like a -shut room when it rains—a cigaretty admixture.</p> - -<p>They climbed. The next hall was spooky with gaslight; -the next was gay with frying sausages. They -climbed. The next was the one, and it smelled of -paint—the same green paint as on the outside of the -house—on one of the doors and doorframes, but the -wood was plainly charred under the paint.</p> - -<p>“We had a fire, but we put it out with wash water -before the engines got here, soapy water.”</p> - -<p>The girl had a picture of threshing soap about in -pails of water before applying it to the flames.</p> - -<p>“This is the one,” the woman said, unlocking the -next to last room from the back on the left. “All the -rest are filled just now. Most of my lodgers never -leave, only as they strike it rich——”</p> - -<p>“Do they often strike it rich?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, dear. New York is quite the most magic -place in America—something for every one who comes, -if he only stays on.”</p> - -<p>They had crowded into the little room.</p> - -<p>“This is fine,” the girl said. “This is what I want. -It’s just as I saw it.”</p> - -<p>“You get your water in the hall below,” the woman -explained. “There is no gas plate, so you will have -to bring your coffeepot down to my stove in the basement. -The walls are ugly, but I’ll see that the cot is -clean for you. If the wall of the next house across -the area were only painted white, you would get more -light.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span>The wall spoken of was less than three feet from -the window sill.</p> - -<p>“What is the price?” the girl asked, with a cough -before and after.</p> - -<p>“Twelve dollars a month.”</p> - -<p>“I will pay for a month now,” she said, with a small -part of a big out-breath.</p> - -<p>“When did you come to New York?” the woman -asked.</p> - -<p>“This morning.”</p> - -<p>“First time?”</p> - -<p>“Yes. From Los Angeles.”</p> - -<p>“And you have had four nights on the train?”</p> - -<p>“Six. It was a slow tourist train. I sat up from -Chicago——”</p> - -<p>“Have you lived in Los Angeles long?”</p> - -<p>“Always—in and around.”</p> - -<p>“We don’t dare to think of Los Angeles much. To -a lot of us here in New York, it’s a kind of heaven. -Southern California—the sea and the mountains and -the ten months of sunlight and the cool morning fogs -and the ripe figs——”</p> - -<p>“I’ve wanted New York like that,” the girl said. -“I’ve wanted New York so badly that I was afraid -on the train that it wouldn’t stay until I got here——”</p> - -<p>“That’s the way to come,” the landlady said. “New -York would wait for you. Oh, yes, New York waits -for your kind. What are you going to do here?”</p> - -<p>“Write.”</p> - -<p>“Really?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span>The woman sat down on the edge of the cot. Her -interest did not seem an affectation. Her figure was -thin but lithe. One wouldn’t know in these shadows -if she were nearer twenty-five or thirty-five. She -seemed altogether without haste, smiling easily, but -slow to laugh aloud. Her eyes looked startlingly -knowing as she lit a cigarette—not natural somehow. -At the same time in the matchlight her face had looked -tired and weathered. Her way of speaking was like -an English person, or one educated in England.</p> - -<p>“Do you mean stories?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“Yes, a book, a long story—set in eighteenth-century -France.”</p> - -<p>“But you seem so young.”</p> - -<p>“I have written for a long time—always written.”</p> - -<p>“How old are you, please?”</p> - -<p>“Nineteen—but I have lived in a writing house -always.”</p> - -<p>“Where is your house? I have been to Los Angeles.”</p> - -<p>“Back in a canyon near Santa Monica and my father -is there now—in his slippers. He teaches every one -how to write——” There was something baleful in -the girl’s blue eyes, or perhaps it was exhaustion, as -she smiled.</p> - -<p>“Does he write stories?”</p> - -<p>“No, metaphysics, but he knows everything——”</p> - -<p>“What is your name?”</p> - -<p>“Musser—Pidge Musser. Not Pidge, really. Pandora<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span> -is my name, but every one calls me Pidge. My -father started it.”</p> - -<p>“Is his name Adolph Musser?”</p> - -<p>In the dimness, the girl’s face looked like a blur of -white; a little stretched, too, it appeared just now.</p> - -<p>“Yes, that’s his name,” she said in a hopeless tone. -“So you know him, too?”</p> - -<p>“I heard him lecture once.”</p> - -<p>“I suppose you ‘fell for’ him? They all do.”</p> - -<p>The woman’s black eyes twinkled. “The lecture was -on cosmic consciousness,” she said. “I remember distinctly -that Mr. Musser outlined four paths of approach.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, the mystical, the occult, the mathematical, and -the artistic. Did he talk in bare feet?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, and an Eastern robe.”</p> - -<p>“That was a camel driver’s robe,” said the girl. -“Oh, I didn’t think I’d hear of him here.”</p> - -<p>“You won’t. May I call you Pidge?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, what you like. My father names everything.”</p> - -<p>“It sounds better than Pandora—at least, to me.... -I must go down now. A little breakfast party is waiting -there. Take off your things. I’ll come back soon. -I am Miss Claes and I want to come back already.”</p> - -<p>Pidge Musser sat almost in the center of her room, -but not quite. At least, she sat in the center of the -stiff little cot. She could touch two of the walls. The -third was across the narrow aisle from the cot. The -fourth was the windowed one, which looked as if it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span> -were about to be bricked up entirely. That was quite -a distance.</p> - -<p>Her room. She was alone. She looked at the door, -arose, brought in the key and turned it from the inside. -Alone, and this was New York. She could live a month -anyway, and write and write on <i>The Lance of the -Rivernais</i>. She could be herself and not be told how -to live and love and write and bathe and breathe, and -change her polarity and promote her spirit and govern -her temper and appetites, by a man who was governed -by anything but himself.</p> - -<p>New York. She had hardly dared to look at it on -the way from the train to Washington Square, where -the street car had put her down. She had come to -Washington Square because one of the boys who -studied with her father had said it was the best place -to live in all the big town—the cheapest and friendliest -and quietest.... It appeared all true, but Miss -Claes wasn’t like a rooming-house landlady; quite -different, in fact, and astonishing.</p> - -<p>“I could hear her talk about New York, forever,” -Pidge said half aloud, and this was a remark of considerable -force from one who had known the maiming -of many words.</p> - -<p>Presently she would go out and look at New York -again; walk about a bit, keeping a mental string tied -to this green house. Besides she had to rent a typewriter, -but there was no rush. It was delicious sitting -here alone in the gloom of midday, making the place -her own, locked in—a chance at last to take a look at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span> -herself and see what she was made of and think of -what she was here for.</p> - -<p>There was a mirror. It wasn’t cracked, according -to tradition, but its surface had frozen over in a high -wind. Everything waved, eternally waved. It gave -the sense of air in the room, and made one look mended. -Pidge hoped she would never shed tears in that mirror. -Once she had caught herself weeping, and she looked -so abysmal that she was almost frightened out of the -habit. With these waves added—— Pidge took off -her hat and flipped it over on the cot. Her head didn’t -look natural, but that wasn’t all the mirror’s fault. One -of the things she had wanted to do for months was to -make her hair a shade redder than it was. Of course, -she hadn’t dared at home, and she couldn’t manage it -on the train, but there had been six hours to wait in -Chicago and a small hotel room that frightened her yet. -She had emerged from that room a different shade, so -Chicago meant henna and rain and a frightful hotel. -It would always be so. She had been against landing -in New York one color and then changing. She had -wanted to start life new in New York and keep it -straight, an absolutely new page, a new book.</p> - -<p>Her reddened hair waved. It made her face look -whiter, and brought out a red tint to her wool dress that -had been brown as apple-butter before.</p> - -<p>Everything about her was tired. If she took off her -new shoes she was afraid she would never get them on -again to-day, and she had to think of renting that -typewriter. A little later, she sat up straight, because<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span> -through the wall from the next room back came the -buzz of a machine. She listened with a thrill. It -stopped and went on—unequal stops and buzzes of -rapid typing for several minutes; then a long sustained -buzz, until a sheet was changed. No commercial typewriting. -That was “creative” stuff, as her father would -say—a word she had vowed never to use. At least, -some one in there was doing a letter.</p> - -<p>All this was before noon on an October day in the -good year of 1913, before anything ever happened to -anybody.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">II<br /> - -<small>THE COLORED MAN</small></h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Once there was an old sculptor who had apprentices. -Townsfolk were invited on a certain day to look at the -work of the young men. One of the apprentices was -greatly worried by the faulty light of the shop in -which his exhibit was placed. He complained about -it to his master, who is said to have answered in these -terms: “Never mind, son, about the light here. It is -the light of the public square that tells the story.”</p> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap3">RICHARD COBDEN was twenty-one in 1910, -and fresh from his university, when he took -his first job as reader in the editorial office of -<i>The Public Square</i>, a weekly magazine of opinion and -protest and qualified patriotism. This was the publication -of old John Higgins, at one time one of the -highest-priced editorial writers in New York; but -Higgins’ views had become more and more strenuous, -instead of mollifying with the years, the end of which -is to publish for one’s self or subside. Even in <i>The -Public Square</i> he found himself under a pull. He -wanted a living out of his magazine, but did not expect -to make money. He occasionally drank himself ill for -a day or two. One of his aspirations was to publish a -distinguished short story in each issue, the shorter the -better.</p> - -<p>“But there aren’t fifty a year,” he frequently said.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span> -“There aren’t ten, but we get two or three of them.”</p> - -<p>Richard Cobden came of a well-established New -York family of merchants and manufacturers. There -was no traceable connection, so far as the family knew, -with the English Cobdens, of whom there had been -a brave Richard of free trade and free speech. Dicky’s -great-grandfather was the Richard Cobden who first -made the Cobden trowel, hand-forged in a little shop -up Yonkers way, and made it so well that stone -masons used to drive from far in back country to his -shop. The Cobdens had made and dealt in hardware -ever since, but the trowel was the Cobden <i>cachet</i>.</p> - -<p>Dicky was now twenty-four. His eyes were strong -and so were his enthusiasms. These strengths stood -him in good stead against the vast masses of evil typing -and the revelations of human frailty contained in a -myriad manuscript attempts. There was a mere screen -between his desk and the desk of John Higgins. One -winter afternoon, Dicky was interrupted by talk between -the chief and the office boy:</p> - -<p>“That colored guy in the reception room won’t go -’way,” the boy said.</p> - -<p>“What guy is that?” Higgins asked.</p> - -<p>“The one I told you about two hours ago when you -came back from lunch.”</p> - -<p>“What does he want?”</p> - -<p>“He’s got a story. He says he’ll wait for you.”</p> - -<p>“What’s his name?”</p> - -<p>“It ain’t a natcherl name. He says the name doesn’t -matter—that you don’t know him, anyway.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span>“Tell him to leave his manuscript.”</p> - -<p>“He won’t. Every little while he pulls up his sock.”</p> - -<p>“Let him sit a bit longer. It’s a regular park bench -out there, anyway——”</p> - -<p>It was the dragging sock that attracted Dicky Cobden—a -bit of mindless art on the part of the office -boy that somehow aroused the young man by the -dreary manuscript pile. Dicky’s world was now full -of people who thought they had the story of the age; -people who wanted to see the publisher himself; people -afraid to trust their manuscripts to the mails; a world -of such, coming up through great tribulation, but only -here and there a dragging sock. He took a chance now -and volunteered to Higgins to clear that bit of seat -space in the reception room, if possible.</p> - -<p>A dark-faced young man arose to meet him outside. -Tired—that was the word that bored into Cobden’s -mind with new meaning. There was something potent -in the weariness of the black eyes, a deadly sort of -patience that rarely goes with brilliance. Dicky was -slightly above medium height. The other’s eyes were -level with his own. The hanging sock was not in evidence, -but Dicky felt that the stranger didn’t dare to -move fast, for fear his clothes would break.</p> - -<p>“Yet he feels clean,” he thought, “yet he feels clean.” -This was important enough to repeat.</p> - -<p>“I have a story——”</p> - -<p>“Your name?”</p> - -<p>“It is Naidu—but not known.”</p> - -<p>“Are you from India?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Why not let us have your story to read?”</p> - -<p>“It must be read now.”</p> - -<p>“This sort of thing isn’t done while one waits, you -know.”</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid this one will have to be done so.”</p> - -<p>“Why, even if it’s promising,” Dicky declared severely, -“it would have to be read several times.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll wait.”</p> - -<p>“But we have hundreds——”</p> - -<p>“I know—may I not see the chief editor?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Naidu turned slowly back to the bench, as if -to resume his seat.</p> - -<p>“You win,” Dicky slowly said. “I’ll take the story -and read it now, though I’m only a deck hand. If it -looks good enough, I’ll try to get Mr. Higgins to -look——”</p> - -<p>Five minutes after that, Dicky was deep in South -Africa. Six thousand words in neat but faded typing, -called <i>The Little Man</i>, about a diminutive Hindu person -who appeared to have no other business in life but to -stand up for the under dog. This person would fight -anything, but the British Government was about the size -of a foe he liked best—a cheerful story of most shocking -suffering, which the Little Man took upon himself -for the natives of Natal—no, not the natives, but for -the Hindu laborers who had come to Africa to settle. -A clear, burning patience through the pages; everything -was carried in solution—all one breath, sustained. It<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span> -wasn’t writing. It was living. It slid on with a soft -inevitable rhythm, and it took Dicky along.</p> - -<p>More than this, he saw in the story—or in the great -stillness which the story brought him—something of -the sort of thing he meant to write some day. Nothing -exactly like this, of course, but the achievement of this -unfettered ease. It made him want to start out at once -to find the Little Man. It made him hear from Africa -something like a personal call. He let himself dream -for a moment. Wouldn’t it be great, his mind-made -picture ran, when he had done a real story of his own—wouldn’t -it be great to deliver it like this (or perhaps -sockless) and make it sell itself? Halfway through, -he arose and dumped the sheets he had read before -Higgins’ spectacles, saying with slow-measured calm:</p> - -<p>“She breathes. She’s a leaping trout!”</p> - -<p>“Get out,” said Higgins softly.</p> - -<p>“That’s only half,” said Cobden.</p> - -<p>“Where’s the rest?”</p> - -<p>“I’ve got it in there—not read yet.”</p> - -<p>“And you bring this to me?”</p> - -<p>“He’s waiting. This story will finish itself. I know -it will march straight.”</p> - -<p>While he read the second half, Dicky heard Higgins -thresh and mutter, and finally call for the rest—old -sore-eyed Higgins, who knew a story when he saw one, -who had read his eyes out on poor stories looking for -the Story of the Age....</p> - -<p>Dicky went back to the reception room.</p> - -<p>“I’ve read it. Mr. Higgins is reading it now. I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span> -think he’ll want it, Mr. Naidu. If you leave your -address, we’ll mail you an offer to-morrow——”</p> - -<p>“I will take two hundred dollars for the story, but -I must have the money to-day.”</p> - -<p>Dicky laughed quietly. “I’m afraid the countingroom -won’t appreciate that. Countingroom’s not -adaptable. It’s intricate, in fact; checks signed and -countersigned.... Besides your price is severe for -us—unknown name and all that. Oh, it’s not too -much, only for us, you know.”</p> - -<p>All the time he talked, Dicky knew Mr. Naidu would -get his money, and get it to-day. A man with a story -like this could get anything. He could write it on -wood chips and bring the manuscript in a gunny -sack....</p> - -<p>“I’ll give him my personal check,” he told Higgins, -a moment later. “The office can reimburse me.”</p> - -<p>“I always forget you have a piece of change in -your own name,” Higgins remarked indulgently. -“Don’t ever let it interfere with your work, Dicky.”</p> - -<p>“My work to-day is to get that manuscript in our -vault. Later,” he added to himself, “my work is to -write a story as good as that.”</p> - -<p>“He might take less than two hundred——” John -Higgins suggested in uncertain tone.</p> - -<p>“I can’t bring that up—again,” Dicky said.</p> - -<p>“I couldn’t either,” said the editor. “Maybe we -are both crazy with the heat—steam heat. But I’ll -stand by and see that you get your money. You’ll<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span> -have to go out with him to get cash on your personal -check.”</p> - -<p>Dicky and Mr. Naidu were in the street. It was -too late for the bank, but the son of the trowel makers -found a friend of the family with currency. A rainy -dusk in Twenty-third Street near the Avenue, when -he took Mr. Naidu’s hand, having turned over the -money.</p> - -<p>“I have your address, I may hunt you up. You won’t -forget <i>The Public Square</i>, when you have another story -as good as this?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no,” said the Hindu, “nor you, Mr. Cobden. -Good-by.”</p> - -<p>Dicky turned to look after him. He reflected that -he hadn’t even learned if Mr. Naidu were hungry. He -wished he had given him his umbrella. He felt a -curious desire to follow; a sense vague, as yet, that his -way, the way of his Big Story, lay after the Oriental, -and not back toward the office.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">III<br /> - -<small>A FISH OMELET</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">SNOW had drifted into the outer basement -stairway of the green house, and there was a -thin frosty bar inside the door of the basement -hall. Miss Claes opened the door and looked out -through the iron railings to the street. Snow was six -inches deep and still falling. She took a deep breath -appreciatively, as if she found some faint exquisite -scent in the cold air. Presently she began sweeping at -the doorway, and continued up the stone steps to the -walk. Her arms and throat were bare, and the dark -gray dress that she wore was of wool but the fabric -very thin. Apparently Miss Claes chose to enjoy the -chill of the winter morning. When she returned to -her living room, the fire in the grate had been started -and a small cup of black coffee was on the table. She -sipped thoughtfully and then lit a cigarette, which she -half finished, standing by the fireplace.</p> - -<p>The kindling had ignited the soft coal, but not without -having shot out a spray of cinders over the cement -hearth. Miss Claes swept the hearth unhurriedly. A -cabinet of dishes across the room from the fireplace -was full of color now from the light of the coals—vivid -greens and bronzes, pomegranate reds. At<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span> -length, she opened the door to the kitchen, where an -Oriental stood by the big range.</p> - -<p>“May I serve your breakfast?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Put it on a tray with something for Pidge. I’ll -take it upstairs and perhaps she’ll join me. The child -starves.”</p> - -<p>“Not in this house——”</p> - -<p>“She’s troublesome to do anything for, Nagar. She -rebels against accepting any favor. I think she must -have been forced to accept many favors from people -outside, when she lived with her father. Was there a -bit of boiled halibut left from last night?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“We’ll make a little omelet with a few flakes of fish -in it. I’m sure she isn’t getting any money from her -father, but she has kept up her rent in advance. Did -she work all night?”</p> - -<p>“Her room was quiet after two, until I came down. -Then I heard her typewriter as I swept the upper -hall.”</p> - -<p>“It seems to be a race, Nagar, between the child and -her book—which will finish the other? I love her spirit, -but she isn’t taking care of herself.... Yes, we’ll -put in these asparagus tips.... I think Mr. Musser -believes that the world owes him a living, but finds it -hard to collect, sometimes, with only metaphysics to -offer. And now Pidge has flung herself to the opposite -extreme; talks of earning her living in a factory, when -her book is done. She’s a living protest against talking -and not doing. We must be very good to her, Nagar.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span>Miss Claes brought a little creamy porcelain urn, -and held it for him to fill with coffee from the larger -pot. Nagar held the door open for her into the basement -hall. A moment later on the top floor, she tapped -at the second last door on the left. Pidge sat at her -machine under the gaslight beyond the head of the cot.</p> - -<p>“I can’t make their swords play!” she moaned. “All -my swords are stiff as shinny sticks. The trouble is, -I don’t know men, Miss Claes—not red animal men -like they should be in this story. I know pussy men. -I know pious men, salvey and wormy men, monks and -mummies and monsters, but I don’t know honest-to-God -<i>men</i>! Here they are taunting each other as they -stab, and their talk sounds—like Shakespeare! Oh, -dear, you’ve brought me more coffee and eats!”</p> - -<p>“I won’t touch your papers, Pidge, but if you take -them off the cot, I’ll put the tray between us. I haven’t -had breakfast.”</p> - -<p>Pidge turned the roller of her typemill down so that -the most recent literary revelation might not appear to -a roving eye. Then she crisscrossed different packages -of manuscript, placed the mass face down before the -waving glass, and moved the oil stove aside so she could -pass to her place on the cot.</p> - -<p>“You always forget to bring your coffeepot down -to the range, Pidge——”</p> - -<p>The girl turned back to her typemachine. “He’s -a jealous old devil when I leave the room,” she said. -“I think the person who rented him before I did addressed -envelopes all day—kept cranking him back and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span> -forth against time. Now I ride a little ways—then let -him stop and browse. We ramble——”</p> - -<p>Pidge stopped. Her eyes looked dry and smarting, -as if tears were on the verge.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Miss Claes,” she went on, “I’m just as crazy -as that—I mean my figures of speech! Cranking him -back and forth, and in the same breath letting him -stop and browse. I wish you wouldn’t bring me this -stuff any more. The coffee’s so good that it hurts—and -the eggs. I always cry when I’m hurt.”</p> - -<p>“But, Pidge, think what a privilege it is for me to -climb from the heart of New York to eighteenth-century -France, and not leave the house——”</p> - -<p>“But you find a twisted cubist sort of France—part -Dumas, part Mexican Plaza, Los Angeles, and the -rest <i>me</i>!”</p> - -<p>“At least, you’re not carried away with the idea -that it’s perfect.”</p> - -<p>Pidge regarded the other’s face closely. She could -see with uncanny clearness in this little dark room -where she had struggled night and day for nearly three -months; but what she saw now, or was looking for, -she hardly knew herself. Her own face was spooky -from sleepless strain.</p> - -<p>“I’m eating shamelessly,” she said.</p> - -<p>A moment later, she pointed to the rear wall, and -whispered the question:</p> - -<p>“Has Nagar stopped writing? I haven’t raced typewriters -with him lately.”</p> - -<p>“He hasn’t spoken of changing his work. Did you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span> -hear that New York has touched him with her magic?” -Miss Claes asked.</p> - -<p>“What do you mean?”</p> - -<p>“He has sold a story—a short story for two hundred -dollars to <i>The Public Square</i>.”</p> - -<p>“Nagar—your servant?”</p> - -<p>“He isn’t my servant, Pidge. He just lives here and -works with me.”</p> - -<p>There was a clicking dryness to the girl’s tongue, as -she asked:</p> - -<p>“And now is he going away? You said they always -do when they strike it rich.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no. Nagar wouldn’t leave for a little story -success. But nobody quite knows Nagar—nobody.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Pidge was alone. <i>The Lance of the Rivernais</i> was -pricking at her to get back to work, but she resisted -for a few minutes, thinking of Miss Claes.</p> - -<p>“... She may be crazy, but she’s good to look -at,” she muttered. “I believe she can look into me, -too.... I wonder what she is?... She may be -crazy, but she’s kind! And, oh, I’m so tired,” she -yawned a moment later. “I’d like—I’d like to be a -leaf in the park under the snow—still snowing, and -sleep till spring. Only I’d like some roast turkey first.”</p> - -<p>The recent breakfast had an extraordinary flavor, -but it was all too dainty for one who had eaten little -or nothing since yesterday morning. Her mind trailed -off to buns she had seen in bakery windows; and -delicatessen stores with opened sausages, big as one’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span> -head and colored like tapestries, and little brown birds -and deviled eggs, and sliced filets of fish of amazing -tint.</p> - -<p>All meats had been anathema in the house of Mr. -Adolph Musser. Pidge had lived in no other house -in all her years, before coming to New York, but since -then, she had shocked her young self through various -experiments among the fleshpots of Greenwich. Not -so various, for the narrowness of her purse was ever -a limp fact, but these few flavory adventures were -exciting and memorable. There was a tap of a finger -nail upon the panel.</p> - -<p>“A letter, Miss Musser,” Nagar said.</p> - -<p>She looked at the Hindu with different eyes from -ever before. He had sold a story. She wanted to -speak of it, wanted to sit before him and listen—this -anomaly, whose typewriter she had sometimes heard -through the partition, and rarely a low deep hum. She -was prejudiced against Hindus, because her father had -affected such a knowledge of them, but somehow she -had been less lonely in New York because of this one. -He was embodied Detachment and Impersonality.... -He had turned away.</p> - -<p>“Thanks, Nagar,” she called.</p> - -<p>The letter was a typewriter bill.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">IV<br /> - -<small>LAMBILL KNOCKS</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">INSIDE the moonlit castle gardens, across the -moat into the pictured halls, up the marble staircase, -driving straight and true, Lambill Courtenay, -a man of the people—artist, swordsman, lover virgin-hearted, -rode—no, ran, for once on his sprightly feet, -straight to a sequestered wing of the ancient and noble -castle of the Rivernais, and with his ungloved hand -touched the knocker of its inner sanctuary.</p> - -<p>“Who is there?” came the cry like the thin note of -violins.</p> - -<p>“I——” swelled the deep orchestral answer of Lambill -Courtenay, Frenchiest of the French.</p> - -<p>Then the great oaken door from the forests of Savoie -opened. Lambill crossed the threshold. The white -arms of Madelaine Rivernais opened and the heavens -opened also—for the great maze of life had been -untangled for these two—and Pidge Musser’s book -was done.</p> - -<p>Just a book—one of the myriads that you see lying -around, like sloughed snake skins on first or secondhand -bookshelves—but it had been properly wept on and -starved for and toiled over, as only youth in its abandonment -can toil for its own ends. It had almost been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span> -prayed for, but not quite. Prayer wasn’t easy for -Pidge Musser’s defiant soul.</p> - -<p>It was two in the morning. The oil stove smelled -as if it were dying. Of late the wick had hiked up -out of the oil a little earlier each night like a waxing -moon, and Pidge had been forced to shake the oil -around to keep the flame. Miss Claes and Nagar did -so much for her, she was ashamed; and you could get -a red apple for the price of a wick.</p> - -<p>Pidge coughed. It was the most astonishing and -cavernous bark. The silence afterward was painful. -She fancied she was keeping <i>him</i> awake—the silent, -dark and courteous Nagar, who did prodigies of work -every day and was always willing to do more, and who -had come into Pidge’s direct limelight since his sale -of a story to <i>The Public Square</i>. Pidge hadn’t known -a cold for years. It actually amazed her, how unclean -it made her feel, and ashamed to have anybody come -near.</p> - -<p>“I’m going to watch over you very closely, Pidge—you’ll -have to let me, now that the book is done,” -Miss Claes said in the morning, “because it’s really a -shock to stop work after the way you have carried -on. The drive—suddenly stopping, you know.”</p> - -<p>“I wonder how she knows?” Pidge thought to herself -for the thousandth time in regard to the subtle -capacities of Miss Claes.</p> - -<p>“I’m tough,” she said aloud.</p> - -<p>“That is a true saying, Pidge. On that, everything -hinges. Am I to hear the story?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span>“It would—it must be read aloud. It’s terrible to -ask, but will you?”</p> - -<p>“I’ve wanted to hear it from the beginning. Now -tell me, would you like Nagar to listen, too?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no!”</p> - -<p>“Just as you like. Only you’re offering it to the -world later——”</p> - -<p>“But Nagar <i>knows</i>.”</p> - -<p>“That’s what you want, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, but——”</p> - -<p>“He won’t say a word. Nagar rarely talks, except -to answer questions. But, of course, don’t think of -it, if you’d rather not.”</p> - -<p>“What is Nagar?” Pidge asked suddenly.</p> - -<p>“Just a watcher and listener in America, learning -to see things impersonally.”</p> - -<p>Pidge contemplated the idea for a few seconds; -then her eyes hardened. “I’ve heard lots of talk about -the impersonal—oh, talk to the skies about the impersonal -life in Los Angeles—by people who haven’t yet -got a personality!”</p> - -<p>Miss Claes bent in low laughter.</p> - -<p>“They start in killing out personality before they -get a live one,” Pidge added sullenly.</p> - -<p>“They do, my dear, but have you heard any words -about the impersonal life from Nagar?”</p> - -<p>“No. That’s the best thing about him—that he -doesn’t explain himself. But I hate mysteries about -Hindus—hate people moving about saying, ‘Shh-sh’—finger -on their lips, trying to astonish you with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span> -something they can’t tell. I’m so tired of all that!”</p> - -<p>“Still you asked me about Nagar, though really there -is nothing to say, except that he is good to have in the -house.”</p> - -<p>“I think I’ll let him come and hear the reading, if -he’s willing.”</p> - -<p>“Good,” said Miss Claes. “We will listen in this -room, where the story came to be.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>... Nagar sat in a straight chair, in the aisle -between the cot and the wall. Pidge sat by the window -before her machine. Miss Claes lay on the cot with -her head under the light that Pidge read by, and away -they went. There was an hour or more in the early -afternoon when both Miss Claes and her helper could -escape from below, and two hours, at least, after nine -in the evening—this for three days.</p> - -<p>Pidge was fagged and ill and frightfully scared. -She would begin hoarsely, and for pages in each reading -her cold in the head was an obstruction hard to -pass; besides, she felt she was boring them horribly -and that all the massed effects of her pages dithered -away into nothing or worse. But a moment came in -each of the six sessions, when the last monster of the -mind’s outer darkness was passed. And then, for -Pidge, at least, knighthood rose resplendent; days became -stately, indeed, and chivalry bloomed again. At -such times the dark gleaming hair of Miss Claes—which -Pidge could have touched with her hand, became -the tresses of Madelaine Rivernais herself, and a little<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span> -back to the right in the deep shadows, the face of the -Easterner there took on the magic and glamour of -Lambill’s own. The vineyards of old France stretched -beyond from their balcony; the rivers of France flowed -below. The lance of the Rivernais was won back -heroically and human hearts opened to the drama of -love and life.</p> - -<p>But on the last night of the reading, after the self-consciousness -was passed and all was going well, Pidge, -glancing down to Miss Claes’ head under the light, saw -gray for the first time, in the depths of her hair. It -hadn’t been combed with any purpose of hiding. The -outer strands were coal black, the strands beneath had -turned. This discovery had the peculiar effect of -changing everything around in Pidge’s mind in the -moments that followed.</p> - -<p>She couldn’t get into the story as before; and in the -very last pages of her reading, a face persistently -crowded in between her mind’s eye and the rapid flow -of the story at its end—a long, humorless complacent -face—the high-browed, self-willed and self-thrilled face -of her father. It was as if he were reading and not -herself; reading with rising expectation, drinking in -the silent praise, as if he had done the writing himself -and loved it well. So effectually was Pidge mastered -by this apparition of her own mind, that the last pages -of the manuscript were spoiled entirely. The light had -gone out of her and she said hastily, as the final page -was turned down:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span>“I know how kind you are, but please don’t try to -tell me anything to-night. Not a word, please!”</p> - -<p>There was something in Nagar’s smile as he turned -and went out that she knew she would remember again.</p> - -<p>“I quite understand,” said Miss Claes, when they -were alone. “But say, Pidge, I do want to say this. -To-morrow afternoon, Mr. Richard Cobden, an editor -of <i>The Public Square</i>, is coming here to see Nagar. -He is the one who put through Nagar’s story. We’re -to have tea at four. You’ll come down, won’t you?”</p> - -<p>“Why, yes, of course.”</p> - -<p>“It might be arranged for Mr. Cobden to look at -your book. Would you like that?”</p> - -<p>“Ye-es.”</p> - -<p>“Do you mind if I suggest something?”</p> - -<p>“Please,” said Pidge.</p> - -<p>“Don’t let Mr. Cobden know, just yet, that you are -the one who has written the story. Write a new title-page -without the name of the author.”</p> - -<p>“All right, but——”</p> - -<p>“It’s because you look like such a child, Pidge. No -one would be able to see all that’s in your story—if -they saw what a child you are!”</p> - -<p>“I’ll do as you say. Thank you, but, Miss Claes——”</p> - -<p>“Yes?”</p> - -<p>“To-night under the light, I saw your hair—underneath!”</p> - -<p>“Yes?”</p> - -<p>“It made me see everything differently for a minute. -You know I hate cults and everything that apes India<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span> -and talks about saving the world; everybody talking -about their souls, but doing the same old secret selfish -things—oh, I’ve almost died of talk about all that—but -for a minute, to-night under the lamp, it seemed -that you knew, but had come down to brass tacks—your -feet on the ground—living like the rest of us, -but not ‘falling for’ love or money or fame, as we are. -Are you really through talking about service—just -doing it?”</p> - -<p>Miss Claes laughed. “Such a lot of words, Pidge—about -some gray hair.”</p> - -<p>Pidge was intensely serious. “Are you English?” -she began again.</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“I know you’ve been in India. Miss Claes—are -you really farther along than I thought? Are you trying -for that impersonal thing—trying to belong to -everybody—to enter the stream of humanity, as they -call it?”</p> - -<p>“Of course, I’m trying, Pidge.”</p> - -<p>“You and Nagar working together?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, but you and I are working together, too.”</p> - -<p>Pidge was not to be turned aside by generalities.</p> - -<p>“You—down here in lower New York—keeping a -rooming house?”</p> - -<p>“Why not?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing—only it’s so big, so unexpected. I’ve -always believed ’way down deep that a real person -wouldn’t be long-haired or barefooted or pious, but -lost in the crowd something like that—quietly efficient,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span> -moving here and there among people unannounced, only -a few ever dreaming! Oh, it’s too, too big!”</p> - -<p>“Don’t try to believe anything, Pidge.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve been spoiled for believing anything, by so -much talk!”</p> - -<p>“Don’t try to settle things ahead of time,” Miss Claes -repeated laughingly. “Let the days—each day tell its -story. I’m just living out life as you are.... And -now undress and get into bed. I know you’re too tired -to sleep, but I’m going to fix you in and open your -window and put out your light, and sit with you for a -minute, perhaps in the dark. You’re just to rest—a -tired little girl—and not even hear me go away.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">V<br /> - -<small>LUNCHEON AT SHARPE’S</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">RICHARD COBDEN and John Higgins were -lunching at Sharpe’s Chop House. It was -one-thirty, and at the height of the day’s business. -The tables were packed close.</p> - -<p>“You were telling me about that Asiatic landlady -down in the Village,” Higgins said, lifting his spectacles -to wipe his red-rimmed eyes.</p> - -<p>“I wasn’t telling you much,” said Dicky. “She’s -too deep for me—looks to thrive on coffee and cigarettes—eyes -that have seen too much, a lot of laughter -in them, but no hope.... And what would you think -of a basement room, with flowers in winter and a fireplace -with hickory embers, a Byzantine jar in the corner -and a cabinet of porcelain which I haven’t seen the like -of on this side?”</p> - -<p>“Go on—don’t mind me,” said John Higgins.</p> - -<p>“... Little old Harrow Street,” Dicky mused. -“Harrow Street curves, you know. There is quite -a mass of rooming houses on each side, and number -Fifty-four, with a green front, is Miss Claes’ house. -And our Mr. Naidu works there with his hands; only -they call him Nagar in that house—spelled with an -‘a’ but pronounced ‘nog.’... By the way, he told<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span> -me twice, yesterday, that it isn’t a fiction story we’ve -bought, but a handling of things that actually happened -in Africa—Little Man an actual human being -named Gandhi or something of the sort.”</p> - -<p>“Can’t be done. Fiction and life are different,” -said John Higgins.</p> - -<p>Dicky resumed: “Some of Miss Claes’ lodgers -happened in for the tea party. No one barred apparently. -I must have seen most of the houseful: couple -of girl-pals; one works in a restaurant to support the -other who is to become a prima donna; a couple of -decayed vaudeville artists looking for a legacy—a regular -houseful, but I don’t believe all of them pay, as they -would have to in other houses.”</p> - -<p>“Landlady supports those who can’t?”</p> - -<p>“That’s the way I see it. The green front in Harrow -Street took hold of me. I must have stayed over two -hours. Our Mr. Naidu made some coffee to go with -that cabinet of porcelain. Also there was a little girl—from -Los Angeles, I think they said—red head, -brown wool dress and eyes of a blue you see on illumined -vellum out of Italy——”</p> - -<p>“Some cerulean,” said John Higgins.</p> - -<p>“They weren’t large, particularly,” Dicky went on -at his literary best, “but that extraordinary blue like -the ocean. Ruffled on top, but calm and still in the -depth! Never saw such eyes. They come back to -me now——”</p> - -<p>“They do to me, Dicky.”</p> - -<p>“You’re not getting all I mean, John. Uptown here,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span> -we think we’re the center of the world, the heart of -New York yanking up toward the Park—but down -there those old rooming houses are filling up with the -boys and girls from all the States west, and the -second growths from the families of European immigrants—filling -up because they are cheap, with the -boys and girls who will do the surgery ten years from -now, and the painting and writing and acting——”</p> - -<p>“I’ve heard about all that,” said John Higgins. -“You’ll do a big story yourself one day.”</p> - -<p>“I’m not so sure of it, since yesterday. I couldn’t -take their chances. I couldn’t sit down and do a novel -and not know how I was going to eat my way through. -I couldn’t scrub tenement-house floors for the privilege -of writing a book.... Oh, I love books all right. -I rise up and yell when a big short story comes in the -office, or breaks out anywhere. I think I know a real -one, but a man’s got to do a whole lot of appreciating -before he gets to doing. I’m not bred somehow as -those people are. I’m the first of the Cobdens to break -out of trade. They call <i>me</i> a dreamer, my people do—yet -compared to those boys and girls in Harrow -Street, I’m a basket of fish with only a wiggle at the -bottom——”</p> - -<p>“Get out,” said John Higgins. “The first thing -you know, you’ll be going down there again.”</p> - -<p>“I will,” said Dicky. “I’m going down there to -live.”</p> - -<p>“Eh?”</p> - -<p>The younger man nodded seriously. “They’re crazy,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span> -perhaps, but I’m convinced from yesterday of one -thing: One can’t be sane as I am, and ever find the -Big Story, much less write it.”</p> - -<p>“Therefore the first thing to do is to go insane.”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t like that,” Dicky said gently. “I’ve been -brought up to think I know New York, belong and -breathe in New York. You see, my family has lived -here a hundred years. But yesterday I saw New York -for the first time. She isn’t an old Dutch frump, -as we thought, John. She’s a damsel! She’s a new -moon——”</p> - -<p>“Blue eyes?” said John Higgins.</p> - -<p>“No, that’s the little girl from Los Angeles. It’s -the landlady, of course, who’s the spirit of the place. -I figured out afterward that it was because she was -there that I liked everybody and had a good time. -Wouldn’t be surprised to hear she was a priestess of -some sort. I asked if she were Hindu, and she said -‘Yes,’ but she talks as if she were out of an English -convent. Of course, most of her lodgers don’t get her. -One old actor, out of a job, leaned across the table to -me yesterday when Miss Claes left the room. He -tapped his forehead, whispering, ‘Lovely, eh, but got -the Ophelias.’”</p> - -<p>“Is she young?” John Higgins asked presently.</p> - -<p>“Moreover,” Dicky added, lost in thought, “I believe -Miss Claes knows that they think her cracked -and doesn’t mind.... Young? Say, I don’t know, -John. You don’t think of her with years, somehow—rather<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span> -as one who has reached the top of herself -and decided to stay there.”</p> - -<p>John Higgins leaned back, drained his coffee cup -and stared with eyes that smarted at the steaming ceiling. -“Is Naidu going to do us another story?”</p> - -<p>“We didn’t get to that, but they gave me a novel -manuscript to read.”</p> - -<p>“His?”</p> - -<p>“No, I didn’t get it straight whose it was. Miss -Claes handed it over, suggesting I look at it for a -serial. Some one in the house had written it or left -it there.”</p> - -<p>“We’d better be going back to the office. Have you -read into the novel?”</p> - -<p>“Started, but didn’t get really going. It’s back-age -France stuff, and I was a little lost last night on the -subject of 54 Harrow Street.”</p> - -<p>“You’re a little lost yet, Dicky, I should say—for -a Cobden.... So you’re going to lead a double life? -Rich young New Yorker, quarters in Fiftieth Street -under the eaves of St. Patrick’s, vanishing into life -down in Greenwich.”</p> - -<p>Dicky’s eyes were keen with memory.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">VI<br /> - -<small>ENTER, FANNY GALLUP</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap4"><i>THE Lance of the Rivernais</i> had been in the -editorial rooms of <i>The Public Square</i> for almost -a month, but there had been no report; -not the slightest mention, in fact, though author and -editor were frequently together. Richard Cobden had -come to 54 Harrow Street to live for the larger part -of each week. Pidge had gone to work in a tin-can -factory up Lenox way, pasting labels. She was half -sick from fatigue from the new work and from keeping -the secret about her book. In the days that followed -the finishing of the <i>Lance</i>, it was as if her whole body -and brain had been a scaffold or matrix for the story, -and it had been taken from her, leaving a galvanism -useless as an eggshell, a sort of afterbirth that persisted -in staying alive.</p> - -<p>... There was Fanny Gallup, who sat at her right, -elbow to elbow at the pasting bench—Fanny of the -intermittent pungencies of scent and the dreary muck -of talk about boys and boys and boys. Fanny was a -child and woman all in one, about Pidge’s age and -size, one whom you could fancy had been a stringy -street-kid a year or two ago. But just now, Fanny<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span> -was in her brief bloom, red in her lips, a lift to her -scant breast, the earth driving into her and overflowing -with such color and fertility as it could.</p> - -<p>For eight hours a day, Pidge dwelt in Fanny’s frequently -tropical aura—hateful, yet marveling. The -thing that amazed her was that Fanny loved life so, -loved the feel of her own hands when she rubbed them -together, loved the taste of sweets and the memory of -last night’s kisses—loved fearlessly and without reserve, -not a pang of dread for what was to come, nor -a shudder of regret for what had happened to her -mother or sisters or the other girls of Foley Street. -Never a thought in Fanny’s head that she was being -hoaxed by Nature; that her body was being livened -and rounded, her face edged and tinted, for an inexorable -purpose; not a suspicion that she was being -played for, and must presently produce.</p> - -<p>Fanny lived her brief hour to the full, and Pidge -Musser suffered and revolted for two. Pidge took -the dreary monotone of talk into her soul, as she -had taken her father’s, knowing that one day she would -be full.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you Musser,” Fanny would say. “Why don’t -you come over to Foley Street?... You’re dryin’ -up, Redhead. What do you do nights? What do you -do all the time, thinkin’ and listnin’?... Where’s -your fulluh, Redhead? Ain’t got one—wot? Little -liar. You’re bad, you are, because you’re so still.... -Come on over to Foley Street to-night. I’ll let you -have a peep at Albert, m’li’l barber—just one peep,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span> -Redhead—not too close. I ain’t sure of him yet, but -I’ll let you have one look—aw come on!”</p> - -<p>So it was through the hours, pasting apricot labels, -lobster, asparagus, pimento, peach, and codfish labels. -More and more Fanny’s boys and men folded into one, -whose name was Albert.</p> - -<p>“I’m gettin’ him goin’—goin’, goin’. Psst! an’ -he comes!” Fanny would say. “But I wouldn’t trust -him to you, Musser—not longer than a hairpin, dam’ -little party, you.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Miss Claes was observing with some concern the -result of her suggestion to Pidge, not to let the young -editor know the <i>Lance</i> was hers.</p> - -<p>“If it hadn’t been for my tampering, she would have -heard about her book before this,” she said to Nagar. -“Pidge looked so young, I felt it would prejudice Mr. -Cobden against her work. He’s fascinated with Harrow -Street, but seems to have no time or thought for -a romance of eighteenth-century France! Yet he would -have put through her book in a week, if he knew, seeing -the story with the same eyes he sees the author.”</p> - -<p>“And she doesn’t tell him?”</p> - -<p>“No. That’s our Pidge, Nagar. I even suggested -that I would speak to him—let the truth slip out. She -caught me in her hands, those hard little hands, strong -as a peasant’s, ‘Not for worlds, Miss Claes!’ she -breathed, and there was a patch of white intensity across -her upper lip, ‘Not for worlds!’”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span>“... Of course, I mean to write,” Pidge had -granted to Dicky in the very beginning. “I’ve always -meant to write, since the day I learned that print -wasn’t done above the clouds somehow, like Moses’ -tablets, and had to be written all out first by human -beings. But I’m not ready to begin——” and she -silently added the word “again” for her own composure.</p> - -<p>“But they tell me on my floor when you first came, -you hammered a typemill day and night. Was it -commercial work?” Dicky asked.</p> - -<p>“It was <i>not</i>,” said Pidge, with such emphasis that -she felt her secret endangered again and hastened to -add, “That was before I started to work in the factory. -Likely they heard Nagar’s machine part of the time.”</p> - -<p>“But you seem to know yarns—like one who works -with them—tries to do them, I mean,” he remarked.</p> - -<p>Her face was flushed. Evasion irritated and diminished her. -She coldly explained her father’s professional -interest in the short story.</p> - -<p>“He isn’t an artist, but he teaches how, you know,” -she finished.</p> - -<p>Dicky pondered long on how much Pidge meant by -this. He had been brought up to revere his parents. -Surely, he thought, she must know that one can’t be -taught except by life itself to do a real story.</p> - -<p>One rainy Sunday forenoon in February, they were -sitting together in his “parlor,” the front of his two -rooms on the second floor. This room opened through -a single door to the main hall, and through folding<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span> -doors to his sleeping quarters. Dicky had brought -some few additional furnishings from his mother’s -house in East Fiftieth Street. The place made Pidge -feel uncomfortable, but Miss Claes’ basement front -was often in use and subject to constant interruption.</p> - -<p>“I want to read you something I’ve brought from -the office,” Dicky said. “I’m not saying a word—until -afterward.”</p> - -<p>It was a little story called <i>Dr. Filter</i>, by an unknown -young man, named Rufus Melton. It had come to -<i>The Public Square</i> among the unsolicited manuscripts. -Pidge listened with extraordinary restlessness. She -seemed to know so much about this story, its processes -and the thing it told, that her mind was unpleasantly -crowded. It wasn’t a matter of like or dislike. <i>Dr. -Filter</i> was here in the world, a live thing. It had to -be met and dealt with.</p> - -<p>“Not more than once a year, one comes in as live -as this,” Dicky said. “Yet it’s like something from a -different world from Nagar’s Little Man story.”</p> - -<p>“It isn’t whether you like <i>Dr. Filter</i>, or not, but you -can’t get away from it—like a relative who comes to -live in your house,” said Pidge.</p> - -<p>“That’s a center shot,” Dicky thoughtfully remarked.</p> - -<p>She found herself asking about Rufus Melton. -Dicky didn’t know much, but was intensely pleased -over her reaction to his latest artistic find.... Pidge -never lacked opinions, even verdicts, nor the energy -to express them when Dicky was around. They forgot<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span> -Rufus Melton, and out-generaled time in discussing -Miss Claes.</p> - -<p>“Every little while as she talks, I feel as if I were -going through a tunnel,” he said. “Of course, I admire -her, and all that, but sometimes I can’t help asking -myself, like the others, if she is really right——”</p> - -<p>“The more ignorant one is, the more crazy he thinks -Miss Claes,” Pidge observed.</p> - -<p>“Another bull’s-eye. Wait till I set up the target -again, Pidge. But is it because she’s Hindu—that she’s -so different?”</p> - -<p>“She isn’t Hindu. She’s English.”</p> - -<p>“I asked her.”</p> - -<p>“So did I.”</p> - -<p>“She’ll have to referee this herself,” Dicky hastily -put in.</p> - -<p>Then they were silent awhile, until Pidge said:</p> - -<p>“Maybe I heard her wrong. I’m sure she’s had a -lot of Hindu training. But that’s not what draws me -to her. It’s because she’s not taking it out in talk. She -knows about plumbing and cooking and streets and -common things. Best of all, she pays her bills!”</p> - -<p>But Dicky, who had never known other than financial -ease and financial integrity, was more interested in the -other side of their landlady.</p> - -<p>“Can one get books—on her sort of thing?” he -asked.</p> - -<p>“You’re always getting me into this lately,” Pidge -complained. “I don’t like to talk about it. I floated -up through zones of Hindu stuff from a child. Better<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span> -leave it alone, Dicky. Stay in your head—stay down.”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean, ‘Stay in your head,’ please?”</p> - -<p>“Any one who amounts to anything stays in his -head. He’s not complicated by <i>souls</i>. All the comfortable, -solid world calls you absurd for what you -say and the way you look, when this Eastern stuff -starts you going. You get so absorbed that you lose -all touch with things down here, the things you are really -here to do. You stop making money and go around -saying the Lord will provide. You don’t really let Him, -you let other people support you and call it God’s work. -You call yourself the Elect, and yet you can’t do the -things that average people do. Mainly, you talk. You -stop work to talk. You settle heaven and God and -the soul with talk!... Oh, Dicky, that’s why I hate -it all so; that’s why I’d rather be a factory girl; that’s -why I’m all lame and tired about ‘ideals’ and ‘supermen’ -and ‘abstractions’—because I’ve heard so much talk.... -It’s the first thing I remember. Lying in the -crib—I began to hear my father’s voice.”</p> - -<p>“But you’ve got all this stuff, Pidge. That’s what -makes you—makes you——”</p> - -<p>“It is what makes me nothing! It is what keeps me -from being an honest-to-God mill girl. It is what -keeps me from everything that means something to -other mill girls. It is what keeps me from taking -life as I find it. It’s what spoils me from really knowing -Miss Claes or Nagar—or what they are about—because -so many words have been dinned into my -ears before coming to New York.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span>The hardest thing on Dicky these days was that -Pidge had to work in a factory. This thought was never -far from the central arena of his mind. It chafed and -irked. There was very little of the philanderer in his -breed. Mostly, the Cobdens had chosen their women -carefully, after long, cool, studious courtship. Having -decided, courted and married, nothing short of death -could break in. Doubtless Dicky’s fidelity was as stable -as that of his relatives, even though his heart had not -turned so cautiously to his light of day. Pidge had -risen in his heavens and possessed them like the rising -sun. There were not two suns in his system.</p> - -<p>He had meant to live lean down in Harrow Street, -but his idea of that wasn’t native to the locality. His -ramifications for keeping clean were considerable and -very disturbing to Pidge Musser, who had been brought -up in Southern California to wear a few white garments -which she could wash herself. Washing was -impossible in her room, and wasn’t at all easy in the -hall below where Miss Claes had told her to get her -water.</p> - -<p>Dicky Cobden was the first <i>gentleman</i> Pidge had ever -known. She had met several boys with a streak of -genius showing; boys who had come to her father to -learn how to write and had taken away something, if -not that. Practically all those boys had been “on a shoe -string,” and trained to get along without many things -that Cobden would have considered actual necessities, -including an established routine of order and cleanliness -in one’s person and quarters. Pidge had also met<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span> -many of the “queer” ones of Hollywood and vicinity—men -and women who ate this way and that, bathed -this way and that, in running waters and still, in sea -waters and rain waters, in mud and sunlight, using -unctions and ointments, but they were bathing their -souls.</p> - -<p>Dicky Cobden bathed frequently, carefully, believing -beyond cavil that New York and the processes of -life grimed him on the outside, that life itself was -a constant war against grime, requiring an ever accessible -tub, much soap, hot water, changes of clothing, -laundry bags, rugs, brushes. Not that Dicky gave any -thought to this. It was as if he supposed everybody -did the same. Since everybody didn’t and couldn’t; and -since everybody didn’t have as much money to spend -for bread and meat and tea, as Mr. Cobden did for -laundry alone—Pidge was miserably rebellious.</p> - -<p>Always as she sat in the presence of Dicky’s altogether -thoughtless freshness; sat in her apple-butter -colored wool dress which had contained the emotional -hurl and thresh of the romantic <i>Lance</i>—always Miss -Musser had a hard time to forget herself and was frequently -on the verge of becoming defiant and bad-tempered -for reasons he didn’t dream.</p> - -<p>She suffered, because every evening almost, Dicky -invited her out to dine, and not once in four times -could she pass the frowning negatives of her own -soul. He chose to regard her as superbly honest and -unaffected. She really needed those dinners, too. All -the future novels and heart throbs needed them.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span> -Occasionally she met him after dinner for a walk or -a picture, and once she had been lured to an uptown -theater. Just once—never again in the brown wool -dress!</p> - -<p>She felt, as she entered the theater lights that night, -that she had been betrayed. She felt also like something -Mr. Cobden had found in the street, or that -she was helping him make good on a first of April bet. -Pidge hadn’t been to more than three “talking shows” -in all her nineteen years; to her a show house was a -place of darkness, except the screen.</p> - -<p>Alone in her room afterward that night, she made a -great vow: that when the torrent of American dollars -turned loose on her (as it was bound to some time) -she would buy outright chests full of lingerie, cabinets -of hats, shelves of shoes, and a book of orders for -frocks to be delivered at future dates. She would keep -clean then if a Santa Ana sandstorm settled on New -York and lasted a year.</p> - -<p>One raw and cold week-night, Pidge was about done -up when she reached Harrow Street. She tried to slip -softly past his hall door, but Dicky was there.</p> - -<p>“Hard day?” he called.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she said, pushing on. “Everybody’s tired -and cross the whole length of New York, like a sore -spine.”</p> - -<p>“You haven’t had dinner?”</p> - -<p>“No, but I don’t think I’ll go out——”</p> - -<p>“I’ve been waiting, Pidge. There’s a little place -near, where I used to come from uptown, thinking it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span> -an excursion—just a neighbor of ours now, <i>The Hob -and Hook</i>, where they make a stew like Dickens tells -of in the old English inns—smoking in the pot for -twenty-four hours; and there’s tea for tired folks, and -no end of scones and honey——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, please——” said Pidge. Then she added stubbornly, -“No, I’m not going out again to-night.”</p> - -<p>“It is a trifle wintry,” Dicky observed. “We’ll have -supper here. I’ll go out and get an armful, and Nagar -will make us a pot of tea. Oh, I say, Pidge, have a -little thought of somebody else.”</p> - -<p>She weakened. Alone upstairs a minute afterward, -she lit the gas and stood before the mirror that waved.</p> - -<p>“If I turned loose just once and ate all I wanted, -he’d never speak to me again!”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">VII<br /> - -<small>“THE FREEDOM OF IGNORANCE”</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">PIDGE was gone from Harrow Street from seven -in the morning to seven at night. She had been -absolutely blurred with fatigue at the end of the -first days, but her hands were hardening, her back adjusting -to the monotonous work at the big pasting table. -She was actually learning like the other girls the trick -of sinking into a sort of coma for an hour or more at a -time. Sometimes (as one under the influence of a prying -drug, which opens scenes, as from a past life) she -would remember the palisades of Santa Monica, the -ocean pressing its white fringes up against the gray -sand; tirelessly pressing again and again, but never -leaving its white lines of foam, unless the water was -sick from the big sewer of El Segundo. Rarely a sail -on that great sunny bay, but many wings—pelicans, -sandpipers, gulls in hundreds, feeding out beyond the -surf lines, or gathered in conference on the beaten sand—three -strange and ancient bird types, gathered together -in one vast audience facing the sea.</p> - -<p>This was but one of her pictures. Other times she -roamed the canyons, Santa Monica and Topango, and -the cheerful and solitary mesas.... “Yes, that same -creature—Pan Musser,” she once said, half aloud....<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span> -Then she would think of New York and Miss Claes -and Richard Cobden; of the book she had actually -written, and pretty nearly died for, the book around -which there was a conspiracy of silence. In spite of the -coma at the pasting table, and the moments of memory -drift, the stimulated laughter in the washroom, or in -the half hour for lunch as they heated their tea pails -over the radiators at noon; in spite of the clatter of tins -passing from left to right around the big table, and the -tireless goading of Fanny Gallup’s cheerful boy-talk—the -brown wool dress contained plentiful hells of the -human heart.... And to-morrow would be Thursday, -the next day Friday, the next day Saturday, and -then sleep, and this was also New York.</p> - -<p>The first Sunday afternoon of March was the afternoon -of the new frock, a cheap little one-piece dress, -bought on Seventh Avenue, neither wool nor brown. -It had a tissuey and boxy smell. It was rapturously, -adventurously new. Pidge had an omen as she put it -on, that this was a sort of hour of all her life, that never -another frock would mean quite the same. She was -alone with Miss Claes when Dicky Cobden came for -her at six, according to a plan made early in the week. -They were to cross to Staten Island and find an old -Georgian mammy, whom he knew, somewhere back of -Stapleton on the wet roads, a mammy who could cook -chicken and beaten biscuit.</p> - -<p>Dicky seemed only to see her face. A great wonderment -came up in Pidge’s heart, not disappointment -exactly, but a sort of soul-deep wonder, that Dicky<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span> -didn’t appear to see the new frock. Could it be possible -that a man who managed the details of his own attire -with such practiced art had never known what she suffered -in the brown wool dress, in all that tragedy of -shabbiness and dirt? Had he really not felt ashamed -of her that night under the lights in the uptown theater? -He turned to her now:</p> - -<p>“You won’t mind, Pidge, just a moment or two, if -I speak of a little matter to Miss Claes. Oh, I don’t -mean for you to leave; in fact, I’d rather not. It is just -a report about a long story that should have been made -before.”</p> - -<p>Then out of the inmost heart of innocence, Pidge was -jerked with a crush. Before his next words she realized -what she must face; she, sitting aside from them in the -new frock.</p> - -<p>“... About that book manuscript,” Dicky went on. -“I have ordered it sent back to you, Miss Claes—doubtless -it will be in the post to-morrow. I have read -it, and John Higgins has read it. We’re both agreed on -this particular manuscript—that it isn’t for <i>The Public -Square</i>.”</p> - -<p>Pidge stared at him like a child being whipped for -the first time. All that was left of the meaning of the -book in her own body and mind, and all hope concerning -it, had suddenly been put to death. But the rest of her -remained alive in a stupor of suffering; her eyes stared. -She saw Richard Cobden as never before, saw him as -a workman; as they saw him in the office. This was a -bit of week-day that he was showing now, sincerely<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span> -speaking to Miss Claes, having at length done the best -he could in regard to the task which she had imposed.</p> - -<p>“The thing is <i>young</i>, Miss Claes,” he went on. -“There is fling and fire to it, but its freedom is the -freedom of ignorance. This love and this sort of man-stuff -would only do for the great unsophisticated. I’m -not saying that some publisher couldn’t take hold of it -and make a go. In fact, I’ve seen stuff like it in covers -mount up to big sales, but the human male isn’t handled -in it, Miss Claes. This is sort of a young girl’s dream -of what men are. They drink and fight and love and die -and all that, but——”</p> - -<p>“There, there, Mr. Cobden. Don’t try so hard,” -Miss Claes said laughingly. “I’m sure you’ve given the -book its chance.”</p> - -<p>But Dicky meant to finish his report.</p> - -<p>“That’s just the point,” he said; “its chance with -<i>The Public Square</i> is all I’m talking about. This is a -shopgirl’s book, and there are myriads of shopgirls. -<i>The Public Square</i> would like to have their patronage; -yet one pays a price for that. John Higgins—this is -the best thing that can be said about one of the best men -I’ve known—John Higgins has never yet consented to -pay that price.”</p> - -<p>Pidge Musser found her head turning from side to -side as one who tries to find in which neck muscle a -troubling lameness lies. She stopped that. She glanced -up at Cobden, who was pressing on his left glove with -his bare right hand. Before she turned, she realized -that Miss Claes’ eyes were waiting for hers. It wasn’t<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span> -pity she saw in them, nor friendship, nor loyalty, nor -laughter; it was something of each of these, yet something -more. Only one word in English even suggests -the thing that was pouring upon her through Miss Claes’ -eyes—and that word is <i>compassion</i>.</p> - -<p>Its power could not find her heart with its healing, -but it seemed to gather around like a cloak, waiting for -entrance. Pidge wanted to be alone with Miss Claes -now. The ache was so deep that she felt it would be -worth a life if she could go into Miss Claes’ arms and -break. That was it, an utter break was the only thing -that could ease this pain. Then she became aware of -Cobden standing at her side. In a moment he would -speak. She did not wait for the moment, but arose.</p> - -<p>“Shall we start down toward the ferry?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“Yes, all ready, Pidge.”</p> - -<p>In the silence that followed, Dicky did not seem to -notice anything wrong. At the door Miss Claes’ hand -raised and hovered above Pidge’s shoulder, but did not -touch. Pidge was grateful for that.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">VIII<br /> - -<small>SOMEBODY’S SHOULDER</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">IT was early April, a dark and rainy afternoon. -Pidge had been in the tin factory three months. -For four weeks the manuscript of the <i>Lance</i> had -lain in the bureau drawer of the little upper room in -Harrow Street, not being given a second submittal. The -secret was still kept. Richard Cobden had not spoken -of the story since his report that Sunday afternoon to -Miss Claes. There seemed an astonishing cruelty in -the fact that he could forget. He had spoken of everything -else....</p> - -<p>Pidge had just left the factory and was running in her -rubbers through the blur of rain toward a downtown -subway entrance. A sort of mocking laughter was in -her ears, “and this is New York,” the burden of it. In -the dim light of the passage down into the tube she saw -the gray gleaming patches of wear on the steel steps, -slippery now from the rain. There was a shudder and -gasp from a girl beside her; a parting of the hurrying -ones ahead to avoid clotted pools of blood on two or -three steps below.</p> - -<p>Farther down in the area, a man lay propped in the -arms of a stranger. His face was very white. A few -minutes before he had been hurrying down those steel<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span> -steps that the rain had made slippery—hurrying perhaps -in the same confusion of fatigue and hunger that she -had known.... A pause had come to him from all -that hurry. His white face was more peaceful than any -of the bystanders. A hospital ambulance clanged above, -as she lingered. Attendants came down with the -stretcher. The body of the unconscious man was swept -up by one of the swift city brooms. The stream of -ticket buyers filed on as before, the downtown express -crashed in.</p> - -<p>Pidge sat in her cane seat. The main crowd of the -city was coming uptown at this hour. At least, she was -spared that packing. She breathed the dense tired air, -and recalled that on a night or two before she had -slipped on the steel stairs, but had not fallen. It was -borne upon her that in some way this man had fallen -for her, fallen for every one who saw him or the puddles -of blood he left. Every one had walked more carefully -afterward, reaching for the rails. And he had lost -the sense of hurry—that unmitigated madness which -drove them all from dawn to dark.</p> - -<p>Her old wonder of New York came back, as she -thought that she was being flashed fifty miles an hour -from the junction at Ninety-sixth Street down to Forty-second -Street, under the busiest streets and corners of -America. Mere men could manage much. Then the -old agony stole in—“the freedom of ignorance.” Surely -no one had ever been punished for doing a book as she -had been punished: that it was so poor, as to prove a -temptation for John Higgins to publish it, because<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span> -of its chance of falling exactly into the fancy of these—the -myriad of shopgirls in the uptown locals and -expresses, crashing by in thick ropes of white light. As -for the public taste, Dicky Cobden had told her that -John Higgins had confessed, speaking wearily and with -a smile that had lost its sting of reproach, that for thirty -years he had been choosing stories for people to read, -and every year he had been forced to lower his estimate -as to what the public taste was. Even so, John Higgins -had said he was far from the level; that only a -trade mind could get stories banal enough. But hers -might interest that public.</p> - -<p>She was so tired.... For somebody’s shoulder to -lean against! Pidge knew what Fanny Gallup felt, -what the other factory girls felt, when they pushed out -so brazenly toward men—in very clumsiness from hard -pressure, spoiling their chances of being treated on the -square. Yes, she was really learning what the girls felt, -as they hunted their own in the masses of men they -passed—how tired, hungry, blurred, unsatisfied their -hearts—anything to escape the withering grind of the -mills and the counters and the shops. She knew the -secret bloom they felt, the terrible brief drive of it—childhood, -girlhood and youth, all passing like the uptown -trains—a home, a man, a child of their own, the -one chance for a breath of life. Of course, they talked -of nothing else, in the closets and dressing rooms, in -the cars and streets; and read nothing else. Certainly -their dreams had to come true in books and plays, even -if they didn’t in life. Life would break the dream soon<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span> -enough. The best life could do didn’t compare with the -lowliest dream; for the dream of a girl has glamour, -and the life of a woman is stripped. But that was no -reason why books and plays should tear off the glamour -ahead of time.</p> - -<p>It wasn’t that Pidge loved shopgirls and mill girls. -She didn’t love herself for sharing their lot. She wasn’t -sentimental at all. She recognized bad management -somewhere that forced her to this work. She had to -have bread, and outer and under clothing. She paid the -price, but there was nothing good nor virtuous about it. -She didn’t hate Dicky Cobden when he spoke of “shopgirl -literature”; she knew how rotten it was, but there -was something in her that belonged to it, or she wouldn’t -have been in the factory; moreover, that something had -helped to write the <i>Lance</i>.</p> - -<p>... Somebody’s shoulder. Three months of tin -cans was teaching that very well.... And there was -a shoulder, straight and steady—a kind of mockery -about it, because it was so fine. None of the girls at -the big table where she worked would have asked more. -It meant books and pictures and all the dining tables of -New York; plays and dresses, cleanliness, and all the -little coaxing cushions and covers of this arrogant modern -hour. It meant all the old solid established joys of -place and plenty; all the writing she liked; a leisurely -winning of her way through magazines and publishing -houses; nothing of Grub Street and the conspiracy -against an unknown outsider....</p> - -<p>And this life of the factory—hadn’t she earned release?<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span> -What more could come of the grinding monotony -of the days but a more passionate agony to escape, -through the under world, or the upper world, through -any route at all, even death itself? Was there a further -lesson than this?... Somebody’s shoulder. He had -the native kindness of clean breeding; also that consideration -for others of one who is brought up in a -large house. He had an ardent interest in books and -life. He was warmly established in the hearts of other -men—first and last, a man’s man, which it behooves a -woman to inquire into.</p> - -<p>There was a tired smile on Pidge’s lips as the car -halted at Thirty-second street.... The only blunders -he had ever made were in her presence, because he cared -so much. He seemed continually in awe and wonder -before the thing he fancied she was, as if he had never -really looked at a woman before. Of course, another -man might act that way, but it was different the way -Dicky did it. He had been at school late, and for -nearly four years in the office of <i>The Public Square</i> he -had bored steadily, craftily toward the center of the -life of letters. Work had been his passion up to that -day in which he had called to see Nagar, and fell under -the spell of Miss Claes and Harrow Street.... -There was enough of the artist and dreamer in him to -keep life from being tame, yet not enough to make life a -maze and a madness. He had health. Money was to -him like an old custom, so established as to be forgotten....</p> - -<p>Fourteenth Street. Pidge didn’t hear the first call<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span> -and hopped off with a rush at the second, pulling a -growl from the gateman as she sped out.... Dicky -was standing at the head of the stairs on the second -floor of the Harrow Street house.</p> - -<p>“Hello, Pidge,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Hello,” she answered, pushing past, but he caught -her arm.</p> - -<p>“Let me go, please! I haven’t washed yet——”</p> - -<p>But he drew her by the hand toward the open door -to his front room. The brighter light from there -streamed out into the dim hall.</p> - -<p>“My hands are sticky from the paste. I’ll come back. -I’d rather come back.”</p> - -<p>“It’s about that—about your hands, Pidge. I’ve -waited as long as I can.”</p> - -<p>... Somebody’s shoulder. She wasn’t safe to be -trusted right now, yet she couldn’t pull away. If she -ever got upstairs—even for a minute in her own little -place, before the mirror that waved, she would see it all -clearly, but here and now she didn’t want to see clearly. -She wanted to give up and rest. She wanted what he -wanted—wanted to give him what he wanted, which -was the tiredest, most hopeless girl in New York to-night. -She was dying of all its strains and failures and -rigidities and fightings, and he wanted to take the load.</p> - -<p>They were standing under the hanging lamp in his -room. The light was white; his face was white. It -was leaner than ever before, more of a man in it, more -of a boy in it. His will was working furiously to make -him speak.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span>He held her right hand up between them.</p> - -<p>“It’s about your hands, Pidge, about the factory. -Listen, you make me feel like a tout or a sot—as if you -were out killing yourself to support me. I’ve been home -two hours and you just coming in.”</p> - -<p>“There’s half a million girls in New York—just -coming in.”</p> - -<p>“I know. We’ll get to them later, but now there’s -only one—only one Pidge. I want her home to stay. I -want to make a home for her. Why, Pidge, I’ll let you -alone, if you just let me do that——”</p> - -<p>“I believe you would.”</p> - -<p>She was looking up at him hard. She didn’t fully -understand, but the boyish cleanliness of him struck her -fully that moment. The power of his will which she -felt was mainly the fierceness of his decision to speak. -It wasn’t the burn of terrible hunger for her. He was -young as a playmate: that’s what shook her now. He -wanted to fix her place, to let her hands soften again, -wanted to let her rest and breathe—not what the other -girls laughed about.</p> - -<p>“Why, Pidge, I’ve got to take care of you. I’ve got -to straighten you out—if it’s only to marry you and go -away.”</p> - -<p>Something in her heart cracked like a mirror, and a -sob broke out of her. It was as if a car that had been -running along by itself suddenly left the road and went -into a cliff—a warm, kind cliff. Somebody’s shoulder, -and she was sobbing:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span>“I told you I was so tired! I told you I wasn’t -safe——”</p> - -<p>“Ah, little Pidge——” he was patting her arm and -pressing her close.</p> - -<p>It had come. This was it. It <i>was</i> rest. The other -girls knew. The awful cold ache was broken—warmth -of life pouring out of her—heavenly ease in the flood -of tears, and something of the dearness of dreams was -in his passion, not for her—but to do something for -her.</p> - -<p>The first whip stroke fell, when Pidge remembered -how she looked when she cried. But if she could keep -her face covered! She didn’t stir.... Was this the -fullness of days? All the consummate essences of ease, -he brought—no hunger, no dirt—and really she had -fought long and hard.</p> - -<p>“... Everything you want, Pidge,” he was whispering. -“I’ll take you to my mother. She’s a regular -sport, Pidge——”</p> - -<p>“She’d have to be,” came from the incorrigible heart -in his arms, but not aloud.</p> - -<p>The second whip stroke—<i>The Lance of the Rivernais</i>. -She had failed, and the failure wasn’t the book, -but herself, the thing in his arms. She didn’t stir, but -there was coldness of calculation to her thinking now—that -he meant ease and rest and expediency, not the ripping, -rioting, invincible man force that was to come one -day and carry her off her feet.</p> - -<p>This was the third whip stroke: that he meant propinquity—the -nearest, the easiest way.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span>She started up and pushed him from her.</p> - -<p>“I’m not washed,” she said. “I don’t mean from the -mills. I’m not washed, or I couldn’t have—couldn’t -have——! I’m just like the rest—dying for a shoulder -to cry on. You’re all right, Dicky, so right and fine -that I’m ashamed. I’ll always care for you. I’ll always -be warm at the thought of you. I’ll always remember -how I went to you—how dear you are—but you can’t -give me freedom. You can’t give me peace. My soul -would rot in ease and peace and plenty. I’ve got to earn -my own.”</p> - -<p>She looked up into his face and her own took a fright -from it.</p> - -<p>“I know I’ll suffer hells for hurting you—but I can’t -help it. I had to know. If I have to spend a life in -misery—I had to know that there isn’t anything you -can give that will satisfy——”</p> - -<p>His mouth was partly open, his head twisted peculiarly, -and lowered, as if his shoulder and neck were -deformed. He was shockingly white under the lamp.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I’m such a beast and I’m so sorry. I really -wanted terribly to stay.... But, Dicky Cobden—it -wasn’t for you. It wasn’t for you that I wanted to stay—it -was for what you have—more.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">IX<br /> - -<small>“YOU BOTH HAVE KEYS”</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">DICKY kept his quarters in Harrow Street, but -for days at a time did not appear. Pidge -Musser at first fancied this was easier. There -was a faint cackle of derision from somewhere in her -depths, as this idea of it being easier repeated itself in -her mind; in fact, there were many conflicting mysteries -in Pidge’s deep places. “I laid my head on his -shoulder,” she once said to herself, “but thought better -of it. Now we are to be strangers.”</p> - -<p>At unexpected moments when she was busy at the -pasting bench; or nights and mornings, passing in and -out of sleep, the faint note of mockery would sound. -When she passed Dicky in the halls, or met him at one -of Miss Claes’ little tea parties, and he would bow distantly -or indulge in formal commonplaces, the mockery -would stir itself in Pidge’s profundities, indicating that -something somewhere was decidedly idiotic. He looked -positively diminished as he kept up his formalities, and -she liked and respected him too much to feel pleasant -about this. She heard that he was interested in Africa. -It was to be observed that he sought Nagar; in fact, -several times she heard these two together through the -partition.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span>Finally Pidge heard that Dicky was going to South -Africa, possibly to hunt up Nagar’s Little Man, whose -name was Gandhi, and who had been Nagar’s friend -and teacher both in India and Natal. Also Dicky was -to do some letters for <i>The Public Square</i>.</p> - -<p>On the night before he was to sail for the Mediterranean, -he was invited with Pidge by Miss Claes for -dinner at Tara Subramini’s Punjabi Fireplace down on -Sixth Avenue near Fourth Street. This was also the -night Pidge smelled Spring in New York for the first -time.</p> - -<p>Mid-April; there had been rain. Pidge hadn’t caught -the Spring magic coming home from the factory, but -now as they walked down Sixth Avenue under the momentary -crashes of the Elevated—it stole up out of the -pavements as if she were in a meadow—that untellable -sweetness which seems the breath of Mother Nature -herself, a breath made of all the perfumes of all the -flowers, without accentuating one, and a sublimation of -all the passions of the human heart as well. Her left -hand burrowed under the hanging sleeve of Miss Claes’ -wrap. The bare elbow there closed upon it. They both -laughed, and Mr. Richard, walking sedately, was altogether -out of the question.</p> - -<p>Tara Subramini served her Punjabi dinners on great -individual plates which were none too hot. She discussed -modern dancing with Miss Claes at easy length, -when Pidge was served and Richard Cobden was not. -The rice cooled, the lamb cooled, even if the peppery -curry held its fire. The vast plate had curious little<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span> -crevices on the side for conserves and glutinous vegetables -and various watery leaves. Pidge became prejudiced -at once against the Punjab. The great leisure -of Asia, which she had heard about from a child and -which had tempted her alluringly in the more intense -pressures of her own life, lost something of its charm -as Tara Subramini conversed with all concerned and the -contents of the troughs congealed.</p> - -<p>Food is food, but talk is merely talk. Besides, Pidge -was hungry. Subramini had things to say, but also an -oriental delight in the use of English. Mr. Cobden was -unreservedly courteous. Pidge always wondered if he -really knew what hunger was. She could get so hungry -that her hands trembled, and New York had shown her -deeper mysteries of the hunger lesson that she would be -slow to forget.</p> - -<p>“It must be great to be a gentleman,” she thought.</p> - -<p>She positively yearned for Dicky to wake up. If this -were poise, this moveless calm of his, this unvarying -quiet and courtesy, this inability to be stretched even in -laughter—Pidge felt she was ready to drop the hunt; -also she was tempted to test out Dicky’s poise to see -how much it could really stand.... India bored her, -as well as America. Miss Claes could eat and talk at -the same time, and drop neither words nor food.... -A lone Hindu arose to depart from another table. Subramini -helped him with his coat and followed him to -the door. Pidge thought once that Subramini was -about to spread herself on the doorstep and let him walk -over her. Punjab didn’t rise in her regard. Pidge<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span> -suddenly burst out into a kind of merriment that had -nothing to do with anybody present.</p> - -<p>“It is because we’re such idiots!” she said brokenly. -“Oh, I don’t mean you, Miss Claes. I mean myself and—<i>Mr.</i> -Cobden. It is the way things are done in the -world—so utterly silly. Why should we be strange and -embarrassed, avoiding each other for days and weeks—when -we should be more than ever friends, and——”</p> - -<p>Richard Cobden bent forward attentively. Pidge -was turned from him.</p> - -<p>“You don’t mean, Pidge, that you fail to see a reason -for this strangeness?” Miss Claes asked. “You——”</p> - -<p>Pidge stared at her a second in surprise.</p> - -<p>“There can’t be any sense to it, can there?” she said -slowly.</p> - -<p>The other regarded her with a calm that irritated -Pidge just now. Everything irritated her, Dicky sitting -by, Miss Claes’ familiarity with Subramini, and the -look of knowing and not speaking, back of the smile -on Miss Claes’ lips. But most of all, peculiarly at this -moment, arose in Pidge’s mind the two conflicting -stories of nationality.</p> - -<p>“Did I hear you wrongly that you said you were -English, Miss Claes?” she asked abruptly.</p> - -<p>“No, dear.”</p> - -<p>“But Dicky said you told him you were Hindu——”</p> - -<p>“I did. I am both. I am half-caste, supposed to unite -in myself the worst of English and Indian.”</p> - -<p>Pidge burned with contrition, less at her questioning<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span> -than at the bad temper that prompted it. The two -women were ready to go, but Dicky wasn’t.</p> - -<p>“You seemed to have something to say, Miss Claes, -to set us—to set me straight on all this,” he began.</p> - -<p>“You see, Richard, one cannot speak without being -drawn in. I hesitated on that account.”</p> - -<p>“But I’d like to hear.”</p> - -<p>Pidge flushed a little as she watched him. Tara Subramini, -still afar off, was engaged in words.</p> - -<p>“... My house in Harrow Street is just a symbol,” -Miss Claes was saying. “To come into one’s house -really should mean to come into one’s heart. You both -have keys.... What was in my mind to say was that -people in your trouble act as strangers for good reasons. -If they cannot have each other—they sometimes rush -to the other extreme to save themselves the pain of -watching another come between.”</p> - -<p>Dicky Cobden essayed to light a cigarette. The -match broke in his fingers. He did not try again. Miss -Claes amplified without apparent feeling:</p> - -<p>“Sometimes one who cannot have what he wants—gives -way to hatred for a time to ease his wound.... -Pidge, what have you to give for the friendship and -association of one who wants more?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know that I have anything. I see how selfish -I was. It came to me that we, of all people, should be -friends, but I didn’t look at the other side.”</p> - -<p>“You can be friends, if you are brave enough. You -can be, if you dare to come and go and set each other -free utterly, but that means long and bitter work.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span>The harrowing thing to Pidge was that Miss Claes -talked as if Dicky and herself were one in condition and -purpose and dilemma, when in reality all the hard part -seemed to go to him. She wished Miss Claes would -stop, but the words continued with a smooth predestined -force:</p> - -<p>“The best the world knows, even in books and art, -is the kingdom of two; but love doesn’t end in that—at -least, not for those who are brave enough and strong -enough to sunder their tight little kingdom of each other -and let the earth rush in between....”</p> - -<p>Tara Subramini’s slippered feet crept in. She stood -behind Miss Claes’ shoulders and began to speak of a -book of poetic obituaries. The paying of the bill seemed -an interminable process.</p> - -<p>Cobden looked dazed.</p> - -<p>“If Pidge thinks it’s silly to act as strangers—and -I can see that it is—I’m for trying the other way,” he -repeated, when they reached the street.</p> - -<p>The whole talk had been subject to most stubborn -and perverse distractions. On Sixth Avenue the racket -of traffic had become incessant. Apparently Miss Claes -had decided to say no more. Callers waited for her in -the basement room at Harrow Street, so Pidge followed -Dicky to his “parlor,” which she had not entered since -the night of Somebody’s Shoulder.</p> - -<p>He seemed possessed to talk of what he had heard, -as a youth fascinated by a new course to take. He spoke -of a man being big enough to stand by and set a woman -free; of a man big enough to wait and watch and be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span> -a friend, a comrade. And Pidge, who had brought it -all about, listened in a sort of terror which only a woman -could understand. This thing which she had aroused in -him, this answer of his deep, but still vague powers, to -her thoughtless challenge, frightened her now that it -had come.</p> - -<p>“Don’t, oh, don’t let’s talk any more!” she said at -last. “It’s talk, Dicky, just talk. The doing is different, -the doing is harder! What do we know of what -life will fix for us to do day by day through the years? -This thing is so hard that Miss Claes herself hated to -let it out. It belongs to you differently than it belongs -to me. I haven’t anything to give for your friendship -and association. I mean you’ll always want more than -I can give.”</p> - -<p>He looked at her steadily for an instant.</p> - -<p>“I don’t want to be strangers again, Pidge. I want -to stand by and wait.”</p> - -<p>“You won’t know better than to build pictures while -you wait. No one would. You will wait—while you’re -away in Africa, making pictures about me, pictures of -what I am <i>not</i>! I don’t know why I’m chosen to hurt -you. If I hadn’t been so utterly lost in myself, I never -could have brought this on. I feel that I’ve started a -new set of conditions to bring you to another moment—another -gash—like in this room the last time we were -here. And oh, Dicky Cobden, I don’t want to! To be -strangers! To be common and hateful and avoid each -other is so much more simple and easy.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll stop talking, Pidge,” he said quietly. “It may<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span> -be easier to be strangers, but it doesn’t look rosy to me. -Don’t you worry about it. It is my job and I’ll take -a chance.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t know what you’re saying!”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps not. We won’t talk about that any more.... -Now, Pidge, I’m keeping these rooms while I’m -away. Wouldn’t you—wouldn’t you for me—look -after them—look in on them and keep them alive while -I’m gone?... It would make me feel like—great, -you know.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">X<br /> - -<small>APRIL BREATHES AGAIN</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">THREE nights later, when she reached Harrow -Street from the factory, Pidge found two letters. -One was from John Higgins of <i>The -Public Square</i>. This she opened first.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>... At the suggestion of Mr. Cobden, just before -he left for South Africa, I am offering you a position -here as reader of the unsolicited manuscripts. Mr. -Cobden hints that you know enough about <i>The Public -Square</i> to realize we cannot be lavish in salaries, but -think we can at least pay you what you are getting -now, to begin with—and the work will be different.</p> -</div> - -<p>“Oh, Dicky Cobden,” she whispered, alone in the -upper room.</p> - -<p>She sat in the center of her cot as of old, breathing -the sweetness of the release from the factory.... -Friendliness like this art of Dicky’s was good.... It -made her eyes smart now—the new work. It was easier -to take it from him—away. It was a soft cloak that she -could nestle in, because he wouldn’t see.... Miss -Claes knocked. Pidge read in her eyes that she already -knew.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span>“No one can ever tell you anything.”</p> - -<p>“I’m so glad you want it, Pidge. I couldn’t tell -him for sure that you’d take it.”</p> - -<p>“They really need somebody, don’t they?”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Cobden said you wouldn’t be in doubt about -that after you got there.”</p> - -<p>“I’m going to take it,” Pidge said soberly. “I know -it means something more than it looks—but I’m going -to take it. I’m so sick of myself which fights everything. -Also, I’m going down after supper—and sit -there—in his ‘parlor.’ I haven’t entered since——”</p> - -<p>Miss Claes was called from below. Pidge felt the -second letter in her hand. It was from Los Angeles, -her father’s writing. A check dropped out on the -cot. By powerful effort of will, Pidge left it there, -until she had read the note:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>... At this time it seems well for me to send you -money. Hard as it has been for me to refrain, I felt -before this that it was best for you to face New York -alone, unaided. As there is a New Generation, my -child, there is a New Fatherhood which dares—dares -even to allow the heart’s darling to struggle alone; dares -to say “hands off” to all the untransmuted emotions -which rush forth to shield the fledgling from the -world——</p> -</div> - -<p>Fifty dollars. Pidge sank back and softly batted -her pillow with one loose arm. She laughed in a -smothery uncertain way that was not of joy.... It -was as if she heard his voice in the room—the new<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span> -parenthood, the new generation, the adjustment of -motive to moment!</p> - -<p>The sort of thing in this letter always shook and -tortured Pidge. It was a part of her. She was bred -of it. She had been half as old as now when she -first realized it. Then in every thought and act, she -had rushed to the other extreme. It was true that -her father had taught her the deepest things in books. -In his study, she had caught hints of the inner meanings -of inaccessible literatures, before she had learned -to spell simple words of English. Because his eyes -hurt, she had read aloud for hours, day after day, tomes -out of Asia which she had no care nor thought to -understand, but from which, volatile fairylike impressions -came to rest in the depths of her heart. She -had loved the few central springs of books in a house -of books, until she realized that her father read, but -lived them not; that he expounded, exhorted upon the -doctrines—but his life was his own twisted rag. That -was when Pidge’s heavens cracked—and she had set -out to be honest and erect, if only as tall as a gnome.</p> - -<p>The thought that came at this moment had come -before. It was the passion to be what her father was -not that had made her rush forth to be straight in -her own head—to refuse to lie to herself—to go to -the other extreme of fierceness and bleakness and ill-temper, -rather than lie to herself—to be plain and true, -if she had to be a man-hater and poison face. Yet -Pidge sat up straight with a bitter thought. Like it -or not, she saw right now that it was her father who<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span> -had prepared her to accept and make good, possibly, -in this position with <i>The Public Square</i>....</p> - -<p>“But where did he get the money?” she muttered -at last.</p> - -<p>She crossed to the open window. April breathed -up to her from the stone floor of the area to-night; -magic April, breathing up through the trampled earth -and the degraded pavements. Suddenly a soft love -stole over her. It was love of the April dark.</p> - -<p>She heard the sounds of the city over the buildings, -over into the stillness of Harrow Street, like the far -tread and clatter of a pageant. Mother Nature was -actually perceptible in this soft air, and something that -Pidge answered to as never before in New York. Her -hands stretched out to touch the casings of the window; -the old wood gave her an additional warmth. -It belonged to this house of Miss Claes, this house -of the mystery of kindness. She was free at this -moment of the fear of accepting too much, having -come up to breathe, at least, out of the ruck of fighting -everything and everybody. She had been utterly graceless -and narrow in her acceptances, fighting against -favors, when she knew all the time that to receive is -the other part of giving. A shiver passed over her, -nevertheless, as she remembered the subtle mendicancy -that she had known in her father’s house, the calm -acceptance of gifts and favors from others in the belief -that one was evolved enough to give the ineffable in -exchange for materials. No wonder she had run from -that.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span>This of Miss Claes’ was a house with a heart. This -was her house. She could breathe in it now, at least, -for a little. The numbness and dumbness of the factory -had fallen away. The softness stole over her toward -Fanny Gallup and the other girls who must still stay at -the bench. She would never forget. She had earned an -understanding of them, and had been released; <i>released</i> -was the word. But something would carry her back -to them one day, something born in that slow madness -of monotony.</p> - -<p>She crossed the room and opened the door into the -hall. Supper smells came up to her, the murmur of -voices behind the shut doors. The prima donna person -was singing, not practicing this time, but singing.... -“One comes up through great tribulation to learn to -sing,” Miss Claes had once said, “and others share it.”</p> - -<p>The warmth stole into her from the halls. Everybody -was hungry to-night, the spring hunger, and -everybody celebrated, as a festival. April seemed -breathing in the halls, too. April was breathing in -herself; that was why she was awake to this outer -delight. If she could only keep it. It would always -be in externals, if she could only keep this springtime -alive within. She laughed a little bitterly. Of course, -she was elated because the factor had dropped away, -because the new position had opened, because the check -had come (though she felt something queer about that), -because Richard Cobden and Miss Claes were fashioned -of unswerving kindnesses, which she suddenly realized -as never before.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span>“It’s money and place, and I’m ‘falling for’ it, venturing -to be pleased with myself——” She laughed -again. “But, oh, it is so cheerful, so restful to feel -New York like this, just for to-night!”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XI<br /> - -<small>THE BABY CARRIAGE</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">PIDGE read manuscripts in the office of <i>The -Public Square</i>. She saw them first. The large -part of them were seen by no one else. It was -like being a telephone girl in a way, dipping into the -secrets of a thousand houses. But it was much more -subtle than that; the secrets more soulful and revelatory. -She saw the hopelessness of life. She saw love, -hopelessly uninviting love—puppy love, and much of -the “kidding” clever love that is made in America, and -proud of itself for that. But over all, there seemed an -anguish on the part of male and female, old and young, -<i>to express</i>. Before her were secrets of those dying -for expression; in her hands, the progeny. She loathed -the desire everywhere, because she had the same desire -herself.</p> - -<p>Every one who wrote and submitted stories and -manuscripts had a “front.” In the personal letters, -accompanying their stories and articles and poems, they -told matters about themselves which their manuscripts -did not. They knew this one and that; they had influential -friends who had said this and that about their -writing. Parlorfuls of friends “had been quite carried -away by the inclosed.”... Others hadn’t wanted to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span> -write. They had rebelled long; even as Saul, they had -kicked against the pricks; but for the good of others, -for the message it would carry to the world, they had -given in at last and written their story which was -inclosed.... “This is a true story,” one personal letter -accompanying said.... “This story may be finished -differently,” another wrote. “I have thought out a -happy ending, if the public is not ready to stand this -human one.”... Here was a sales manager who wrote -his personal letter with a jovial laugh: “I have just -tossed these few experiences into a story which my -friends insist belongs to you.... I wouldn’t think -of it, but I can’t help seeing what a rotten lot of stuff -the magazines publish!”... This one had decided -to write stories because she was a widow and had no -other means of support, and had heard that writing was -“the pleasantest of professions.”... And here was -one who had sent in story after story to rejection for -six years. “Some time I will win,” came the thin -tired cry.</p> - -<p>Pidge had fatigued her body in the mill. She tired -her heart in the office of <i>The Public Square</i>, reaching -Harrow Street with something in her breast all sore -and shamed. This was the queer strenuous part—the -shame of it all. She, too, had fallen into expressing -herself, and they had been kind. Miss Claes had been -kind and she knew. But Dicky Cobden and John -Higgins had been kind, though they hadn’t known the -author of the <i>Lance</i>. (They would never know.)<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span> -They had said that the writer had the fine freedom of -youth—“the freedom of ignorance.”</p> - -<p>Pidge knew even better now what that meant. She -saw the freedom of ignorance in the rape of many -type machines.... The worst of it was, she herself -wasn’t through. She knew the time would come -when a new story would form within her, and begin -its knocking for life.... And this was New York, -the market place; and John Higgins sat near, and always -he held his face nearer the manuscripts toward -the end of the days, his eyes more tired and dim in the -late hours....</p> - -<p>“Miss Musser,” he called one afternoon at the end -of the first month. “I wish you would go out and see -what this Rufus Melton really has to say. We took a -story of his some months ago. We had great hopes -for him, but now he’s sent in a raft of junk. Kid stuff, -this must be, he’s trying to work off. I don’t feel -like seeing him right now.”</p> - -<p>In the reception room, a young man arose to meet -her, as she spoke the name, “Mr. Melton.” It was -a face you would expect to see on one of the cars of -Hollywood Boulevard, among the movie plants. There -was a catch in Pidge’s throat as she said:</p> - -<p>“Mr. Higgins asked me to tell you he was occupied, -Mr. Melton. His report will go to you in a day or two.”</p> - -<p>He was looking down at her, the young man who -had written the little twisted fury of a tale called <i>Dr. -Filter</i>, which Dicky had brought to Harrow Street for -her to read. She sensed that he regarded her as an<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span> -office girl, not as a reader. He couldn’t have been -more than twenty-three or four. He knew that her -words portended an evil fate for his present offerings. -It was not hurt alone in his eyes, but rage, too.</p> - -<p>Now Pidge’s mind whirled back to a pair of eyes -in a baby carriage at Santa Monica; eyes of a male -infant, said to be the handsomest of that locality where -the hills and mesas break off abruptly for a sea wall. -Large, still, steady blue-black eyes of an actor that -had become calm because they were used to seeing -faces wilt before them; long, curving coal-black lashes. -Pidge hadn’t liked them in the infant; at least, they -roused her unpleasantly somehow; and she didn’t like -them now. The resemblance was deeper and more -essential than that of family, but what held Pidge really -was something she recognized, or fancied she did, something -that had to do with being broke and threatened -with hunger in New York. His clothing was fine, but -had been long used. She had a positive divination for -poverty.</p> - -<p>Now his gaze was lost in her hair, as if he found -hope there. Story failures and New York, fear, and -its tough core of hunger, these amounted to one thing—but -red hair was another. The astonishing part was -the constant changing of expressions in his eye. They -reflected every mood and whim of him, for one who -could read; that is, when he forgot to veil them for -purposes of his own. Just now he seemed to be wondering -if he had better go any further with this red hair—if -he had time to play. He didn’t seem to consider<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span> -whether Pidge wanted to play or not, only whether the -game were worth the while of one whose law was not -to let any real chance slip. Pidge had forgotten the -hurt of her message from John Higgins. She had -a pronounced feeling that she wanted to hurt Melton -some way herself....</p> - -<p>“So I can’t see Mr. Higgins?”</p> - -<p>“He’s been unusually rushed to-day.”</p> - -<p>He laughed a little bitterly as if he understood all -that. “Are you—are you his secretary?”</p> - -<p>“No, an under reader.”</p> - -<p>“I see. Have you been through any of my stuff?”</p> - -<p>Pidge glanced at him resentfully; she felt he wouldn’t -have asked such a question of a man.</p> - -<p>“This is a sort of show-down with me,” he went -on. “I’m leaving New York. I really hoped to see -Mr. Higgins.”</p> - -<p>His dilemma seemed real. It pulled her out from -herself.</p> - -<p>“I’m sorry——”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps you—I’d have to know before to-morrow,” -he said jerkily. “Perhaps you’d look at another story -just finished? If you would read it—there is just a -chance you might want to get it to Mr. Higgins before -I go.”</p> - -<p>“Have you the story with you?”</p> - -<p>“No. I was hoping for good word from one of -the others first. This new one is my last wallop. Might -I bring it to you, anywhere you say, this evening?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span>“You may leave it with Miss Claes at 54 Harrow -Street.”</p> - -<p>“Are you Miss Claes?”</p> - -<p>“No, but she will give it to me.”</p> - -<p>“Could I call later in the evening also, for your answer? -It is only four or five thousand words.”</p> - -<p>“You know, my reading is merely—I mean Mr. -Higgins would have to decide.”</p> - -<p>“But it would help—if the story pleased you—help -to pass the night!”</p> - -<p>“You may leave it with Miss Claes at the basement -entrance and call a little later.”</p> - -<p>Pidge found herself walking on tiptoe back to her -desk, the catch still in her throat.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XII<br /> - -<small>UNDER THE SAME LAMP</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">THE manuscript was delivered while Pidge was -out to supper. She took it upstairs to -Cobden’s “parlor” and read with a nervous -interest, and an uncomfortable feeling that Rufus -Melton was looking down at her all the time. She -didn’t lose herself in the story, but the feeling persisted -that she might have done so, another time—especially if -the manuscript had come to her in the usual way at -the office. Certainly it was different and distinctive, -compared to the run of the unsolicited. It was artful, -if not art.... She heard Nagar’s quiet steady step -as he passed up to his room. She had an impulse to -ask him to read, but he wouldn’t say anything. Anyway, -he was gone now.</p> - -<p>This was a story of the Tunisian sands, written, she -decided, by one who hadn’t been there; one who saw -the desert as the average American reader would expect, -but with additional flatfooted bits of color tramped -down with audacity. Moonlight was different in -Tunisia, and morals were different—freer than here. -There was the glitter of the snake’s eye through the -pages, for Pidge Musser. It made her think of a sick -man in a gorgeous robe.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span>She had inferred from Melton’s talk that this story -was new; in fact, that it was still hot from his machine. -Yet the manuscript didn’t feel new; the front and back -pages showed wear. Could she have misunderstood?... -It had freedom; not the freedom of ignorance, -but the freedom of a drifting ship. Its anchor dragged, -its compass was uncentered. It cried out, “My God, -I am free!” and it was, as a derelict is free.</p> - -<p>At a quarter of ten, she heard the bell in the basement -hall; heard Miss Claes directing Melton to the -next floor. Pidge would not have had it this way, -but people of the house were in the basement. He -came up out of the dim stairway, walking wide, his -soft cap crumpled in his hand, elbows out. He must -have learned her name from Miss Claes.</p> - -<p>“You mustn’t think, Miss Musser, that I don’t know -how much I am asking—this favor of yours to-night.”</p> - -<p>There was a sort of lift and draw to the way he -took her hand; at the same time his shoulders and -head bent down upon her. This thing that he was -playing to-night was college boy—clumsy subtlety of -a big boy coming home and greeting his sister—seeing -in her, at the moment of greeting, something of the -charm other boys might see. He walked around her -under the light, laughing, apologizing, making a -humorous picture of his own tension at <i>The Public -Square</i> that afternoon.</p> - -<p>“I went there like an anarchist,” he laughed. “I was -prepared to get my answer or blow up the place. I had -to laugh afterwards the way I seized upon you.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span>“I read the Tunis story,” she said. “Of course, you -know it’s really unimportant what I think. I liked -it well enough, but wasn’t carried away. I felt the -color; in fact, color is the main asset of the story, but -it seemed a bit thick——”</p> - -<p>He laughed aloud. He was bending to her again, -and most benignly, college big brother still in his manner -and voice.</p> - -<p>“I could tone that down, of course. The trouble is -to get a thing like that straight, when you know that -part of Africa as I do. I ought to have kept off Tunis, -that’s the truth of it.”</p> - -<p>“You have really been there?”</p> - -<p>“That’s the worst of it, Miss Musser,” he laughed. -“I went through hell for that story. Too much feeling -to write with, you understand.”</p> - -<p>Pidge was awed at her own error. She had been so -convinced that the color was faked that she had judged -the whole story on that basis.</p> - -<p>“I’ve already asked too much of you. I’m sorry,” -he added ingenuously. “One can’t force his things -through this way. Why, I’d have given the whole six -stories to <i>The Public Square</i> for a hundred dollars, -and taken the cheapening that comes to an author from -a trick like that. That’s how I needed an answer.”</p> - -<p>He had glanced up at the light as he spoke, a white, -haggard smile, that bloodless look around the mouth. -Pity caught and controlled her. She had done him an -injustice already.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span>“You spoke of leaving New York for the west,” -she said.</p> - -<p>He laughed and shrugged, palms held upward.</p> - -<p>“How far? I mean where is your home?”</p> - -<p>He pointed to his cap lying on the arm of a chair, -as if to say that were his home.</p> - -<p>“I’ve got an aunt in Cleveland who wants me,” he -added. “A little quiet house away out on one of the -cross streets off Euclid, where there’s a room and eats -and a place to write. I’ll start to walk, I guess.”</p> - -<p>“Where are you staying in New York?”</p> - -<p>He was laughing at her. “A little den up in Union -Square—just a skylight. It’s a cell, Miss Musser, and -even there, I have to stay out until midnight to sneak -in without meeting the landlady.... Did you ever -sleep in a room that had no window?”</p> - -<p>“Mine has a window,” Pidge said.</p> - -<p>“Then this isn’t yours?” He pointed to the closed -folding doors of the inner room.</p> - -<p>“Oh, no. Mine’s up higher, but it has a window. -This is just a sitting room we sometimes use—Miss -Claes and I—the lodger being away.”</p> - -<p>“Oh,” he said queerly; then added with his haggard -smile: “So the color was put on too thick—that’s -too bad.”</p> - -<p>“Does Mr. Higgins know that you have been over -there in Tunis?” Pidge asked.</p> - -<p>“I figured he would, but maybe he will decide, as -you did, that I sat here in New York and stabbed at -that setting.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span>“I’ll place the story before him to-morrow. I could -say to him that you’ve been to the desert——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I wouldn’t. Don’t tell him that. I was hoping, -though, that you could tell him you liked it.”</p> - -<p>Pidge now looked up into a smile almost childlike -in its eager purpose.</p> - -<p>“Couldn’t you tell him that? Couldn’t you tell him -that—just for what others may find in the story?”</p> - -<p>The catch was in her throat again. His hand rested -lightly upon her shoulder; his smile was altogether disarming -in its wistfulness. She thought he couldn’t -mean what he said. She thought of the face in the baby -carriage in Santa Monica; of this tortured child of -whims and imaginations, in a room with no window, -and the pallor around his mouth. She didn’t like any -of it, but did not feel exactly separate from it. She -thought of a little box upstairs in her own room, of -the check her father had sent, which she had so far -refused to cash. She was in a blur, her sense of belonging -to Melton’s dilemma over all.</p> - -<p>“You can’t mean for me to tell Mr. Higgins what -I don’t believe,” she said. “I’ll ask him to read the -story to-morrow. If he’s against it, I could—I might -help you to pay for the room in Union Square, or—enough -to get to Cleveland.”</p> - -<p>Then the thing happened which she would have -apprehended, except for her pity and personal involvement -in his trouble. She was drawn in between the -open flaps of his coat, and held there against the soft -shirt which he wore. And all through her were his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span> -whispers—soft delighted laughter from lips that pressed -into her hair and cheeks, searching for hers.</p> - -<p>She had finally pushed him from her, and they stood -apart under the lamp. For a moment, they stared. -Then it seemed as if he studied her, as one who suddenly -revalues, doubles the value of an object. It was -the queerest, intensest scrutiny, his head cocked to one -side, the light and laughter returning to his eyes and -lips.</p> - -<p>“I knew I wasn’t safe to come here,” he said. “I -knew if you did like the story, I wasn’t safe to hear -the verdict. It was the idea of getting enough money -to escape from that room, to get back into Cleveland -and find myself——”</p> - -<p>Still she stared at him.</p> - -<p>“I don’t suppose you can ever forgive me, but it -broke me wide open, Miss Musser—to find what a -ripping sport you are!”</p> - -<p>“That’s about enough words,” she said.</p> - -<p>He looked down.</p> - -<p>“To-morrow,” she went on in a dreary tone, “you -may come here—I mean to the basement entrance, at -seven in the evening, and I’ll tell you Mr. Higgins’ -decision. If it’s against the story, I’ll do as I said -about your room rent and the fare to Cleveland.”</p> - -<p>His hands went out to her.</p> - -<p>“After what I did—you still want to do that?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, and now please go.”</p> - -<p>Pidge was up in her own room minutes afterward, -before she realized that it had happened under that -white lamp of Cobden’s “parlor.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XIII<br /> - -<small>“MOTHER”</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">“A MAN’S a fool before he learns technic,” -John Higgins said, as he leaned back from -a manuscript the next afternoon. “He’s -a cripple while he’s learning it. When he’s learned it -and forgotten he’s learned it—he begins to be a workman. -That’s the freedom of knowledge.... As for -this Tunis story of young Melton’s—it’s a subtle sort -of botch.”</p> - -<p>Rufus Melton came to the basement entrance at seven. -Even if Miss Claes had not gone out to dinner, Pidge -would not have taken him upstairs. He looked older, -his back had a curious droop. He glanced at her ruefully, -and around the room. Pidge stood beside the -table.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Higgins didn’t care for your story,” she said. -“It has happened unluckily all around.”</p> - -<p>His head had bowed before she began to speak. -His eyes came up to her now, full of contrition and -pain.</p> - -<p>“I think the hardest thing I ever did was to come -here to-night. Only one thing made it possible. I’d -have started west, only New York is a curious old -dump.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span>“How is that?” she asked warily.</p> - -<p>“You have to go north to go west. I mean the -only way out is north, for a pedestrian.”</p> - -<p>“You haven’t enough for the ferry or tube?”</p> - -<p>Their eyes met.</p> - -<p>“What I said last night holds good, you know,” she -said with effort.</p> - -<p>He turned slowly to the door as if in indecision, and -Pidge watched. She knew she could make him take the -money, but she wanted him to be ready to die first.</p> - -<p>“There was nothing in the other stories, either—from -Higgins’ point of view?” he asked.</p> - -<p>Pidge was white. She felt like an executioner. “The -package was mailed back to you to-day.”</p> - -<p>For just an instant his head was bowed again, half -turned to the door. Then he veered around and his -hand came out to hers.</p> - -<p>“Good night,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Good night. But you—that quiet room in Cleveland——”</p> - -<p>He shook his head with a slow, dawning smile.</p> - -<p>“It’s great to know you. I’ve heard about such -people being here in the Village, but it’s—‘It’s fourteen -miles from Schenectady to Troy.’”</p> - -<p>“It’s a long way to Albany before that,” she said.</p> - -<p>“It’s a long way to One-Hundred-and-Tenth Street, -Miss Musser, but it is easier than taking money from -a girl.”</p> - -<p>She breathed relief. “I came to fight it out here in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span> -New York on the same terms you did,” she said. “You -can pay me back.”</p> - -<p>Now his back was toward her, his face uplifted. -She saw his hand grope for the knob of the door, -and his shoulders rock weakly. She caught his arm -and pulled him back to a chair.</p> - -<p>“You see, you really couldn’t get away.”</p> - -<p>He had suffered her to lead him to a dining-room -chair, and sat very still, his head tilted back, eyes closed. -She took the little package of bills from her dress and -tucked it into his hand. There were voices in the hall; -a vague frown crossed his white temples.</p> - -<p>“What is it?” he said queerly.</p> - -<p>“You are faint. I’ll go with you to a near place -for something to eat. That’s all you need. Come—if -you can walk a little way.”</p> - -<p>He stood in a sort of confusion, holding the folded -bills in his hand as one would hold a card.</p> - -<p>“Put that in your pocket,” she said, but he did not -seem to comprehend.</p> - -<p>They were in the street, her hand steadying him. -They found a dim restaurant with a counter and a -few tables. He did not speak until the waiter came; -then asked for coffee. Pidge had taken the money -and thrust it into his coat pocket. Now she was tormented -with the fear that he would lose the small roll, -not knowing that he had it. She had not brought her -own purse. He would be forced to pay; then he would -have to see what he had.</p> - -<p>He drank the coffee first, then ate sparingly.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span>“I learned that in the desert,” he said at last.</p> - -<p>“Learned what, please?”</p> - -<p>“Not to go mad over the taste of food when one -has been without.”</p> - -<p>The girl who waited on the table looked devotedly -into Melton’s profile as she served. Twice as he started -to speak, the Sixth Avenue elevated crashed by outside -and he seemed to forget what he meant to say. It -seemed more true here in the restaurant than it had been -in the house in Harrow Street, that he was wonderfully -good to look upon. The realization held a small tumult -for Pidge. She was altogether different with him than -with any one else. They had finished, and still he -lingered.</p> - -<p>“I’m sorry. I hadn’t intended to come out. I left -my bag upstairs. Will you please pay?”</p> - -<p>To his illness, a look of embarrassment was now -added.</p> - -<p>“It’s in your pocket. Right there——”</p> - -<p>She pointed to his coat, and he drew out the bills -wonderingly.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I remember,” he said dully.</p> - -<p>While the waitress was away bringing the change, -he shoved the rest of the money across the table to -Pidge, but she pushed it back, saying quietly:</p> - -<p>“I want you to fix up the room rent and get a night -train west. We’ll say no more.”</p> - -<p>His lips whitened under a curious tightening.</p> - -<p>“Let’s get out in the dark,” he said roughly.</p> - -<p>They walked back to Eighth Street and over to the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span> -Avenue, entering the Square that way. The sooty grass -was soft and damp; the faintest trace of fog among -the trees.</p> - -<p>“You’ve got something on me,” he was saying -strangely. “You’re not like a girl, but like a woman -and a pal, too. You had something on me last night, -or I wouldn’t have fallen for you that way.”</p> - -<p>“When you get back to that Cleveland room—perhaps -a real story will come of all this.”</p> - -<p>“A real story,” he repeated.</p> - -<p>His eyes were bright and the pallor of his face intense -enough to be visible. She was conscious of his -inimitable charm as his head inclined to her and she -heard his words in the lowest possible tone:</p> - -<p>“Meeting you—that is the real story.”</p> - -<p>She pushed away his hand that had lifted to hers.</p> - -<p>“You’re all right now. I’m going back. Good night -and good luck.”</p> - -<p>He made no attempt to detain her.</p> - -<p>That night Pidge lay for a long time without sleep. -She was forlorn and troubled and restless, but underneath -it all there was a queer little throb of happiness, -like the recent night of the two letters. It would not -be stifled. Every time she could get still enough, she -was conscious of it, like the song of a bird that kept -on and on, but was only audible in the lulls of almost -unbroken traffic. She awoke in the night with the -thought of him speeding westward on his train.</p> - -<p>The next night when she came home there was another -letter from Los Angeles, another check dropped<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span> -out, and a clipping, which she read first—the wedding -announcement of “Adolph Musser, the noted metaphysician, -and Mrs. Hastings, wealthy widow of the -late Rab Gaunt Hastings, firearms manufacturer of -New England, at the Byzantine,” etc.</p> - -<p>Pidge didn’t have her guard up. The choke and -the shame were too swift for her self-control. For -the first time in many days the tears broke, the extra -scaldy sort. If she had only been permitted to keep -that first check uncashed for a few days longer!...</p> - -<p>The next was a day of dullness and misery, a May -day of rain. Crossing Broadway, as she hurried to -luncheon, she passed Rufus Melton in the crowd. Her -lips parted to call, but she checked in time. He hadn’t -seen her. She found herself standing loosely in the -traffic, her hand to her mouth, until a taxi driver roared -at her, and she swung into the stream of people again -and reached the curb.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XIV<br /> - -<small>ISOLATION</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">PIDGE was leveled with personal shame. Try as -she would, she was as lacking in the ability to -detach herself from Melton, as from the influence -of her father. She had felt the boy’s power over -her, and knew innately that she would feel it again; that -this sort of thing wasn’t a mere touch and go; that meetings -like this, which appear sporadic on the surface, -have twined roots beneath. She had been taught from -a child that nothing merely happens. The incentive that -made her lend him the fifty dollars, which she had held -uncashed for nearly a month, did not mean to her now -a mere impulsive mistake. It was a symbol of a giving -to this boy—of a blind but eager something out of the -depths of her heart.</p> - -<p>Late in June a letter came to her from Dicky Cobden, -who was at Coquihatville on the Equator, where as he -said, “the sun’s rays fall as straight as a tile from a -roof.”</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>... Oh, yes, you and Miss Claes knew a lot more -than I did that night at Tara Subramini’s. I shot off -a lot of words afterwards. Never again. But I’m -going to stay with it, Pidge.... I’ve just had ten<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span> -days here in the jungles, back on one of the tributaries -of the Kong. If I stayed long here, I would see it all -as these exiled white men do; that God is a rubber man -with ivory legs; that the natives are vermin, not only -to be walked over, but to be stamped into the ground. -They whimper so. It’s too hot here to be whimpered -at.... I think so much about you. Of course, this -isn’t news to you, but I say it, because it is so different -from what I thought it would be. Something snapped -when I got to the Kong.... All fat and decoration -are sweated off down here. I reach out to you just the -same. Only in New York I thought that we were both -wrapt in the same sort of film, a tinted filmy sort of -glamour that stretched out as we went different ways. -That film was stretched too hard. When I reached the -River it snapped. I think I’ll never get over feeling this -awful isolation of being a separate creature from everybody, -worst of all from you....</p> -</div> - -<p>... Next morning in the office John Higgins called -her in to his desk. “Dicky has sent in some stuff. We -begin to publish in August.”</p> - -<p>He took off his spectacles and wiped them on the -flap of his necktie. His eyes looked watery, as if the -light had run out in tears.</p> - -<p>“I’ve always heard that the Cobdens were honest,” -he went on, “three generations of honest men. They’ve -built something, Miss Musser. Not a business, that’s -well enough, but they’ve built a man. Listen——”</p> - -<p>He opened the pages at random and began to read. -It was like the stuff in her letter.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span>“It’s so for pages and pages,” he continued. “Every -word standing out, if you get the hang of it. No tint, -no art; just words, pain-born, separate like boulders in -a field. He has no hopes, yet he writes what he sees.... -Something seems to have happened to our Dicky, -besides Africa.... He watches the string of natives -coming in with their tusks; he watches the crocodiles -coming up to the blinding surface water; he watches -the big monkeys that live in twos, and the little monkeys -that live in troops. I don’t know what the world’ll get -out of this, but I know what I get out of it——”</p> - -<p>She saw that John Higgins was merely thinking out -loud. A few moments later he finished:</p> - -<p>“This stuff amounts to the most subtle and incredible -rearraignment of imperialistic cruelty, but Dicky -doesn’t mean it that way. He keeps repeating with -devilish calm that it isn’t so bad as it was. It’s no -particular nation, but all whites. He writes from the -standpoint of a white man who remembers Cortez in -Mexico, Pizarro in Peru, Warren Hastings in India, -Cecil Rhodes in Africa and our own dear religious -settlers bringing Yankee wits and rum and disease to -the red Indians. He turns over the pages of all -patriotic histories with a long stick as you would poke -the leaves from the face of a corpse you had made -yourself. His face tries to turn away; his stomach -retches, but he knows each man and each nation must -bury his own dead.”</p> - -<p>“‘Something seems to have happened to our Dicky, -besides Africa,’” Pidge repeated, when she was alone.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span>Summer days in New York, sleepy stewy days. The -low clouds made the nights hot. Pidge was used to -the “high sky” of Southern California where every inch -of shadow meant coolness, where cool night fell quickly -no matter how hot it had been in the sun, where there -were no afterglows, nor afterheats, and you wanted a -wrap the instant the sun went down. The meaning of -summer in New York became a cruel meaning, in the -little room off the area. It gave her an astonishing -grasp of what people suffered in the tenements.</p> - -<p>Two weeks after the copy arrived from Africa, the -galleys came up on the Cobden articles, and Pidge asked -permission to take a set home to show two friends of -Dicky’s in Harrow Street. John Higgins acquiesced. -Pidge delivered these to Miss Claes and forgot all -about it, until the next night when she returned to the -house after dinner, and Miss Claes called her from -the door of Cobden’s “parlor.”</p> - -<p>“Come in, Pidge, and we’ll shut everything out.”</p> - -<p>Nagar was within and the galleys were stretched out -under the light. Pidge had never seen Miss Claes and -Nagar quite like this. They appeared happy over something -they had found in Dicky Cobden’s isolation and -melancholy—happy as in the news of a legacy.</p> - -<p>“Why, don’t you see?” said Miss Claes strangely. -“He’s pondering on Life! He thinks he’s reporting—when -really he is giving himself to Life. The world -stretches out before his eyes without glamour, stripped. -He offers himself to it, but his writing contains a confession -with the weariness of the ages on it, that he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span> -has nothing to give—that he is a sham like all the rest. -There’s not a self-pose in all his pages.”</p> - -<p>Nagar had slipped out. Miss Claes came close and -added softly:</p> - -<p>“Richard is finer than we knew, Pidge. What happened -here in this house has prepared him—always the -wrecker before the builder.”</p> - -<p>“You mean, I’m the wrecker?”</p> - -<p>“You couldn’t have done differently.... Too bad -he isn’t to see Mohandas Gandhi. Nagar has received -word that the Little Man is returning to India. Richard -didn’t go to Natal first.”</p> - -<p>“He’ll be so sorry,” Pidge said. “It was Nagar’s -story that drew him to Africa——”</p> - -<p>Their eyes met; no need to amplify.</p> - -<p>“Dicky’s so deadly in earnest,” Pidge went on. “He -sees what he sees the same at ten in the morning and -at ten at night. His coming to Harrow Street didn’t -mean a whim. His part that night of our Punjabi -dinner didn’t mean a whim. Oh, but I’m so glad he -hasn’t started out to save the world!”</p> - -<p>“He’s preparing to work better than that.”</p> - -<p>“I feel so ungrateful for not missing him more,” -Pidge added unsteadily, “for not being more interested -in this that pleases you. I can appreciate, but oh, Miss -Claes, I don’t belong to your way of seeing things. I’ll -always be Dicky Cobden’s hangman, always hurting -myself more!”</p> - -<p>They were standing close together.</p> - -<p>“Nothing matters to me but myself!” Pidge moaned.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span> -“I’m hopelessly lost in myself—that’s what’s the matter! -What room have I for Africa or the world? -There’s more to me in the struggle of John Higgins not -to get drunk—in the body hunger and body love of -Fanny Gallup—in the lies of Rufus Melton! I can -understand this world-service thing—oh, I can see the -nations like chessmen on the table!—but I can’t fix -Fanny Gallup or John Higgins, I can’t fix Rufus Melton. -I can’t fix myself!”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XV<br /> - -<small>THE COBDEN INTERIOR</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">PIDGE heard about the assassinations in Bosnia -as wearily as of a murder in little Sicily. She -heard rumors of war in Europe with ennui—how -could there be energy enough left in the human -race to make war? She met Nagar in the lower hall -at Harrow Street on the evening that war became a -fact. He looked like a dead man walking in the twilight. -She didn’t see Miss Claes at all that night. -The next day in the office war began to show its personal -aspects to Pidge Musser of Los Angeles. John -Higgins was hours late in returning from lunch. She -saw that he wouldn’t be down at all to-morrow. He -looked old. He had on a black frock coat, as if dressed -for pallbearing, though his face looked as if he were -about to be borne himself. The little office was fumy, -sweetish.</p> - -<p>“Our blessed Savior moves in mysterious ways,” he -remarked.</p> - -<p>Pidge lingered at the door to get any significance -that this might have for her.</p> - -<p>“The Lord gives and the Lord takes away,” he added, -sitting back straight in his chair.</p> - -<p>He removed his spectacles and reached for the flare<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span> -of his tie to polish them off, but no tie dangled to-day. -It was a little black store-made bow, fastened with a -clip over the collar button. Pidge still lingered, her -hand on the knob.</p> - -<p>“Blessed be the name of the Lord,” said John Higgins, -“but it’s hell on us.”</p> - -<p>She started out, but was called back.</p> - -<p>“I need an audience, Miss Musser. I need a female -ear. I need ladylike sympathy. It isn’t sweet of you -to run off.”</p> - -<p>“What’s the matter?”</p> - -<p>The editor looked at her, squinted, put on his spectacles -and looked again.</p> - -<p>“Do you mean to say you don’t know what’s the -matter?”</p> - -<p>“Everything is the matter,” said Pidge. “But what’s -new?”</p> - -<p>His hand nearest her lifted and rested upon a pile -of page proof on his desk.</p> - -<p>“Dicky Cobden hasn’t written a line from the Kong -that we can publish. We’ve cabled him to come in, -though he’s probably started. You’ll recall that Belgium -lies between France and Germany. She’s holding -the Germans off from Paris, giving France and England -a chance to get set. Belgium’s the world’s public square -right now, the one vortexical spot on the face of the -earth. Doesn’t it occur to you that even a new angle -on her sins in the heart of Africa is about as much in -time and place right now, as Paul Revere’s ride?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span>... Three weeks later, she heard that Richard -Cobden was in town; that John Higgins had seen -him the night before. All that day at the office she -kept listening for his step and voice, but he didn’t come. -His car was in front of the Harrow Street house, however, -when she reached there, and a light showed -between the doors from his “parlor.” She lost some -of the sense of suffocation when she saw that, a curious -gladness for a moment. She tapped the door with her -finger tip, pulled the curtain aside ever so little and said:</p> - -<p>“Hello.”</p> - -<p>A quick step in the inner room; then he was before -her in the doorway, drawing her in under the light.</p> - -<p>“Pidge—Pidge,” he repeated.</p> - -<p>The boyish look was gone from him. He might -have been taken for ten years older. The thing had -happened that takes place abruptly in many Americans, -more among business men than artists: Youth had -been put away, its trace of divine humor exchanged -for adult seriousness.</p> - -<p>“Why didn’t you come to the office to-day, Dicky?” -she asked.</p> - -<p>“I wanted to see you here—like this.”</p> - -<p>They were standing under the light.</p> - -<p>“Why, you’re different,” she said.</p> - -<p>“John Higgins said that. They told me so at home, -uptown. I feel different, but it isn’t an improvement. -And you, Pidge, you’re taller. And John Higgins -says you’re doing so well.”</p> - -<p>“I’m thanking you every day for that——”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span>She kept thinking about the change in him. If this -were selflessness, she liked him better before. He had -been quite unselfish enough, she thought. She didn’t -see the fight in him, because it was so subtly identified -with herself. She only knew that he seemed without -fight.</p> - -<p>“Keep on your things, Pidge. We’ll go out somewhere——”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>That was the beginning of strange days and evenings. -They played at the old game of <i>Comrades</i>. Often they -lunched together, occasionally with John Higgins for -a third. At such times it seemed that they took <i>The -Public Square</i> with them, subscribers, advertisers, -contributors, policies. It was that curious time in -America when the personal and national meaning of -the European war was breaking through with all its -paralyzing ramifications; when all who were sensitive -at all reflected division and strife in themselves, as a -deep leveling sickness.</p> - -<p>Pidge was taken to the Cobden home, a new and -terrifically complicated modern apartment in East -Fiftieth Street, but the furnishings, the household -ceremonials, the people themselves, suggested prints of -New York interiors in 1870—respectable, established, -grim. The gradual speeding up of the world for a half -century to the explosive point of 1914 ended with the -click of the key in this hall door, and you were in the -world of another day, with a spinster aunt, a widowed -mother, an unmarried sister, a slowly disintegrating<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span> -grandfather, and Dicky himself, not in a different guise -at all—the same courteous, sincere Dicky, but now to -Pidge Musser’s western eyes, utterly, revealingly comprehensible. -This was the place that had made him. -This was his reason for being.</p> - -<p>Here life was life. Here was the family unit, the -family a globe, all human society moving outside like -the water around a bubble; a closed globe reflecting all -else in curious unreality. Here three-score-and-ten was -life, and a very long time. Life wasn’t a spiritual experiment, -in matter; not an extension in matter of -souls that had made innumerable such experiments, but -straight work-a-day three-score-and-ten with oblivion -at the birth end, and heaven or hell at the other. Here -was All Time, in which it behooved man and woman -to gather worldly goods and religious goods and love -one another and hang together—for the rest was with -God. Here senility was dear. The heavy-bodied, dim-minded -grandfather was still grandfather, not the vanishing -spirit of him. They would weep when the body -passed. They would look to his place in the cemetery -and say, “Here he lies.”</p> - -<p>Pidge Musser wanted to scream, not at the limitations, -but at the kindness which was showered upon -her. They were ready to perform the great transaction -of taking her in, opening their hearts and house to a -maiden, who would bring respectable additions to the -Cobden line—sharing wealth, well-being, gentleness, the -Cobden name which had been kept clean and useable -and virile, and the Cobden God, who stood on the other<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span> -side of death with angelic associates and rewards in -His hands.</p> - -<p>Pidge continually felt that her next word would ruin -everything; yet they unswervingly regarded her as becoming -one with themselves; the process of assimilation -already begun. They were patient, knowing of old that -a new maiden would have incrustations of the world -to check off, inequalities to be planed down. They -set about not adjusting to her, but as she fancied, -assimilating her, as the changeless Chinese assimilate -a weaker race, breaking down the foreigner in themselves. -She would become theirs to them with the -years.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Dicky,” Pidge said, when they were in his car -again. “I see. I understand. How did you dare to -open those doors to me!”</p> - -<p>“I spoke of you at home, Pidge. They wouldn’t -have understood if I hadn’t brought you soon. They -were prepared to open their arms to you. They have -their laws——”</p> - -<p>“But they are your laws. Dicky—how did you dare? -Is it because you don’t know me, don’t see me at all? -Do you see something which you want to see, that has -nothing to do with me?”</p> - -<p>“What is it that troubles you so?”</p> - -<p>“Myself—always and forever myself! Oh, don’t -you see I have nothing to do with them? Why, you’re -comfortable, Dicky—your people are comfortable! -<i>This</i> is life to you—this, here and now! It isn’t to -me. Life’s an exile to me, a banishment and coldness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span> -and pain. In all New York there are not two such -opposites. My God is far away. Yours is here—a -Person.”</p> - -<p>He answered hopelessly: “I can see how it would -strike you, but I couldn’t cover up on account of that. -I belong to them. I’m of them. Any front I might -put on wouldn’t wear. You had to see us, Pidge——”</p> - -<p>Another time she might have seen the fine thing -back of those words, but she took such finenesses of -Richard Cobden for granted, while he rarely could -understand that she saw anything but his faults.</p> - -<p>“It’s queer,” he said, in the same dull hopeless way. -“I stand to you as the most staid and changeless person, -but to my family I am dangerous, a fulminant. -They love and trust me, but watch me with fierce concern. -Already I’ve broken more Cobden convictions -in twenty-five years than all my relatives in all their -years.”</p> - -<p>His face glanced wearily toward her from the lights -of the street, as he drove.</p> - -<p>“You’ve let me understand too much for one Sunday -afternoon,” she said in an awed voice, “and it feels -colder and lonelier than ever before. I even see something -of the coming years, Dicky. I see that it means -Fate, when you say ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ I see that you turn -to a girl to stay. I see you don’t cheat. I see that -I’m volatile compared; that my honesty is a fierce effort, -a deadly self-conscious effort, and yours is an established -habit. I’m clumsy at my honesty. I love it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span> -terribly, but it is still on the outside of me—something -to attain.”</p> - -<p>She sank back, laughing. “I wonder if it will stay -as deadly clear as this?”</p> - -<p>“You are not making it quite clear to me,” he said.</p> - -<p>“I must. Oh, I must. Dicky, please open your soul -and listen to me—hard, hard! While it’s clear, I must -talk. You’ve chosen to be my friend. You’ve chosen -not to take the easier course of hating me. I understand -all that better now than the night of the Punjabi -dinner.”</p> - -<p>“I do, too,” said Cobden, and bitterness of the African -rivers was in his words.</p> - -<p>“Do I have to begin by saying how dear you are—how -kind, how utterly good it is to know you; what -it means to have faith and trust in one man?”</p> - -<p>“Please not, Pidge.”</p> - -<p>“But never forget it, Dicky. It’s the pedestal upon -which everything’s builded. Always remember that I -know you underneath; that I turn to you in trouble—not -like a brother or father or lover, but what our -word <i>comrade</i> means—what it will sometime mean to -many people! That’s you. But, Dicky, because I -know you—I can look away! Don’t you see—you’re -like something done! Having found you, I can turn -to other things.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll try to see that, but most people find each other -differently, to stay——”</p> - -<p>“It’s because they don’t find what I’ve found. I -don’t know what I want, only I know there are terrible<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span> -undone things in me, that other people stir to life. -I’m lost in persons. Miss Claes and Nagar lose themselves -in nations. You’re getting to be like them, but -I see it all in the personal!... Listen, Dicky, if you -were to get a woman to take to your house—one ready -to go in and be a Cobden and a mother of Cobdens—I -could love her! I could hold to you just as close, -though secretly. I would expect you to be my <i>comrade</i> -just the same—I mean just between us—never on the -outside, perhaps. What I mean is, it wouldn’t hurt -me—not the thing we have together.”</p> - -<p>His car had come to a stand in the stillness of Harrow -Street, but still they sat.</p> - -<p>“What you mean is—you haven’t any place for me -as a lover or a husband.”</p> - -<p>“That’s like you, but that’s it.... Dicky, you mean -to me something done, something found. I don’t dare -to turn to you and rest. The savage undone things in -me <i>won’t</i> rest! They demand experiences, life—and -no one knows better, that they mean pain ... and oh—under -your lamp—it’s horrible to tell it, but you’ll -forgive me later, when you see that it had to be -told——”</p> - -<p>“What are you talking about, Pidge?”</p> - -<p>“Under your lamp—in there! He came about a -manuscript. He was broke and needed help—all his -stories refused. He asked to see me that night. Miss -Claes’ basement was occupied. She sent him up. We -talked. He wanted something, money, everything.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span> -Under your light—he took me to him, his coat -open——”</p> - -<p>Cobden startled her, as he cleared his throat. The -silence between them had been so deep.</p> - -<p>“It meant nothing to him! He was used to it. It -was only his way to get something—money most, he -wanted. It was just as he might take a waitress or hall -maid—used to having girls ‘fall for’ him. This is -what I mean—though I understand him, a theatrical -mind, a liar—life meant something to me that instant, -that it never meant before. Something I must do, -something calling—pain, but something I haven’t -done!”</p> - -<p>“You mean—you mean—it isn’t over?”</p> - -<p>“Just that, Dicky, and oh, forgive me! I may not -see <i>him</i> ever again, but <i>something in me</i> isn’t ‘over.’ I -had to tell you—to be honest, to learn to be honest. -You’ll be glad some day!”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XVI<br /> - -<small>DICKY FEELS A SLUMP</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">IT was nearly a week afterward when Pidge heard -sounds, not of meeting only, but of mauling, from -over the partitions of Richard Cobden’s office at -<i>The Public Square</i>. Her desk was now in John Higgins’ -room. The racket was “young”—something of -the sort you expect in a college fraternity house, rather -than in the editorial rooms of a magazine of dignified -social protest and short story ideals. John Higgins -winced and glared. Now the stranger’s voice was -upraised:</p> - -<p>“You’re not seedy, Dick—you’re decayed! If Africa -treats a man like that, I’m off the Sahara for life.”</p> - -<p>Pidge heard this with something of the sense of -personal arraignment. The ugly part was that it was -true, and it hadn’t been the truth a week before. Dicky -had been changed when he arrived, but the change since -their ride home from his mother’s apartment in Fiftieth -Street was more definitely disturbing. She found John -Higgins’ eyes upon her and started guiltily. He leaned -forward to whisper:</p> - -<p>“It’s a fact. Something’s eating our Dicky. He’s -losing his bounce.”</p> - -<p>For once, Pidge did not altogether blame herself.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span> -There had been no two ways about telling him what had -happened under the light. She had been challenged to -speak on their first evening together after his return, -challenged every hour of the week afterward; and yet -it was not until after the words were out, spoken in -her particularly ruthless and unequivocal way, that she -actually saw the power of their hurt.</p> - -<p>In Africa Dicky had stripped himself of hope, in the -most complete way he knew. Africa is said to have a -way of helping a man in this. Doubtless he had winnowed -this hope down to a semi-impersonal concept, -that straight, clean devotion would win its reward. But -Africa alone was one thing, and New York with Pidge -was another. He had been entirely innocent of the possibilities -of pain his heart was capable of.</p> - -<p>Still they went out together. They tried, furiously -tried, but the star toward which they had held their -eyes, the star named <i>Camaraderie</i>, was for the present -out of their sky. She tried to give herself in -interest to his particular studies of world politics. His -views had nothing to do with intuition or prophecy. -Dicky gripped affairs on an academic basis of economics, -and the only light he had to work with in -relation to the turmoil in Europe was from the same -friction that had furnished his sparks in Africa—the -pain of his own heart. He told her of the delicate -and dangerous adjustments between the nations, as -he saw them; the organic play, the push and pull on -every national boundary; the draw of Russia upon -India, for instance; the grim hold of the British bulldog;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span> -the interatomic play of India, Ireland and Egypt; -the poison vats of the Balkans, the frowning menaces -of the Levant. One night he spoke of Italy’s inner -and outer stresses, and of her age-old hatred for -Austria.</p> - -<p>“And Pidge,” he said quietly, “you won’t mind my -saying it, will you? I see it all so clearly when I talk -to you. I know you’ll tell me that you don’t know -anything about these things. You always tell me that, -but you certainly make me know them better.”</p> - -<p>And another time when they were going out together -in the evening and she had come down from the -upper floor with her wrap which he took for a moment:</p> - -<p>“I’m sure you won’t mind, Pidge,” he said, “if I -tell you that the little things you wear quite take me -over. They actually hurt, and I never saw you look -quite like to-night.”</p> - -<p>This was the quality—more like the words of an -older man; a touch of sentimentality upon them, as if -he were diminished in her presence, something in him so -whipped it did not dare appear on the surface. This was -unpleasant to Pidge. The changeless want in his heart -suffocated her at times; then her affection changed to -revolt. She became irritable and uncentered, her temper -hard to govern. She wanted freedom—freedom for -something utterly undelineated, but freedom to Life -(in Miss Claes’ meaning of that word of words) and -she saw him in such times as one who stood in her way.</p> - -<p>One night in the little upper room, in her own particular -time of self-revelation, as Pidge lay on the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span> -borderland between sleep and waking, she saw herself -like an ogre, and Dicky Cobden like a terrified child -in a great house, and she was driving him from one -room to another, from one floor to another, to an inevitable -cornering in the farthest wing.</p> - -<p>Finally an early October evening, and again his car -had halted before 54 Harrow Street. Pidge sat beside -him, but Dicky had not opened the door.</p> - -<p>“Pidge,” he said suddenly, “I’ve got to the end of -my rope. I’m not making good. I’m all blurred on -what we’re trying to do. It’s—it’s too much for me -here.... I don’t want France or Flanders. I’m going -into the Near East for <i>The Public Square</i> and a newspaper -syndicate.”</p> - -<p>“I knew it. I felt it coming, at least,” she said. -“And I’ve failed, too, all the time. But, Dicky, back -of everything, I know there must be somebody laughing -at our seriousness and stupidity. We’ll see the puzzle -straight some time. You’ll see.”</p> - -<p>They both were sitting straight up.</p> - -<p>“Nobody’s—nobody’s shoulder?” he asked with terrible -effort.</p> - -<p>“No, Dicky. It would only fog us up—all the more.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XVII<br /> - -<small>NEW LODGERS FOR HARROW STREET</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">PIDGE MUSSER was ending her second year -in the editorial rooms of <i>The Public Square</i>, -when a short story came in from Rufus Melton. -Meanwhile, his work had begun to appear in magazines -of large popular appeal. This manuscript, called <i>The -Boarded Door</i>, had doubtless not fitted into any of -them. The chief thing about the story to Pidge was -that her cheeks burned as she read.</p> - -<p>This made her angry. Another thing, the story -was so familiar to her. She seemed to be in and out -of Melton’s mind, hearing his typewriter, understanding -even his corrections. But also she saw what the -author could not—his fluctuations of fancy, which -uncentered the tale.</p> - -<p>“He’s beginning to be read,” said John Higgins. -“It’s not a bad story. We’d better take it.”</p> - -<p>“It is not his best work. There’s a cavity in it,” -said Pidge. “If it were by a new name altogether, -we’d write the author suggesting that he work over the -weak part.”</p> - -<p>“Do it,” said John Higgins.</p> - -<p>Pidge laughed nervously. “He won’t like it,” she -said.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span>“Don’t mind that. Rufus Melton can write. He’ll -have his hour, but go ahead and scuttle the ship, young -woman. We don’t care about pleasing our passengers.”</p> - -<p>Back at her own desk, Pidge was smitten with the -idea that she wasn’t being fair. In the course of reading -Melton’s story, she had not once forgotten that he -had failed to pay back that fifty dollars. Not only that, -Rufus Melton hadn’t mentioned it; and he was said -to be making money right now. She had to write the -letter to Melton three times. Films of ice formed on -the sentences and had to be skimmed off, in spite of her -most rigid effort. She carried the sheet, signed by -“The Editors,” to John Higgins, with a restless feeling -that damage was done.</p> - -<p>“That’s just like what Dicky Cobden would say,” -he remarked, handing it back. “Send it along with the -manuscript.”</p> - -<p>Pidge wasn’t allowed to forget Dicky Cobden, though -Richard, himself, was across the world and remained -across, apparently groping to find the exact antipodes -from Washington Square, New York. Between Miss -Claes’ affection for him and John Higgins’ and -Nagar’s; considering her occasional use of his “parlor” -in Harrow Street and her daily use of his old desk -in the office, to say nothing of the position she occupied -through his kindness and care—no, she wasn’t being -allowed to forget.</p> - -<p>About the same time that Rufus Melton’s story came -in to the office, a dingy bit of white paper came to -Harrow Street for Pidge. It was like a paper you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span> -would see in the street around a public school building. -Pidge was awed at the unfailing magic of the post-office -authorities, that the letter had ever been delivered. -It was from Fanny Gallup, who had married Albert -and left the pasting table shortly after Pidge’s change -of fortune. Pidge had seen Fanny but once in the -meantime, but had asked her to write or telephone in -case of need.</p> - -<p>Pidge found the hall designated in the third floor -of a condemned building in Foley Street, and was -directed to a door through which came the sounds of -a crying child. Her knock was answered, and the caller -gradually realized through the shadows that she was -being grinned at. She smiled back, wondering if the -shoeless creature were Fanny’s sister or mother. She -wore no outer waist and a heavy plaid skirt that was -splashed with wash water. An infant shrank into -the hollow curve of her body, and another child sat -wailing on the wet floor behind.</p> - -<p>“I thought you’d come, Musser.”</p> - -<p>It was Fanny herself. Pidge had crossed the threshold -to look into eyes in which hate and hunger moved -in a narrow orbit; narrow like the wet spot on the -floor, in which the first-born played. Tired back, -draggled hair, merely a stretched and faded vestige -of a girl was Fanny Gallup now. Laugh and street -talk were gone for the time, at least; gone as Albert, -the barber, as much a myth as ever, so far as Pidge -was concerned, though the place hypothecated a male -parent. These three remaining seemed purposeless bits<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span> -of life which a perverted scheme permitted to live on.</p> - -<p>Pidge hated herself for becoming involved in the -complication. For the moment, she hated New York -that could not keep itself clean. No rent, no food, somebody -else’s washing in the tubs, and the rags of Fanny -and her children unwashed.</p> - -<p>“... No, it ain’t no good to think of staying, -Musser, because they’re tearing the buildin’ down.”</p> - -<p>“How much rent do you owe?”</p> - -<p>“Five weeks. But it ain’t no good to pay that, -because I got to get out anyway. Gawd, Redhead, -you look like a doll in a window!”</p> - -<p>“Is there any place around here where you can go?”</p> - -<p>“It’s hard to get in with the two, and you’d have -to pay a month in advance,” Fanny said.</p> - -<p>“How soon do you have to leave here?”</p> - -<p>“Four days. That’s why I sent the letter.”</p> - -<p>“Have you got any—anything to eat?”</p> - -<p>“That’s why I sent the letter. That’s why they keep -squalling all the time.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll be back before dark,” Pidge said, turning into -the hall.</p> - -<p>“You’ll—sure—come—back?”</p> - -<p>“Sure,” called Pidge.</p> - -<p>She returned with her arms full of groceries, and -went home promising to come back the next afternoon.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>“... Bring them here. There is no other way,” -Miss Claes said.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span>“But they’re not clean!” Pidge moaned. “They are -too sick to keep clean.”</p> - -<p>“We can freshen them up a little,” said Miss Claes.</p> - -<p>“But there’s nothing Fanny can do, unless the two -children are taken from her. I mean she’s held to the -room with them now, and they’ve been crying so long -that they can’t stop. They both cry at once, and she -doesn’t hear them; they look and listen for a second -and then go on crying. If one stops, he hears the -other. The place smelled like a sty, and the packages -of food I brought got wet and spoiled before they -were opened.”</p> - -<p>“Forget about them until to-morrow, Pidge, and -then get a taxicab and bring them here. I’ve got a -second-floor room toward the back.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XVIII<br /> - -<small>AN OUTER CHANGE</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">MISS CLAES standing by the table in her -own room heard a step upon an upper stairway; -not on the immediate basement stairs, -but of one descending from the second to the first -landing. The tread was deliberate. She heard it now -in the hall directly above. Miss Claes moved to the -door, her hand against her cheek; then back to stand -by the table again. Now the step was on the basement -stairs. A fire was burning in her grate, and that was -the main light of the room, for the winter morning was -very gray. The table was prepared for one—plate and -cup of ruddy gold, a cutting of white hyacinth in a -purple vase. The footsteps approached in the basement -hall; a heavy bag was placed down outside Miss Claes’ -door; then Nagar appeared, a dark hat and an overcoat -upon his arm. He came forward, and the two stood -together for a moment.</p> - -<p>“At least this once, I can serve you,” Miss Claes -said.</p> - -<p>Nagar smiled as he sat down to the table. Miss Claes -went into the kitchen and presently brought a pot -of tea in a Chinese basket and a covered dish. She -filled a goblet from the water bottle, and stood behind<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span> -his chair while Nagar ate. The house was strangely -silent.</p> - -<p>Nagar arose. They stood together again for a -moment by the mantel. He spoke in Hindi, and she -listened, like one already weary, hearing of more things -to do. Not until she smiled, did he turn away. She -did not follow to the door, nor look toward the window, -as he passed up the steps to the street. After a long -time, she stepped to the cabinet for a cigarette and lit -it standing by the fireplace.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XIX<br /> - -<small>FANNY DRIES HER TEARS</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">FANNY GALLUP was taking life easy. She -had not been separated from her children, but -relieved for the present from the hunger drive -to support them. Pidge helped to pay Fanny’s room -and board, but didn’t miss the fact that the main expense -fell upon Miss Claes.</p> - -<p>“There is a little fund back of me for just such -cases, Pidge,” Miss Claes said. “I rarely divulge the -fact, but there is no reason in the world why you should -be inconvenienced.”</p> - -<p>“Except that I brought her here——”</p> - -<p>“I asked you to.”</p> - -<p>“Except that she called on <i>me</i> in her trouble, and -I worked elbow to elbow with her for four months, -and she pulls out the very devil from me every time -I see her.”</p> - -<p>“Your feeling of responsibility is what makes you -what you are—I never miss that, Pidge. If you weren’t -so hard and straight on all the tricky little matters of -dollars and cents, you can be very sure I’d never tell -you my secret of secrets, about the fund.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll have to pay what I can, if only because I hate<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span> -to so. But I can never pay for bringing her to your -house.”</p> - -<p>Miss Claes laughed. “That is only the way you see -it. Fanny isn’t heavy on us here. Not at all. It’s the -dear, possessive Pidge that is hurt. Do you suppose -I am torn by what goes on in the rooms and halls? Not -torn beyond repair from day to day, at least. Fanny’s -only a little more simple than most, a little less secretive.”</p> - -<p>“She’s unmoral,” Pidge declared solemnly. “The -awful thing is, she doesn’t learn. Life passes through -her like a sieve, leaves its muck on her, and she doesn’t -learn.”</p> - -<p>Philosophy seldom helped Pidge; she had heard too -much of it, and money was invariably a serious affair. -In the California life there had never been enough -money for all needs. Adolph Musser was unable to do -without what he wanted, even though the immediate -tradespeople of the neighborhood were frequently -forced to. The metaphysician relied upon the Law of -Providence to take care of them; and this had hacked -and hewed into Pidge’s disposition; this had meant -red war to her soul up to the last hour in her father’s -house.</p> - -<p>Here in New York the fight had been different. -Even with Miss Claes mysteriously back of her from -the beginning, she had faced, in her first few months -in New York, the ugly candor of starvation. There was -established in Pidge both from Los Angeles and New -York experiences, a determination to fix herself unrockingly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span> -on her own feet in a financial way; and now, -just as she might have gotten a bit ahead, was the -expense of Albert’s children, and the claims of their -mother, which were getting to look as interminable -to Pidge as a ninety-nine years’ lease.</p> - -<p>Another trouble was that Fanny was beginning to -show fresh traces of her sense of the “fun of the thing.” -Her spine was stiffening a little with good food and rest, -and curious little suggestions of starch showed in lips -and hair and breast that had been utterly draggled. -She was often seen hanging over the banisters; sure -indication of renewal of life and hope. She didn’t weep -over the departed Albert; in fact, Pidge Musser observed, -as an added revelation of the hatefulness of -life, that Fanny was back on the scene looking for a man—not -earnestly, not passionately, but without compunction -and entirely unwhipped. Fanny granted that she -was nobody, that she never had been; but that was no -sign why she should pass up anything that was going -by. Pain and hunger were forgotten like a sickness.</p> - -<p>One night as she was coming in, Pidge heard Fanny’s -low laugh on the floor above, as she ran upstairs in -time to shoo a lodger from Fanny’s arms in the doorway. -Then she followed into the littered room and -a light was made. The two women faced. The laugh -remained unwithered on Fanny’s cheerful face.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Musser, you look so cross,” she panted.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you remember—?” Pidge began.</p> - -<p>“Remember wot?”</p> - -<p>“What you were in that beast’s nest in Foley Street?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span>“That’s what you always want, Musser, always want -me to keep rememberin’, just as I’m getting straightened -out.”</p> - -<p>The fashion of Fanny’s straightening out settled -upon Pidge, as she looked around the room. Its awfulness -was beyond tears to her, even beyond laughter.</p> - -<p>“Fanny Gallup, if you bring another baby here, -I’ll—I’ll——”</p> - -<p>“There ain’t going to be no other baby here, Musser. -I ain’t nobody’s chicken like that.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XX<br /> - -<small>THEY WALK IN CIRCLES</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">ONE day just as Pidge was finishing luncheon -with John Higgins, she was startled to hear -Melton’s voice. He moved around their table -with a fling of his coat tails and held out both his hands. -It actually sounded, though she never was sure, as if he -said something like, “I’ve been looking everywhere for -you.”</p> - -<p>Pidge fancied a sort of rueful wonder on the old -editor’s face, as he announced his haste to get back -to the office, and bolted out.... She was recalling -the baby carriage in Santa Monica. Melton’s face was -slightly broader, she thought, and the poise of young -success was upon it. One thing she had never known -before was how remarkably well his curly head was -placed upon its shoulders. The neck was not merely -a nexus, but a thing of worth in itself, with arch and -movement which made him look taller and intimated -something light and fleet, touching memories which -Pidge could not quite grip.</p> - -<p>They were together in the street. Melton had asked -her to walk with him to his bank. He seemed on both -sides of her at once, his hand drawing her deftly this -way and that through the crowd, his chat and laughter<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span> -in her ears, and an old indescribable weariness and helplessness -in herself.</p> - -<p>“... Sure, I could have hunted you up. In fact, -I would have done it eventually, but I haven’t been in -New York all the time; running back west to get my -stuff up, now and then.”</p> - -<p>“I thought you lived in New York,” Pidge said.</p> - -<p>“I keep an apartment in East Twenty-fourth Street,” -he granted.</p> - -<p>A lull for just an instant before he went on:</p> - -<p>“You see, it’s handy to my publishers, and my bank -is only a square or two away.”</p> - -<p>Pidge wished she could accept him for just what -he seemed—the upstart American in literature. She -wished to forget everything else, save the youth who -said, in effect, “This is my bank, this is my solicitor, -this is my publisher.” But she could not smile her -scorn and pass on. She felt like the parent of a child -showing off. Back of the tinkle and flush of these big -days of his, which he seemed to be drinking in so -breathlessly, she felt more than ever that thing about -him which was imprisoned. A thing it was that called -to her, kept calling beseechingly.</p> - -<p>“I’ll never forget,” he said, speaking of the fifty -dollars—“I’ll never forget that night, when I left you—and -the fog in the Square. Everything was different, -after that.”</p> - -<p>“You didn’t go to Cleveland that night, as you said,” -she declared, watching the curve of his black lashes.</p> - -<p>The eyes darted her way.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span>“Lucky, I didn’t,” he said. “God! How I wanted -to! New York had me bluffed that night, before you -came to the rescue.”</p> - -<p>“Why didn’t you go?”</p> - -<p>“I was up close to Grand Central with my bag, when -the idea struck me—the idea that has since come out in -the story series that has caught on. I could hardly -realize that I had your money. I kept it in my hand—the -hand in my pocket. That was a turning point in -a life. New York had frightened me pretty nearly -to death—the hunger thing, you know. All I wanted -on earth was to crawl into that train for Cleveland, -but it was as if you were calling on me to stay.”</p> - -<p>She turned in pain and amazement. He was looking -straight ahead and talking softly. She saw every twist -and drive of his mind as he dramatized the situation -unfolding to him. He was deeply absorbed in the pictures -which his fertile brain uncovered one by one. -It hurt her like the uncovering of something perverted -in herself.</p> - -<p>“Don’t go on like that,” she said. “You’re not -working now. You are just walking in the street. -You mustn’t make stories when you talk.”</p> - -<p>He glanced at her sorrowfully, as one realizing in -himself a truth so big that he is willing to wait for it -to be believed.</p> - -<p>“It is God’s truth,” he said. “That was the turning -point in my career—that night—the night I turned back -from the train. It was as if you were calling me, and -it was as if the idea came from you. I knew I had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span> -to stay on and do the work here, close to the markets.”</p> - -<p>She looked into his face and laughed.</p> - -<p>“And you could forget me—forget the fifty dollars -for nearly a year!”</p> - -<p>“I don’t blame you for talking that way. I expect -to be misunderstood—not me, but the thing I stand -for.”</p> - -<p>She was hushed. Could he mean that he suffered -in conscious conflict? Could it be that he was aware -at all of that imprisoned thing she saw back of his eyes? -He had halted, and now she turned again for him to -go on.</p> - -<p>“I hoped that you, you of all, might understand,” -he said. “Why, it was from you that the whole thing -started.”</p> - -<p>He seemed actually to be making himself believe -it. She felt herself trying to give him the benefit -of the doubt.</p> - -<p>“Do you know you’re changed?” he said, in sudden -exultation. “Do you know you’re five times as charming? -What’s happened?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing has happened,” said Pidge.</p> - -<p>“It was the strangest shock, in the restaurant when -I saw you. I knew it was you, and yet you’ve put on -something—out of the ordinary.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t.... I must go back to the office now.”</p> - -<p>“The bank is just half a block. We’ve been walking -in circles. I hadn’t a check in my pocket.... I wanted -to walk with you anyway. Do you really have to get -back to the office?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span>“Oh, yes.”</p> - -<p>“Couldn’t you—couldn’t we go down on the river -or to a show somewhere? I know what you’re thinking: -that if this meant so much to me, how could I -let it go for nearly a year. But you’ll understand. -You’ll see what I mean and what I’m up against. The -thing was too big for me to rush in. I had to wait. -But now that you’ve come, I can’t let you go.”</p> - -<p>“I must go back.”</p> - -<p>“To-night then. Couldn’t I meet you at <i>The Public -Square</i> at five and have supper?”</p> - -<p>“Oh no. I must go home—first.”</p> - -<p>“May I call for you at Harrow Street, say at seven, -or before that? Say, couldn’t we go to that old restaurant -where we went that night?”</p> - -<p>This idea had come to Pidge before he spoke; exactly, -perhaps, as it caught his fancy.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I could——” Pidge cleared her voice, and -spoke again above the roar of the street. “Yes, I -could.”</p> - -<p>Then because she had lifted her voice, she seemed -to hear her own tones unforgetably, as if her soul -echoed back the words.</p> - -<p>“But I must hurry back now,” she added.</p> - -<p>“Let’s get this bank thing finished.”</p> - -<p>But when they reached the door of the bank they -found it closed for the rest of the day.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXI<br /> - -<small>THE DINNER COAT</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">JOHN HIGGINS came up through the newspapers -and magazine editorial rooms in those brave days -when a typewriter did not always go with a man’s -desk, but a cuspidor nearly always. Even yet, the editor -of <i>The Public Square</i> tucked a piece of fine-cut between -his cheek and lower jaw after breakfast in the -morning, and forgot about it just so long as it was -there. The fact that he smoked from time to time -caused no inconvenience to the wad of shredded leaf. -He complained of indigestion and gave himself wholeheartedly -to various forms of diet.</p> - -<p>He kept Pidge Musser close at hand during these -trying war days. His former stenographer languished. -John Higgins found a singular peace in working with -Pidge and was innocent enough to discuss it. He was -an old integer so far as women were concerned, never -getting beyond the rare confession (when a few drinks -ripened his mind) that he had had a mother once. He -didn’t hate women; nothing like that. He had just -merely walked around them as you walk around the -shore of an ocean. He wasn’t born with a bathing suit -and the idea of taking off his shoes and stockings made<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span> -him hoarse with fright. Pidge, however, had crept in -through the business door, and John Higgins awoke to -find her at his side.</p> - -<p>Pidge found him like a somber relative of the elder -generation, when she returned from her hectic walk -with Melton that afternoon, but for once she could forget -John Higgins easily. Twenty times in her mind, -at least, Pidge went over the talk and walk with Melton, -her face often turned away to the window with a sad -but scornful smile. She thought it out with hard sophistication, -all that he had said of receiving inspiration -from her, but underneath she wanted it to be so; and -deep among the secrets of herself, she felt that what he -said was possibly truer than he knew.</p> - -<p>Had he known that the bank would be closed? She -would soon learn about that, for he had promised to -bring the check to-night. Even if he didn’t, she could -never forget that <i>calling</i> to her, back of his actor eyes—calling -like a child of her own. New York whirled by -below; the manuscripts were piled high in front and -side. A Mecca letter came in from Richard Cobden, -intimating that he might go to India. Even that did -not arouse John Higgins, nor startle Pidge Musser -from the painful web she was in.</p> - -<p>Melton was at the basement entrance at seven. As -Pidge went down to meet him, Fanny Gallup was -coming up. They met in the second hall. Fanny stood -in the gaslight, her arms open wide, her dress open at -the breast, her eyes laughing.</p> - -<p>“I saw him, Redhead. He’s a God-awful, that boy.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span> -Don’t you bring no little baby to this house! I won’t -stand for it.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Melton wore a black cape coat, a dinner coat beneath. -Pidge felt as if she had left all her light in the second -hall. She was exasperated with herself for pushing -past Fanny and not taking the joke gracefully, exasperated -with Melton for togging up to come to Harrow -Street, to take her to that old eating house. Couldn’t -he resist showing off for just one hour?</p> - -<p>Some awe seemed to have fallen upon him, or rather -between them. In silence they rounded the almost empty -curve of Harrow Street, and presently entered the -crowds and lights and crashes of trestled Sixth Avenue. -On the corner, as they crossed Eighth Street, Pidge -heard a newsboy behind say, “There goes a movie -actor.” Pidge deeply knew what that grimed child-face -had seen.... It troubled Melton to find the restaurant, -and she didn’t help, though she had located it a score -of times since that other night. At the table, while they -waited, he took a fifty-dollar check from his pocket and -handed it over, saying that the real part of the favor he -would try to pay bit by bit through the years.</p> - -<p>“Because I’ll never get very far from you again,” -he added queerly. “Find it very funny, don’t you? Sit -there chuckling, don’t you? You can laugh, but it’s -true.”</p> - -<p>Now Melton began to ask for things which weren’t -on the bill-of-fare. He told the waitress how things -should be prepared and served—this in a side-street eating<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span> -house, that specialized in beans and encouraged -counter trade. There were hard lines around the mouth -of the waitress which Melton commented upon, as she -turned her back. Pidge had a warning to hold her -temper, and yet she would have died first.</p> - -<p>“I’ve never worked in a restaurant,” she said, “but -I’ve worked in a factory, and I know what those lines -come from. They come from dealing with people like -you, people who forget where they are, forget what they -come for.”</p> - -<p>“How do I forget where I am?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Because you don’t know that this is a place where -they serve ‘eats.’ ‘Eats’ are cooked all one way. ‘Eats’ -are served fast in business hours, and the waiters sit -around and gasp the other times, trying to catch up with -themselves. And you don’t know where you are, because -you try to show these people and me that you’ve -seen how it was done in uptown hotels.”</p> - -<p>A trace of sullenness showed in his eyes, and then -a warmth of almost incredible delight.</p> - -<p>“It’s great! I never was scolded in my life!”</p> - -<p>“It wasn’t for supper alone—that wasn’t why I fell -into the idea of coming here,” she said. “You forget -it entirely. You dare to come in a dress suit—here—here!”</p> - -<p>“Listen,” he begged, “don’t run away with that idea. -I thought we might go to a theater afterward. I didn’t -think so much about where we were going as I did that -I was coming to you. I didn’t have anything better -than this to put on, and so I came this way.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span>A moment before it had seemed the most righteous -and perfect thing under heaven to vent a few scathing -remarks, but now she felt twisted and diminished. Long -and religiously she had tried to keep her rages to herself. -Neither spoke while the plates were being served, and -then he said:</p> - -<p>“I was horribly out of true, in telling these people -how to do it, but I wanted it good for you,” he added -simply.</p> - -<p>She looked at him hard, but the intensity of her trying -that instant kept her from reading what was really -back of his eyes.</p> - -<p>“It’s plenty good enough for me,” she said. “I came -here once when I had only twenty cents to live on that -day—I remember the stool, that fifth stool, I sat on. -I spent my twenty cents all at once,” she added, “and -the grub was so good that I could have wept in the arms -of the woman on the other side of the counter.”</p> - -<p>“Was that when you were working in the factory?” -he asked.</p> - -<p>“No,” said Pidge, “it was before I got the job. I ate -regularly after that.”</p> - -<p>“Where was the factory?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, way up in the other end of town. I labeled tins, -salmon tins, baking powder tins, cocoa tins.”</p> - -<p>“To get local color?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“To get food. I sat at a big table with a lot of girls, -and in the hours and hours, in the monotony of the -days, I found out how easy it is to get hard lines around<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span> -the mouth. I learned to understand just enough to learn -that I know nothing, and that’s a lot.”</p> - -<p>She was thinking of what a tension she had been in -to escape from Fanny Gallup.</p> - -<p>“I worked on a ranch in Wyoming,” Melton observed, -“cattle ranch.”</p> - -<p>“What were you doing on the Tunisian sands?”</p> - -<p>“Just ramming around the world. I got in bad with -an Arab sheik. It was while running away from him -that I got lost in the desert.”</p> - -<p>She saw his eyes kindle in the prospect of narration, -his faculties forming a fresh tale, which she could not -bear to hear that moment. She forestalled his fruitfulness.</p> - -<p>They were in the streets.</p> - -<p>“No, I don’t want to go uptown,” said Pidge. “I -don’t feel like the theater to-night——”</p> - -<p>“Wouldn’t you like a ride on the harbor? The ferries -are empty this time of night.”</p> - -<p>“No, we’ll cross over to Harrow Street.”</p> - -<p>“May I come in? There’s so much to say. It’s just—finding -you again—Pan.”</p> - -<p>“Not to-night. I want to be alone.”</p> - -<p>He didn’t answer. She felt a little better after that. -She had thought it might be harder to have her way. -There seemed always something he could not say behind -his words. It wasn’t <i>all</i> lies. It became clear for a -moment that he would follow after her—so long as she -could run ahead; that he would only turn away and -forget when she paused to breathe or play.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span>“I feel strange,” he said in the silence of Harrow -Street. “It is strange to-night. It’s like finding the -house one has been looking for so long—the house, even -the door, but not the key. Pan,” he said suddenly, -“give it to me. Give me the key. It’s you—it’s -yours——”</p> - -<p>His strength was without strain, the strength that is -effortless, the strength of laughter. He had taken her -to him suddenly, and she dwelt in it, though resisting; -something ecstatic, even in holding out.... She heard -voices in herself and faces flashed through her mind—Cobden’s, -Fanny Gallup’s—but her arms and shoulders -and breast knew a terrible sweetness from his strength. -It wasn’t hateful. It was like her own boy, not a -stranger. His laughing face was nearer. It was coming -to hers. In the dark she could see it, eyes and eyelids, -curving nostrils and laughing lips. She knew -something would die in her when it touched ... that -she was dying now of the slowness of its coming. She -ceased to struggle, and all that she had known and been -arose within her to meet his lips.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>She was on the second flight of stairs. She almost -prayed that Fanny’s door would not open. She wanted -to be in her own little room, the smaller the better to-night—no -touch or voice upon her. The key turned in -her trembling hand. She was safe, the door locked -again. She stood in the dark. Her lips moved audibly:</p> - -<p>“Am I—is it because I am my father’s child?”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXII<br /> - -<small>A LETTER FROM PIDGE</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">RICHARD COBDEN moved up and down the -Near East for a long time, looking for the -men they had told him about in school and -college—the men who make history, and are said to contain -in themselves the greatness of their race. He sailed -with sailors, talked with the diploma-ed talkers, rode -with soldiers. He found men who would do for their -countries what they wouldn’t do for themselves, but the -energy of their fidelity to their countries was balanced -by their enmity toward other countries. They gave -themselves to the heresy of fighting one part of the -human family for the alleged enhancement of another. -It took Dicky a long time to change the brain tracks -made in school and college, that the names of history -might <i>not</i> be the names of men who walked with God, -whose intellects pained from sheer power. Nor was he -spared from the suspicion in all his discoveries, that he -was the one who was wrong, that he had become softly -insane in the midst of new ideas.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>When he essayed the thing Miss Claes spoke of at -the Punjabi dinner—he started something which he -meant to live up to. The fact that it was harder than he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span> -dreamed; an effort, in fact, involving dreary years, -hadn’t broken his resolution so far. One of the terms -of the Punjabi dinner covenant, for such it had become -to him, was not to lose himself in the easy way of -hatred, nor to help himself to forgetfulness by casting -Pidge Musser’s image out. He knew that the “one” -she had spoken of was Rufus Melton. Through months, -covering two years, the figure of this young story-writer -rose higher and higher in his consciousness, as the person -of the Enemy, himself. It was Melton, all unknowing, -who vanquished Dicky in his weaknesses, and at -best was only kept at bay in his strength. Not to cast -her out, not to hate; to know the slow, steady burning -of the heart that is focalized upon a woman, and to -realize that this woman may be turning to another!</p> - -<p>There were really extraordinary days of service in -Arabia with young Tom Lawrence, whose fame Dicky -Cobden helped to make; desert days of camel back and -Turk fighting; desert nights of smoke and tea in such -starry stillnesses, that one almost expected the Christ -to appear; then, after many weeks, mail at Mecca, and -one letter from John Higgins, which was read several -times:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>... You have done several good things for <i>The -Public Square</i>; but you never did a better thing than -wishing Miss Pidge Musser on our editorial rooms. -She’s brand new every morning. She’s honest, and a -worker. She has brains and a whole lot of psychic -viscera, sometimes designated as Soul.... Also she’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span> -a stenographer. Never whispered it until one morning -when Maneatin’ Dollie was ill with the flu. My letters -were piled up. “Give them to me,” she said. I did that -thing, and I’ve been dictating my editorials ever since. -It’s like talking to an intelligent audience. When I get -opinionated and lose my balance, not seeing the other -side of a question, this child sits up and looks disturbed.... -I’m sending you separately our Brooklyn Bridge -contemporary with a story called <i>The Salt Pit</i>. If it -isn’t a little man of a story—I don’t know one. Hers.... -Of course, you know why she didn’t give it to us. -She thought I’d take it on her account and not for the -story.... And still we stay out of the War. They’re -sending over one big imperialist after another from -London, trying to get us in, and all that’s flunkey in -Washington, rocks—but so far, we’re only sinning commercially.... -Give us more of the inky desert nights, -Dicky, and young Lawrence.</p> -</div> - -<p>Dicky reached Bombay from Aden in the spring of -1917. He was now on his way home, the long way -around. He had told no one, but it had grown upon -him of late that he could relish a bit of New York after -more than two years. He coldly ignored in himself the -tendency to thrill at the thought of seeing Pidge Musser -again. He had made a bit of a name for himself as a -reporter, but was known more as a first-class fact-getter -than a feature writer among newspaper men. -Facts were sometimes so bleak in his work that one had -to possess real understanding and real love for honest -materials to find the inherent beauty and order. His<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span> -knowledge of international politics was now granted by -all classes of newspaper men, but he was known especially -from his articles in <i>The Public Square</i> as one who -exerted a steady pressure against America entering the -war.</p> - -<p>To be cool was said to be Cobden’s religion. The -stuff that he wrote was cool and the words that he said. -“I am a reporter, only,” he occasionally explained. “I -write what I see, not my own reactions nor opinions.” -He had come far in this doctrine, far enough to be -trusted by white men of place in Turkey and the Holy -Land, in spite of his curious scorn for war. He was -somewhat slower now to get enthused over human actions -than he was when he left New York; his boyish -humor had become grim. He had seen the worst things -men do, and written a few of them. Though he had -been through as much hard riding in two years as any -empire-building Englishman, he seemed to retain no -personal relation to his adventures.</p> - -<p>Other men talked about him, however. There was -something about the American that made it easy for -others to “sketch at him.” Tales of his far chances -with Tom Lawrence in El Hejas, for instance, had followed -him up into Turkey, but no one knew his tendency -to nausea in a pinch.</p> - -<p>Dicky had written a lot of big newspaper stories, but -they were stories of the day. He had packed the films -of tense and frightening and humorous moments away -somewhere deep in his brain, to the end of massing -them all into one—one day doing the Big Story, that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span> -had to do with finding a Man. That dream had held -since the day he first saw Nagar. But in his heart of -hearts everything was a side issue—world politics, -world wars, newspaper stories, magazine stories, even -the Big Story of all—compared to the war in himself -over a girl named Pidge. He still had night sweats -over the name of Rufus Melton.... A quiet voice, -a tired smile, a face darkened and dusty looking from -exposure, even after a clean shave—out of this face, -usually shadowed by a big cake-basket helmet of cork, -shone a pair of steady eyes in a fine mesh of dusty -brown wrinkles—Dicky at twenty-eight.</p> - -<p>He had scarcely stepped ashore at Bombay when he -heard that the States had entered the war. He touched -the sleeve of an Englishman who was looking up at the -promenade deck of the ship with eyes and mouth wide -open.</p> - -<p>“Tell me, I hadn’t heard,” Dicky said hoarsely.</p> - -<p>“She’s in, but I must say, sir, she took a long time -about it.”</p> - -<p>“But that cannot be!” Dicky answered.</p> - -<p>Now the Englishman stared, this being the peerless -rebuke. Moreover, he observed that the American had -a sudden withered look, and presumed that he was a -mere upstart person. Accordingly, the Englishman refixed -his triple focus on the ship’s promenade deck, and -Cobden tunneled into the bus for the <i>King George</i>. -There he verified the news. He went to his room a bit -whipped, quite a little bit whipped. He wanted to be -alone. For two years he had written and felt for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span> -America as only an exile can. He had believed in her -luck and native horse sense in the midst of the mess -other countries were making of their national lives.</p> - -<p>Something snapped when he had been alone in his -room for a while. It was Dicky’s romantic allegiance -to the country of his school histories. For the present -he was a man without national gravity, and a sick man -since some hot, hard-held part of himself had been -ripped out.</p> - -<p>He had missed his mail in Aden and left word for it -to be forwarded to Bombay on the next steamer. A -cablegram from his newspaper connection, rewired from -Aden, not only counseled him to make haste to double -back to France (to be on the spot to greet the first -American military arrivals), but accepted it as settled -that there was nothing else for a man of his equipment -now to do. The message was actually elate with the -“doings” ahead, but Dicky Cobden didn’t see it that -way. The fact is, he was sore, personally sore, at what -had happened and didn’t care who knew it. The following -ship brought his mail, including a letter from Pidge -Musser, which he opened with an old and ugly fear, -and in this letter the worst that he had ever feared fell -upon him:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>... Oh, Dicky, there is no other way. I’ve tried -to dodge it, but it has to be told now, that I have taken -Rufus Melton. Why did I do it? I don’t know, unless -it is that I am evil and unfinished and answer to the evil -and unfinished in him. He draws me terribly, but at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span> -the same time, I am not deluded. There is never a -moment with him that is not unmixed with pain.... -I wonder if you can believe that I did not do this thing -for happiness; that the happiest moments I have ever -known have come from my work with John Higgins -and my friendship with you? And can you ever believe -that I am no farther from you now, in that mysterious -comrade way?... Oh, Life is not like books, Dicky, -not at all like what we are taught it is. I have a relation -to him. I answer some terrible drawing need—like a -child crying for me. But I have a relation to you, too, -only different. You mean rest, something done. He -means the unfinished. He brings a mirror to me, and -says, “Look!” I want to scream, because the mirror -brings out all my defects. That’s what his presence -means.... This is one true thing, Dicky. The one -who can rouse the most hell in your breast is the one -to whom you belong for the time. At least, that is true -to me.... Have I not been grateful for your stability? -And have I not been proud for your moving so quietly -up and down the East, keeping your surfaces clean for -the world events to be pictured there without twist or -falsehood?... A strange door was opened in my -being when I was a child. In and out that door, whether -I will or not, you often come and go. “He is my -friend,” I whisper, “my friend”——and repeat it a -thousand times.</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span> -<h2 class="nobreak">XXIII<br /> - -<small>THE RED ROOM</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap2">LINE by line the thing was killing him. He got -up and crossed the heavy red carpet to the hall -door and turned the key in the lock. He was -afraid some one would come in and find him. He had -the strange power of partly seeing himself, as the sullen -horrors of hatred and revolt boiled up in his breast. -Vaguely, but quite well enough, he could watch the man -called Richard Cobden in the dim hotel room, the -shoulders hunched, the mouth stretched and crooked; -unable to sit still, the face wet with poisonous sweat.</p> - -<p>The love had gone out of him, and with it, all the -light he had. He thought he had known pain and loneliness -since leaving New York, but all he had known -was humming content compared to now, because there -had been a laughing idolatry for all her ways and -words, a reliance upon her that he had dared to call -absolute. “Understand, understand!” she had cried -all through the letter.... Oh yes, he could understand. -She wasn’t what he had made her out to be—that -was clear enough. He had built upon something -which wasn’t there. He had believed her to be—built -into himself the conviction—that she was the honestest -thing alive, and here she was——</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span>His thought shot back to the night of the Punjabi -dinner. That little basement room was devastated -before his mind, the table overturned, the face of Miss -Claes a mockery, the face of Pidge Musser—that of -an American girl found out. Into the center of his -consciousness was now flung his old promise not to hate.... -He heard his own laughter. He saw his own -stretched and twisted mouth from which it came. Like -a couple of sly schoolgirls, they looked at him now—Pidge -and Miss Claes—slyly pulling together and -duping a fat boy....</p> - -<p>He saw his room key upon the table. Number Five, -it was, the fifth floor. He looked around the dim -papered wall—whitish-red like the pulp of raspberries—the -deep upholstered chairs, the seats slightly crushed, -the full-length mirror, the ash tray, the silver flask on -the writing table, his own things here and there orderly -enough—all but himself, a sort of maniacal Mr. Hyde. -Number Five. He would remember this room where -he had fought it out, too, about America entering the -war. He poured brandy into a whisky glass. The -stuff eased him a little. It made the pain all the more -poignant, like a stove getting hotter, but also it seemed -to give him the power to move back a little from the -stove.... He stood up in the dark and shook himself.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you ass!” he muttered. “You awful ass!”</p> - -<p>In the light of a match, as he lit a cigarette long afterward, -he saw the rest of his mail on the table, one letter -from Miss Claes. He couldn’t get head nor tail out of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span> -that at first. She seemed to be talking about something -he had said about finding a Man. Oh, yes. He had -written from Mecca, mentioning Tom Lawrence and his -search for a Man. He snickered now at himself -through the fogs of his own past and present. Then -a line seemed to stand up before his eyes. “... If -you go to India, go to Ahmedabad. Nagar is there. -You are in danger of finding your Man.” Later that -night, still in the dark, his back straightened. He -laughed and said aloud, failing altogether for the moment -to see the absurdity of himself.</p> - -<p>“Number Five—queer little old musty room, I wonder -who died here?... Good night, Pidge; good -night, dear America—grand pair to tie to!”</p> - -<p>The next day he cabled to his newspaper connection -that he was not returning to France for the opening -campaign, at least; and wrote to John Higgins that -he didn’t expect to send in much stuff for the present. -“I may stay awhile in India—just looking around. -She smells like a typhoid ward, and needs orderlies.... -I’ll, of course, let you know what comes of my -<i>spectating</i>.”</p> - -<p>Still he did not start at once for Ahmedabad. He -locked himself in Number Five through the days and -walked the streets of Bombay at night, walked like a -man in a strait-jacket. He wasn’t conscious of this -at first, until he began to feel an ache from the tension -of his neck and shoulder muscles and tightened elbows. -When he forced himself to relax, however, the torture -of his thoughts was accentuated. He had been holding<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span> -himself rigidly to help fend off the destroying rush -of mental images. He walked himself into one sweat -after another for the nights were hot and humid. The -point of all his fighting was to keep Pidge Musser out -of mind. Of course, he could not succeed. She came -in by every door. She came in softly, she came in -scornfully, she came in singing, scolding. Mostly she -came in saying, “Why, don’t you see, Dicky, I am -nearer and clearer than ever?” Then it was as if an -isolated bit of shrapnel would explode in his brain.</p> - -<p>His whole fabric of world politics was demolished. -It looked to him like a tapestry that has been hooked -up out of a sewer—all that careful weaving and balanced -pigmentation! Before the day of the letter he -had prided himself that his building in the past two -years was good and strong. Now he faced the pitiful -discovery that every block of his building had been -placed upon this platform: That even if he couldn’t -have her, no one else could. This smelled to him now. -Forever after, it smelled to him like the sewage lanes -of old Bombay.</p> - -<p>Dicky had a good body. After two weeks his physical -vitality began to steal back. The love was gone, -but out of the debris of Subramini’s Punjabi Fireplace, -the face of Miss Claes came up faintly smiling again. -Another letter came from her, which he read in dismal -irony several times on the day before he took the train -for Ahmedabad—the last day in Number Five, with -its wall paper of raspberry crush. He couldn’t make -sense out of the letter. She seemed to love Pidge, even<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span> -to respect her. Miss Claes wrote, “It gives me quiet -joy to know that Nagar is near you. It will be good -for him and good for you. A great dearness for you -both goes from this house, as you sit and walk together.” -Miss Claes also repeated in her letter that -“love never faileth”——</p> - -<p>All very pretty and possible, no doubt; it sounded -good, but it was no longer his sort of a project. This -wasn’t for the product of three generations of -hardware merchants and manufacturers. Funny, he -thought, how he had ever accepted visionary stuff like -this. He would write Miss Claes some time how he -had failed, but not now. On the night train, he felt -India closing about him really for the first time. Once -when the train stopped, he smelled the altogether indescribable -earthiness of hills that had been sun baked -all day, now letting it be known through the moistness -of the night. It was vaguely like home to him; not -home in America, but home on earth again, the faintest -symptom of his reallegiance to life here, only known -to one coming up out of sickness. In the early morning -he lay for a while after awakening in a sort of -bodily peace. It was as if he had really rested a little, -as if he had left behind some utterly miserable part of -himself in the red room at Bombay.</p> - -<p>“A bit questionable,” he muttered whimsically, with -the trace of a smile, “a bit shabby and questionable to -leave a bundle, a black bundle like that, in Number Five—for -some one else to stumble over.”</p> - -<p>He fell asleep again and reawoke with a curious<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span> -sentence on his lips; something that he had forgotten -a long time, something that Miss Claes used to say: -“Nobody knows Nagar—nobody.”</p> - -<p>“Nobody ever will,” he added, “if he doesn’t talk -any more than he used to.”</p> - -<p>Again at breakfast the faintest little quiver of organic -ease stole into him. The earth was very bright -outside and the pot of tea that had been brought tasted -actually sane. He had the feeling of being on the -way somewhere, of having escaped something, as he -watched India slip by from the window of his compartment.... -Then Ahmedabad, the station, a Hindu -in white garments, almost taking him in his arms—laughing, -talking like an American—Nagar talking!</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXIV<br /> - -<small>MISS CLAES SPEAKS</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">ONE Sunday morning about three weeks after -the luncheon with John Higgins, during which -Rufus Melton came to the Chop House, Pidge -found Miss Claes alone in the basement front.</p> - -<p>“We’d like to come here to live. Is there any -chance?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“Yes, it can be managed, I think.”</p> - -<p>Pidge regarded her with a kind of cold fixity and -added: “We were married night before last. Rufe -seems willing enough to come here. I hate to leave -this house, but I didn’t think you had the rooms.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll make a place for you; a little place, at least. -But, Pidge——”</p> - -<p>“Yes?”</p> - -<p>“Why haven’t you come to me all this time?”</p> - -<p>“I know how fond you are of Dicky Cobden. I -haven’t hoped any one could understand.”</p> - -<p>“Being fond of Richard Cobden doesn’t make me -less fond of you.”</p> - -<p>“How could I expect you to understand me, when I -can’t understand myself?” Pidge demanded. “I am -two people, and they are at war.... No use lying -about it. I fell for him, knowing him all the time. Not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span> -for a minute did I lose track of what he is. But I -wanted him. Something in me answered—that’s all.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve always loved that honest Pidge,” said Miss -Claes.</p> - -<p>“Think, if you like, that it’s part of the evil in me -that talks this way about him, but I am talking about -myself, too.”</p> - -<p>“You could never see all this clearly—without ‘falling -for’ him, Pidge.”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean?”</p> - -<p>“I mean it would remain a hopeless, unfinished -puzzle—if you had run away from Rufus Melton.”</p> - -<p>“I couldn’t run away. I wanted him,” Pidge repeated. -“But there’s another side. There’s something -in him that I seem to have known from the beginning—something -like a little child that I left somewhere ages -ago. It keeps calling to me from his eyes, and I leave -everything to go to it—everything that Dicky means -and the world, even writing—I leave all that. And -yet when I go, when I go to his arms, I lose the purpose. -It’s as if the child that I run to—the irresistible -thing that calls to me from his eyes—stops crying and -stops needing me! Then I suddenly know that it must -need me and not be gratified, ever to be helped. Oh, no -one on earth could understand that. It’s insane.”</p> - -<p>“But, Pidge, I do understand.”</p> - -<p>“How can you?”</p> - -<p>“Because I have loved like that, because I have had -experience. I loved an English boy in the same way—oh, -long ago. I love him still, but I could not stay with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span> -him, because he—why, Pidge, it is just the same. He -needs to cry for some one, for something, otherwise he -remains asleep in life.”</p> - -<p>“You’re saying this to help me.”</p> - -<p>“What I’ve lived through <i>should</i> help you. It was -the hardest thing I’ve ever known—that I couldn’t -forget everything and have him, just two alone in the -world. But when I went to him, he was satisfied and -looked elsewhere. I almost died of revolt.”</p> - -<p>Pidge’s eyes were very wide. “And when you didn’t -go to him?” she said in slow tones. “What happened -then?”</p> - -<p>“It was then that he remembered and reminded me -that I was half-caste. Also he looked elsewhere, just -the same.”</p> - -<p>“And you still love him?”</p> - -<p>“Deep underneath—that is not changed.”</p> - -<p>“But what is Nagar?”</p> - -<p>“Nagar means the other world, Pidge—a new heaven -and a new earth. He means the not-wanting love, the -willing-to-wait love——”</p> - -<p>“I’m not like that,” Pidge said with old bitterness. -“I want love in a room! I want to shut the world out. -I don’t want the love of the world, but love that’s all -mine. And I can’t—I can’t have it!”</p> - -<p>She was breathing deeply, staring at the fire.</p> - -<p>Miss Claes glanced at her wistfully a moment, her -lips faintly smiling. The girl’s face had never been so -lovely to her. It was like land that has had its rains -after long waiting—soft blooms starting, an earthy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span> -sweetness rising in the washed sunlight. The beginnings -of both laughter and tears were in Pidge’s wide -eyes; her red-brown hair, from which the henna was -long forgotten, had an easy restful gleam in its coils.</p> - -<p>“Why, Pidge,” Miss Claes said at last, “you’re like -one who has been born again. It’s wonderful. I had -almost forgotten what that love does to a woman, at -first—for a little, little time.”</p> - -<p>“And you knew that kind of love—with the English -boy?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“And Nagar knows.”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>Pidge shivered.</p> - -<p>“... Rufe brings the fight to me, makes every undone -thing rise and live! He brings the most terrible -disappointments, the crudest disorder, yet that which -would pay for it all, if I were just a simple peasant -woman, is denied. Why can’t we shut the door and -just live? Why can’t there be a kingdom for two?”</p> - -<p>The form was soft and gliding in Miss Claes’ arms. -The square-shouldered little figure of the mill and office -girl had become almost eloquent with its emotional -power. After a moment Pidge straightened, her face -staring into Miss Claes’.</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you answer?”</p> - -<p>“I can only say, Pidge, you are called to learn the -next step, the next lesson in what love means. You -want the love that has two ends, but the Triangle is -ready for you. Oh, many are learning the mystery<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span> -of the Triangle. It hurts so at first, but it lets the -world in—the bigger meanings of life.”</p> - -<p>Pidge shivered again. “Is it blasphemy,” she asked, -“that I feel just as close to Dicky Cobden—as ever?”</p> - -<p>“No more than the finding of bread would spoil -your taste for water.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Pidge said at last:</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t want to leave this house, Miss Claes. -He says he’ll come here, too.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve been thinking of putting a bathroom on the -third floor. There’s a tiny empty room like yours -across the hall. The bath shall be installed there. You -know I’ve kept Nagar’s room empty. It is pleasant -and larger than yours. I’ll have a door cut through -the partition, and with a bath across the hall you will -do well enough for a time.”</p> - -<p>“You would give us Nagar’s room?”</p> - -<p>“Nagar has the key to the whole house,” said Miss -Claes.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Moments afterward, Pidge’s strong fingers closed -over the hands of the other.</p> - -<p>“No one can know how it hurts me—to think of -Dicky——”</p> - -<p>“He is with Nagar now.”</p> - -<p>“Do you think—can it be possible that Nagar will -help him—as you help me?”</p> - -<p>“Nagar and the Little Man,” said Miss Claes.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXV<br /> - -<small>“BE IT EVER SO HUMBLE”</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">THEY were ensconced in the two upper rooms. -Pidge kept up her work at <i>The Public Square</i>, -and did not come home for luncheon. She -had told John Higgins of her marriage but the subject -was not mentioned afterward. The old chief vanished -for three days following the news, and when he came -back there was a new dignity on his part for Pidge to -cope with. She found her position a trifle uncentered. -His old stenographer took his letters, and he wrote his -editorials on his own machine as aforetime. John Higgins -said little, but found flaws in her judgments that -had not appeared before. He no longer risked availing -himself of her entire equipment; this change being -apparently on the basis that he dare not get used to it -all over again. He seemed to hold the idea that it was -only a question of days at most before a married woman -would forget place and town entirely and rush off to -pick up pieces of wool and thread for a nest.</p> - -<p>Pidge had built so much of herself into her work -that there was emphatic pain in the new conditions. -She needed the work more than ever now, but <i>The -Public Square</i> was falling into sorry days and ways.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span> -There was nothing to say but War, and if you didn’t -like War, didn’t see the divine uses of War and say so, -you had better say nothing. There was no field in the -world at this time for a magazine of dignified or any -other kind of protest, and in the steady loss of money -week after week, the struggle became one of great simplicity—to -stay alive.</p> - -<p>“Higgins is a rotten old knocker anyway,” said -Rufus Melton. “This is a time for Americans to stand -together and not criticize the government. He never -did pay any real money for his stuff, but was always -ready to tell you where you fell down. They’re telling -him a word or two now.”</p> - -<p>So Pidge didn’t speak much of <i>The Public Square</i> -at home.</p> - -<p>Rufus vibrated between a depression when his stuff -wouldn’t come through and an exaltation when it did. -He was quite sincere in his industry, but slept late in -the morning. Pidge was up and away four mornings -out of five without waking him. Sometimes Rufe decided -to eat his “big meal of the day” in the middle of -the afternoon, in which case Pidge supped alone. He -was slow to get his work started, so that it was often -evening before he got “all of himself working at once.” -Then he was apt to stay with it for several hours, in -which case Pidge could sleep if she got a chance. Occasionally -he found that he could dictate a bit of first -draft and Pidge undertook at first to help him in this -way, but when she perceived that it didn’t occur to him, -in the flush of his evening powers, that she had worked<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span> -all day and must work to-morrow, she decided to stay -off his night work.</p> - -<p>“I can’t, Rufe,” she said one night on the way to -bed. “It’s so fascinating to practice napping in the -hushes and rushes of your machine.”</p> - -<p>“You won’t take this stuff?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“You won’t?”</p> - -<p>“It will interfere with your work session if you lose -your temper. Of course, we’ve got the whole upper -floor to start something in, but we must think of your -story.”</p> - -<p>“Whose work counts in this outfit?” he demanded.</p> - -<p>“Yours, Rufe, by all means. A fine patriotic short -story at any price. But I have a job to look after, and -I can’t give them a red-headed somnambulist to-morrow. -No, I’m going to sleep, but I do hope you get the -American flags waving all right in your story.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll get you, Pan—for acting like this.”</p> - -<p>“You’ve got me, dear, and don’t forget to have the -hero come through with, ‘My country right or wrong.’ -No girl can resist that—or editor. Good night.”</p> - -<p>Rufe was rarely rough. He didn’t overtire or over-stimulate -himself, so that his temper could easily break -corral; and at its worst this temper wasn’t a man-eater. -Rufe’s nervous system was cushioned in a fine layer of -healthy fat, and therefore didn’t flog itself to madness -against bare bone and sinew. He was merely involved -in himself entirely, which makes any man naïve.</p> - -<p>Pidge wasn’t missing any of the petty dramas of her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span> -present experience. When she came home the first -time to find that he had already had dinner, something -flew out of her into space in a frantic search for God. -When she realized that he saw nothing but undisturbed -equity in the idea of using her for his own work purposes -half the night, when she was contracted to <i>The -Public Square</i> for the days—another output of herself -was loose in the solar system. When she came to understand -that the tens he was earning were mysteriously -his own, and that her ones were theirs—another day, at -least, was spoiled for her in the editorial rooms.</p> - -<p>Rufe thought her extremely selfish. So had her -father. “Two to one,” she said. “They’ve got it on -me. They’ve got it on all of us. This is their world.”... -She thought of all this bitterness and bickering -taking place in Nagar’s room, which Miss Claes had -saved for weeks for a sort of sanctuary of her own. -Mostly she was hurt by the deadly parallel of this life, -with her life in Los Angeles and vicinity. To cope -with this American story-man, she was forced to draw -out and readjust and refurbish the old hateful mechanism -that had formed within her during the nineteen -years with her father. She knew how. The mechanism -worked all right, but the sense of the hateful thing -resuming activity within her was far harder to bear -than the racket of Rufe’s typewriter when she was trying -to sleep.</p> - -<p>The fact that Rufe Melton was entirely cut off from -the play of her real powers; that he thought her ridiculous, -and said so, when she gave any notice of holding<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span> -other than the standard American points of view on -politics and religion and social ethics; this was not so -serious a breach between them, as it would have been -to a woman who had not come into so startling a reaction -as Pidge had, against the whole system of knowing -and not doing. All the knowledge that really mattered -to Pidge was that working doctrine which doesn’t announce -or explain, but shows itself in living the life. -She was very sad, and continually sad, that she had to -work upon Rufe the iron of irony, the stab so subtle -that it astonishes before it hurts, and the self-control -which disarms.</p> - -<p>Sometimes Sundays or in unexpected periods of -leisure they had moments of actual delight together. -This occasionally happened when food just pleased him, -or when an acceptance from a magazine arrived at a -price which he considered adequate. (Rufus never -neglected the price of his things, as an indication of his -getting on.) He uncovered a real levity at such times, -and their talk didn’t walk merely, then; it danced.</p> - -<p>“We’ll go up to Harlem,” he said one Sunday morning. -“I used to live up there in the colored settlement——”</p> - -<p>Figuratively speaking, Pidge waved her hand before -her own eyes to shut out the critical negatives which -always arose when Rufe told of living somewhere. -They went and stayed gay. When he turned from her -innocently to consult a policeman in Harlem, she -checked the first and last, “I told you so.” They found -yams that day—yams freshly arrived from Georgia,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span> -and coffee said to be parched and dripped according to -an ideal of New Orleans first families. These satisfied -Rufus, and still they stayed gay. Even his, “I -could take you around to a lot of queer dumps in this -man’s town,” didn’t upset anything. Altogether that -day was memorable.... Once in desperate fatigue, -when there were moving dark spots before her eyes in -every ray of daylight, Pidge cried to Miss Claes:</p> - -<p>“But he is lost to everything, entirely oblivious to -everything but himself and his work—his stories, his -fame, his winning his way!”</p> - -<p>“I know, Pidge, but the world is on top of him yet. -He is fighting his way up and out. Romance can’t be -entirely satisfying, you know, when it has ambition for -a rival. You’ve told me something about the thrall of -a book in yourself—how engrossing it is.”</p> - -<p>“That all goes out of me when I’m with him,” Pidge -said suddenly. “I never thought of it before, but all -that old agony to produce another book that I used to -feel is gone. I seem to let him carry all that.”</p> - -<p>“That helps for the present, doesn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, and it isn’t all sordid—don’t think I mean that, -Miss Claes. Sometimes when he’s satisfied with his -story, so that he can forget it, we have such good times. -He’s such a playboy, such a playmate. Some old terrible -longing comes over me when we are close like that, -just to be like one of the Mediterranean women, who -know nothing but to replenish the earth. But it doesn’t -do to dwell on that,” Pidge finished with an impressive<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span> -quietness of tone. “One thing I learned rather well, -before it was too late.”</p> - -<p>“What’s that, Pidge?”</p> - -<p>“That this isn’t the time or place for us to bring a -little baby into the world.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXVI<br /> - -<small>THE HANGING SOCK</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">NAGAR was changed. On the day that Richard -Cobden reached Ahmedabad, he encountered -one of the surprises of his life. It was -like meeting a man out in the freedom of the world, -whom one had only known before in prison. Two -years in the East had sharpened Dicky’s eyes to note -something in Nagar’s face that he had been unable to -detect before. Dicky called it cleanliness and calm, but -this brought up the old difficulty which he never missed -in his work of writing—that at best, words only suggest, -only intimate.</p> - -<p>In America Nagar had looked dark; here he looked -fair. There he had moved in and out as one of the -colored men; here he was one of the elect. There he -had lived in the midst of silences and mysterious inhibitions, -diminished by the garments of Western civilization; -here he was white-robed in the sunlight, like -young Gautama in his father’s garden. Of course, -Dicky knew that the change was more substantial than -that of garb or place. He could only repeat that Nagar -seemed free in his own mind.</p> - -<p>In the first few moments at the station in Ahmedabad, -Dicky had himself felt unwashed and unwholesome,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span> -as no man ever made him feel before. His hand -went up to his chin. Yes, he had shaved that morning, -but realizing it did not help much. It wasn’t the grime -of travel that hurt him, but the smear of his recent mental -and emotional overturning, the ugliness of all those -days in the red room at Bombay, and the sense of failure -and loss he lived with constantly since the coming -of the letter from Pidge.</p> - -<p>“... And the Little Man is actually here in Ahmedabad, -and not a myth?” Dicky had asked, as they drew -out of the crowd at the station.</p> - -<p>“Not only that, but you are to go to the <i>Ashrama</i> -now, if you will. He is eager to have you come.”</p> - -<p>“His house first?” Dicky asked.</p> - -<p>“It is also the house in which I live,” said Nagar.</p> - -<p>“You mean you wish to put me up in your quarters?”</p> - -<p>“If you would not mind our great simplicity.”</p> - -<p>“Thanks, I should like that,” said Dicky, “but I -think it would be better for me to follow the usual -course of a foreigner and find hotel quarters.”</p> - -<p>The <i>Entresden</i> was not crowded and Dicky obtained -comfortable quarters in a northeast room where the -upholstering was covered in clean tan linen, and the -<i>punkahs</i> showed signs of life immediately upon their -entrance. Nagar prepared to leave as soon as Dicky -sat down in the air crossing between two shaded windows.</p> - -<p>“I will come for you this afternoon if you wish to -go to the <i>Ashrama</i> to-day,” he said. “It is some distance -from the center of the city.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span>“Sit down, Nagar; don’t hurry off.”</p> - -<p>“I thought you would prefer to rest until after -<i>tiffin</i>.”</p> - -<p>“Stay and we’ll have it here. You’ll pour the tea -like the old days in Miss Claes’ room.”</p> - -<p>Nagar’s face was in the shadows, but there was a -soft shining as of polished silver in or around his eyes. -At times, shutting his eyes as Nagar spoke, Dicky could -almost believe he was back in the basement at Harrow -Street. The way Nagar said to him, “my friend,” was -almost Miss Claes herself. That was the poignant part -of finding the Oriental again; that he brought back -Harrow Street—even moments under the white light. -The day would have been joyous but for the aching -emptiness of heart. Dicky asked tirelessly about -Gandhi, especially since it gave him such a chance to -study the new Nagar.</p> - -<p>“Mahatma-ji has burned away all waste,” Nagar -said at length. “He has narrowed himself down, body -and mind, to an almost perfect obedience—self-control. -He measures action to all his words. The best he -knows, step by step, he performs.”</p> - -<p>“Where did you hear of him first?”</p> - -<p>“Here in India—of his work in South Africa. I -went there to know him better—followed the gleam, as -you might say. I stayed four years. It was he who -encouraged me to go to America to study more of the -spirit of the West.”</p> - -<p>“What’s Gandhi’s message to these people?”</p> - -<p>“He believes that politics cannot be successfully divorced<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span> -from religion,” Nagar said. “His message always -is toward the spiritualizing of India’s political life -and her institutions. The spiritual predominance of -India, which he idealizes as being the real destiny of -India, can only be effected by her rebecoming herself, -by the return of the Motherland into herself, by her -ceasing to imitate all the ways of western civilization.”</p> - -<p>“But if she returns into herself, making her own -goods, cutting herself off from all institutions of the -present government—England will be done for here.”</p> - -<p>Nagar bowed without the trace of a smile.</p> - -<p>“I’ve heard that every turn of a spinning-wheel in -India takes part of a turn from a power loom in Manchester,” -Dicky added.</p> - -<p>Nagar further acquiesced.</p> - -<p>“And that isn’t politics?... I think I’ll go in -for religion, myself.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>“It is very good to have you here,” Nagar said -later. “Mahatma-ji will also be glad. He has asked -much about you and believes that you may be a means -of making many in America understand. It is a saying -with us here that ‘to understand is to love.’”</p> - -<p>“But I didn’t come here with any set idea, you -know.”</p> - -<p>“The work you will do for us in America will be the -better for that. The more reason and rationale you -bring——”</p> - -<p>“Evidently it’s easy for one to go off his head where -Gandhi is,” Dicky said.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span>“His effect on some is subtle and strong.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll keep a stiff bridle arm. Say, Nagar, have you -stopped to think how I happen to be here to-day?”</p> - -<p>“Tell me, please.”</p> - -<p>“One hanging sock.”</p> - -<p>“I do not understand.”</p> - -<p>“One hanging sock. It was that which made me go -out into the reception room in the first place, that day -you brought the story to <i>The Public Square</i>. I heard -the office boy say to J. H., ‘He keeps pulling up his -sock.’ I went out to see. So that’s what made me go -to Harrow Street, and meet Miss Claes and the rest -and go to Africa, and come here. I believe that’s what -started the World War.”</p> - -<p>Nagar laughed. “I always had such trouble in the -early days with American clothing. I would get one -part working and another would give way——”</p> - -<p>“But, Nagar, what made it so imperative for you to -have the two hundred that day?”</p> - -<p>“A ship was leaving within twenty-four hours for -the Mediterranean to connect with South African -ports. Mahatma-ji was greatly in need of funds to -carry on his work.”</p> - -<p>“I thought you were ill—possibly starving.”</p> - -<p>“I was ill from strain—self-consciousness. It was -one of the hardest things I ever had to do—to stand up -against America in the office of <i>The Public Square</i>.”</p> - -<p>“You certainly put it over. But what made you so -silent in New York? It’s an actual shock to find you -chatty and human, like this.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span>“Certain of us in India are trained differently from -American ways. You perhaps have read that in the -Pythagorean schools, a period of silence was enjoined -among the young men. It was so in my training. We -seek to silence all opinions, all half-truths, all thinking, -in fact, in order to <i>Know</i>. We postulate, of course, a -center of Spontaneous Knowledge, or Genius, above -the mind. To learn obedience to this, one takes a vow -of silence——”</p> - -<p>“Ah, I remember! Pidge—Miss Musser—I mean -Mrs. Melton, told me something of the kind!”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXVII<br /> - -<small>THE MAHATMA AND THE MIRACLE</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">COBDEN heard the voice before he saw the -man. Standing in a darkened hall of the -bungalow, spoken of as the <i>Ashrama</i>, the -voice of one speaking English in easy cultured tones -reached his ears. When the door opened, he saw several -native young men sitting upon the floor and a -wasted Hindu figure in the center—a little man in a -thin turban more like a skullcap; a homespun loincloth, -his bare feet beneath him upon a mat of coarse cloth, a -rough pillow at his back. The young men about him -had risen, but the central figure merely lifted and extended -the hand.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Cobden from America,” Gandhi said. “Nagarjuna -has made us eager to welcome you.”</p> - -<p>Even Nagar withdrew, but one of the boys returned -bringing a chair.</p> - -<p>“If you don’t mind, I’ll try sitting on the floor, too,” -Dicky told the latter. “I’d feel perched with Mr. -Gandhi sitting below.”</p> - -<p>The Mahatma smiled. “I quite appreciate,” he said. -“I hope you will find in India the same kindness that -you gave Nagarjuna in New York.”</p> - -<p>Dicky had expected power; he found composure.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span> -His idea of power was perhaps in part a hang-over -from a boyish ideal of a certain American financial -executive. Nothing of that in this room; rather he was -conscious of Gandhi’s frailness and smallness. This -presence called forth impulses to be tender, to lower -one’s voice, to hurry to bring anything wanted. He -was shocked a little at the twisted, battered look of the -features. The lips looked pulpy in parts and did not -rest together evenly. The smile was curiously slow—tentative, -like one in whom understanding dawns. Back -of the iron-rimmed spectacles and tired eyes, so inured -to pain, was the essence of fearlessness. This was the -first commanding characteristic to the American.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>“... Fear,” Gandhi was saying, “fear of death -makes us devoid both of valor and religion. There is -no place for fear in the <i>Satyagrahi’s</i> heart.”</p> - -<p>“What is a <i>Satyagrahi</i>?” Cobden asked.</p> - -<p>“One who is devoted and pledged to truth, to <i>Satyagraha</i>. -I coined the word, to express our purpose in -South Africa. <i>Satyagraha</i> is the use of Love-force or -Soul-force.”</p> - -<p>Curiously, Dicky felt the cleanness of the house, the -peace of it, the humming of a <i>charka</i> in the next room, -a symbol of that peace. He felt Gandhi’s face growing -upon him out of the shadow, a face that had been dried -cleanly by many suns, the features fashioned by a life -of direct, unpredatory thinking—the face of a man incapable, -even in thought, of hitting below the belt. And -now, there was to go with the hum of the <i>charka</i>, the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span> -faint fragrance of dried fruit in the air, or that sweetness -one breathes in the altitudes where the sun is shining -upon the great conifers.</p> - -<p>“The world has talked much of the omnipotence of -God,” Mahatma-ji went on. “India, at last, is preparing -to put her faith to test. Passive resistance has been -called the weapon of the weak; if this is so, the Soul is -weaker than the flesh. Passive resistance calls upon its -devotees to endure great suffering, even martyrdom and -death. Those who believe it is too difficult to carry out -do not trust the Soul. They are not moved by true -courage.”</p> - -<p>There was no pose nor show, no straining for force, -rarely an adjective or simile, no shadings of sense—a -direct approach, inevitably direct. Dicky felt suddenly -hopeless of ever understanding such directness. For -the first time in his life, he realized that all his training -to live and to write was less than straight. He had -been taught half-tones, shadows to accentuate lights. -Here was directness.</p> - -<p>Gandhi resumed: “It is the sacred principle of love -which moves mountains. To us is the responsibility of -living out this sacred law; we are not concerned with -results.”</p> - -<p>“No such thing then as righteous anger?” Dicky -asked.</p> - -<p>“There is not for us. Anger is the misuse of force. -Anger in thought is an enemy to clear thinking, to -understanding. To understand is to love. Anger in -action tends to become violence, and violence is the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span> -negation of spiritual force. In fact, only those who -eschew violence can avail themselves of their real powers. -Only those who realize that there is something in -man which is superior to the brute nature in him, and -that the latter always yields to it, can effectively apply -this force, which is to violence, and therefore to all -tyranny, all injustice, what light is to darkness. For -the exercise of the purest Soul-force, prolonged training -of the individual Soul is an absolute necessity.”</p> - -<p>Just now Dicky was contending with the feeling that -he was in the presence of an evangelist or healer. He -had difficulty for the moment in recalling that Gandhi -was world-trained; a lawyer of London’s careful making; -an opponent of governments in South Africa; a -man found powerful enough in his own person to be -reckoned with by the established laws of men of high -place.</p> - -<p>“We have many things to ask of England,” Gandhi -said, “and she has promised us her attention, as soon as -her present difficulties give her freedom of heart and -hand to attend our wants here. To press our wants -now, or to force our desires upon England in her crisis -in Europe, would be taking an unfair advantage. So -this is a time for us in India to cleanse and prepare -ourselves for future action, sacrifice if necessary——”</p> - -<p>At one moment Gandhi’s face was dull and unattractive -as a camel driver’s; again it shone with a high -clear calm, like the ideal most of us have of a saint or -a priest. Now the instant came, as the words stopped, -that Dicky seemed to be looking into the Indian face<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span> -actually for the first time, and Gandhi was looking <i>into</i> -him. The American was uncentered for a second or -two, as he had once felt in the quick sag of an airplane -in a bit of rough going.</p> - -<p>It began to become clear to the caller that there were -only a few constantly vibrating themes in this man’s -talk: the necessity for nonviolence; the control of self, -essential before the control of others can be contemplated; -the establishment of altruism as a basis for all -political activity; the return of India into her own destiny -of a handicraft civilization, which involved the -making and using of her own goods and the turning of -her back upon the “monster of a mechanical civilization”; -freedom of speech, devotion to truth, fearlessness, -always that.</p> - -<p>Dicky now actually contemplated the look of unearthly -calm in the eyes of the man before him. Was -it fanaticism—this fearlessness which Gandhi put into -practice? Was there a soul-calm back of the human -nervous system, a central calm that a man could reach -and abide in, that made anything negligible that men -might do to the body? Was there something really -that Miss Claes and Nagar and this man talked about—something -that went on and on, that loved one’s -enemies, that loved one’s love, no matter what this life -effected to keep them apart? Was it worth going after, -since every ordinary viewpoint seemed changed in those -who had touched it?... Surely India was getting -him going—he, Dicky Cobden, of the family of trowel -makers! In amazement, he realized that he was responding<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span> -to some stimulus like the finest wine—that if -he didn’t get out of here soon, he would fall to telling -his troubles like a man who has had too many drinks.</p> - -<p>Gandhi was speaking of his workers and devotees -here in Ahmedabad; the manner of their life together:</p> - -<p>“So in our <i>Ashrama</i>,” he explained, “every child is -taught to understand political institutions and to know -how his country is vibrating with new emotions, with -new aspirations, with new life.... As for men and -women living and working together in the <i>Ashrama</i>, -they must live the celibate life whether married or unmarried. -Marriage brings a woman close together with -a man, and they become friends in a special sense, never -to be parted in this life or in the lives to come; but I -do not think that into that place of life, our lusts should -necessarily enter.”</p> - -<p>Dicky had scrambled to his feet from the floor.</p> - -<p>“I won’t take your time any more just now,” he -mumbled haltingly.</p> - -<p>Mahatma-ji watched him with a look of gentlest -understanding.</p> - -<p>Dicky backed out. He was in the street alone.... -The young men had not restrained him in the slightest. -They had seemed to understand that he must be alone. -Even Nagar had only walked at his side a moment in -the hall, to say that he would come to the <i>Entresden</i> -after dinner.... He was alone in the outskirts of the -city with the miracle. Somewhere among Gandhi’s -sentences about men and women, it had happened—somewhere<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span> -in there, when he had spoken about—yes, -that was it, “about friends in a special sense!...”</p> - -<p>A pariah dog yelped, running out of a doorway, almost -banging into his knees. He was in a narrow -street, and had to step upon a doorsill, while two men -passed dragging at a cart. He saw their bare ribs and -salt-whitened loin cloths. The sun was still high; the -stillness and heat almost fetid in the byways. He -passed a native market place by the river, and out of all -the moving multicolored crowd, he remembered only -one parasol of jade green, though he did not see the -face beneath.</p> - -<p>His American-trained mind scoffed against the thing -that had happened, but his heart held on serenely.... -What did this little world-warrior with the battered -mouth know about love and living with a woman? -What did he know about lusts that he spoke so freely -of? Did he ever give three years of his life to the one -battle—not to hate the woman he loved most under -heaven? Or was that particular battle so far back in -his experience that he merely spoke of it as one skirmish -in the great campaign of fifty years, called Life?</p> - -<p>Alone at dinner at the <i>Entresden</i>, Dicky conned every -word the Little Man had spoken about the young married -people who worked together in the <i>Ashrama</i>, of -the celibacy they vowed themselves to, of their becoming -through marriage “friends in a special sense—for -this and all lives.” Yes, Gandhi talked as if it were a -foregone conclusion that there were other lives....</p> - -<p>He wasn’t tasting his dinner.... He came up from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span> -the deeps of reflection to realize a waiter was coming -toward him, as if in answer to a signal. He also discovered -that he had been sitting over his filled plate with -one hand lifted—the thumb and fingers brushing together, -as if he were close to <i>her</i>, and it was a bit of -her dress or a wisp of her hair between his fingers. -His mind could scoff all it pleased, for his heart held -serenely to the miracle, and this was the miracle: that -Pidge Musser, married or not married, was back alive -in his heart; and such a melting pity for her plight had -come to him as he sat before the Little Man, that he, -the hardheaded, had to rise abruptly from the interview -and rush away, lest he fall to weeping and explaining -all.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXVIII<br /> - -<small>THE RACK OF SEX</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">DICKY and Nagar sat under the <i>punkahs</i> in the -room at the <i>Entresden</i>—that stillest, hottest -night. A fierce stimulus was driving the -American. Moment by moment he realized it more -clearly—that his love had come back to him, or some -strange new fire from it, as he had talked with Mahatma-ji. -It compelled him, mind and emotion now, and -his questions were insatiable, but he was slow and -roundabout in getting to the core of matters that fascinated.</p> - -<p>“For instance, what makes him starve himself?” -Dicky asked.</p> - -<p>“He has no illusions about fasting,” Nagar answered. -“Mahatma-ji objects to the distractions of -the body. He keeps down this drum of the senses by -severity of handling, an old well-tried way of the East. -Ask an expert horseman what to do with a spirited -saddle horse that has a tendency now and then to take -the bit and run away. ‘Cut down his grain, and he will -be easier to handle,’ you will be told.”</p> - -<p>Dicky was groping feverishly within himself as the -other talked. “But what has celibacy to do——” he -halted and finished, “with politics and all that?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span>“Mahatma-ji has made himself free from the rack -of sex and the drum of the senses—enough to realize -his great work for others, for India. We who follow -him wish to do the same. We understand that we have -not the great gift for India, until we are free; that is, -only a man who has freed himself from his own desires -can help greatly to free others, or his country. We are -not free agents so long as we are on the rack of sex. -We cannot hate ourselves off that rack; in fact, we -must learn to love more, not less, to escape.”</p> - -<p>“Tunnel,” Dicky said. “No man educated on the -Hudson can get that sort of thing. Have a heart, -Nagar.”</p> - -<p>“It is my poor telling——”</p> - -<p>Dicky smiled and smoked: “I can’t see how he’d have -anything left to give the world,” he added—“a man -who got on top of himself that way.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The thing that Dicky had found in the same room -with the Little Man wasn’t happiness, but it was better -than the deadness he had known; good to feel the tissues -of his heart alive again, not a leaden lump.</p> - -<p>Again the next day, he went to sit with Mahatma-ji, -but nothing happened, though he remained two hours. -On one side he had come to doubt the whole business; -on the other he had been naïve enough half to believe -that all he had to do was to enter the presence of the -Indian leader to get this living thing back in his heart, -this pain that had the breath of life in it. Two days<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span> -afterward, however, while he was deeply involved with -Gandhi’s explanation of <i>Satyagraha</i>, taking notes so -that he could put down the other’s words almost exactly, -the sense of Pidge Musser’s presence and plight was -suddenly with him again, renewed within him, the pity -of it almost more than he could endure.</p> - -<p>There were hours also when Dicky could believe -almost anything at the <i>Ashrama</i>, where he was permitted -to sit with the native students (Gandhi often -halting his speech in Hindi or Guzerati, to talk English -for the American’s benefit). And occasionally during -long evening talks with Nagar, on the banks of the -Sabarmati or under the muffle-winged <i>punkahs</i> in the -<i>Entresden</i> room, Dicky’s mind had sudden extensions -of range. Still he had a vague foreboding that he -would not be able to hold all this hopeful stuff when he -was away from India, for slowly and surely he was -being pressed to depart.</p> - -<p>“America needs your loyalty now,” Nagar said. -“We will send for you to come when the curtain rises -here. The drama of India is not being played now, but -the Play is written. This that you have heard, so far, -is only a rehearsal of minor parts.”</p> - -<p>In June, a letter came from <i>The Public Square</i>, pressing -its correspondent to return to France, or at least to -some of the points where the American troops were -gathering.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>... As for magazine conditions, Dicky [John -Higgins wrote], they couldn’t be worse. Our little old<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span> -<i>Public Square</i> has fallen into sorry ways.... If -you’ve had a German neighbor for thirty years and -learned cautiously to respect the beast, you’re supposed -now to know him no more, in trade or whist or home -or club, nor his woman nor children. Old England’s -bloomed out more seductive than ever, and this country’s -infatuated. You couldn’t believe it. We’re more -English than Canada right now. She’s borrowed everything -in sight and is so tickled over herself that she’s -beginning to laugh at us already. It’s a fact, her big -business men can’t keep the joke any longer.... But -I only meant to tell you that <i>The Public Square</i> has -nothing to say, nothing to do. We tried a critical study -of the architecture of a federal building in Des Moines, -and we’re being looked into for unpatriotic motives. -A lot of American business men, who once gloried in -their breadth and toleration, have taken positions in -what they call the Department of Justice, and their -business is to probe into speeches and writings like ours. -They are looking for heresies of citizenship. If we’re -not suspended for making a croak, we’ll likely be forced -to suspend for not having the breath. Otherwise, we’re -quite well, and the trade world—you ought to be able -to hear American business boom, even in India—if -you’re not too far inland.</p> -</div> - -<p>For the first time John Higgins’ views looked diminished -to Dicky Cobden’s eyes. This personal treason -he laid to India. He made an arrangement, however, -to help <i>The Public Square</i> to keep alive.... Gandhi -was called to Lucknow, and Dicky saw him into his -third-class coach, with a catch in his throat and a sadness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span> -of heart. A day or two later he left Nagar at the -station where he found him—and the day looked dull -and gloomy from the windows of the Bombay <i>Inter -Provincial</i>, as the American started south alone.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXIX<br /> - -<small>RUFUS’ PLAY DAY</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">RUFUS MELTON was having his coffee at -Miss Claes’ table. It was noon and July, -1917. The package of mail left at 54 Harrow -Street had not forgotten Rufus this morning. -Another story had gone through, and he felt that the -day was all right. It looked to him like a very good -day to play and to shop. Miss Claes came in from the -kitchen in a fresh white dress and canvas shoes, nor did -she come empty handed. A crystal and silver marmalade -jar was in one hand, and a plate of cold ham in the -other. These she placed on the cloth before him; and -noting that the loaf of rye bread lay uncut upon the -board, she went to a drawer for the knife.</p> - -<p>Rufus dropped a cube of sugar into his coffee cup -and contemplated Miss Claes’ ankle. His mind became -industrious. He was thinking how he would describe -the ankle if he were using it in a story. He thought of -several narrow white things. There was a white greyhound, -but you couldn’t say a woman’s ankle was like -that. There was a white pleasure yacht on the river, -with narrow lines and clipper bow that bore a psychological -likeness, but it would take a paragraph to put -that over. The boneheads would think of boiler plate.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span> -Then there was a birch tree and a polar bear and a -snowy church spire ... anyway the ankle was fetching.</p> - -<p>“You look great this morning, Miss Claes, and see -here——”</p> - -<p>He spread out his letter from a most rich and inaccessible -editorial room.</p> - -<p>“How interesting, Rufus. You are doing so well -with your stories.”</p> - -<p>“Pidge thinks they’re rotten,” he chuckled.</p> - -<p>No comment from Miss Claes.</p> - -<p>“She’d have me sit in a cave and growl over a story—bringing -one out every three months for editors to -muss their hair over and finally turn down. That’s the -life——”</p> - -<p>Miss Claes had turned to the cabinet of dishes, the -double doors of which were open. One might have -thought that Rufus was now entirely involved in the -subject of Pidge’s idea of stories, but in reality he was -studying Miss Claes’ waist and throat and profile. Her -particular freshness from boots up this morning fascinated -his eye. She took his coffee cup to the kitchen -to be refilled, and when she came back close to his chair, -Rufus’ arm moved engagingly around her hips, his face -turning up with a questioning boyish smile.</p> - -<p>“What is it, Rufus?” she asked, making no movement -to be free from his arm.</p> - -<p>“You’re mighty charming this morning——”</p> - -<p>“It’s a charming morning.”</p> - -<p>His arm tightened a little, yet she stood perfectly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span> -still. Rufus was now in a quandary. This sitting posture -had its diminishing aspect: yet to arise and disentangle -his feet from under the table, he must loosen his -arm or show an uncouth line to the camera, so to speak. -Rufus rarely broke his rhythms in these little performances; -certainly not when the going was as delicate as -this. Miss Claes had become especially desirable, because -of an exciting uncertainty about her, and an affectation, -at least, of allegiance to Pidge. If he had -only had sense enough to turn his chair around, before -taking her in. Presently Rufus reached the conclusion -that it was better to draw her down to him, than take -a chance of getting his arm around her again.</p> - -<p>She came—no resistance, no rigidity. His lips found -her shadowy cheek, and an indescribable and most disturbing -fragrance from her neck and hair. Or was it -the extraordinary coolness of everything that disturbed, -or the words gently whispered in his ear:</p> - -<p>“You’re such a lonely boy. You don’t understand at -all what you are really dying for.”</p> - -<p>Rufe was disappointed. So hers was the mothering -game. Besides his position was uncomfortable, knees -under the table, and his coffee was getting cold. So he -let her go after all, in order to reach a standing posture, -but by the time he was free of the chair and the table, -Miss Claes had vanished without haste into the kitchen. -Rufus now stood dangling inconveniently between his -breakfast and her return.</p> - -<p>She came; he went to her. Her dark eyes were utterly -calm, no traceable deepening of the color in her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span> -face. She halted, but lightly held in the two hands before -her was a gold-edged dish, with a little golden -globe of butter in the center.</p> - -<p>Rufus dropped back in his chair and lifted his coffee -cup. What on earth could a man do with a woman -holding a butter dish? “It’s hell to be fastidious,” he -thought, in regard to his own inhibitions.</p> - -<p>Something delectable had gone out of the July day. -Miss Claes was no nearer his understanding than before. -Pidge would have the laugh on him, because -these women could never keep anything to themselves. -He didn’t mind anything about Pidge so much as her -laugh. Altogether, this little brush at breakfast left -him unsatisfied—and this was a play day.</p> - -<p>“Thanks,” he said at the door.</p> - -<p>She gave him a pink, an old-fashioned white one. -“The butter-and-egg-man brought in some from his -dooryard garden in Yonkers,” she said.</p> - -<p>Rufe started upstairs.</p> - -<p>There were voices from one of the rooms on the -main floor, but the second was entirely empty and silent -until a rear door opened and Fanny Gallup looked out.</p> - -<p>“Hello,” she said in a far-reaching whisper.</p> - -<p>Fanny’s “hello” was one of the best of her little -ways. She said it, as one would cast a silken noose.</p> - -<p>Rufe looked back and down. On certain mornings -he would have growled an answer and tramped on, but -there was something white and calling about the face -in the dim shadows this morning, and for a wonder the -kids weren’t squalling.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span>“Oh, come in. Come on in!” was in his ears. Her -bare arm was raised and he saw the little muffler of -dark in the pit of it. The lacing was gone from the -smock, moreover, and there was a pull for the moment -to Fanny’s sad little breast. The fact that the smock -had once been Pidge’s, Rufe thrust back into his mind -for future reference. He halted, looking around and -listening again. Then he tiptoed in and the door was -shut. Not a great while afterward the door was opened, -the crying of children was heard. Fanny was moaning, -“Don’t go ’way—oh, don’t go ’way!”</p> - -<p>But Rufus breasted past her muttering within himself, -“Never again!”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>... Pidge and Rufe Melton went over to Bank -Street for supper that evening. Rufus wasn’t hungry. -He had bought a golf suit that looked very well -on him, he said, but evidently now he was troubled how -to use it. He hadn’t done any work so far to-day and -felt less like it than ever. Pidge thoughtlessly mentioned -that an Indian letter had come in to the office -from Richard Cobden that day.</p> - -<p>“You folks are dippy about this Cobden,” Rufe said. -“Every time an article of his comes out in the <i>Passé -Square</i>, you gather together to read it as if it had come -from the Messiah. What’s he to you, Pan—a little bit -tender on your Dicky?”</p> - -<p>“A little bit tender,” she said.</p> - -<p>Rufus felt abused. He glared at her. This sort of -thing had happened before. Rufe had come to look at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span> -Pidge as his picket pin. He had a long rope and everything -was all right, so long as the pin held. But her -manner now would uncenter any man.</p> - -<p>“I’d like to get out of Harrow Street,” he growled. -“Every time I put my address on the top of a manuscript, -I feel it’s a knock rather than a boost. I’ve been -tempted to get an agent, for no other reason than to -have his address for the magazines to work through. -I was talking with Redge Walters who bought this -story to-day, and he said, ‘Rufe, you sure fall for the -little bobbed heads down in the Village, don’t you? -Why don’t you come uptown and live in New York?’”</p> - -<p>“I like Harrow Street,” said Pidge.</p> - -<p>“You don’t make a secret of it, either,” he went on. -“Of course, Miss Claes is kind and all that, but we pay -for what we get, and there’s no question in my mind -about the pictures in her gallery being hung crooked.”</p> - -<p>“If you’ve finished your supper, let’s go,” said Pidge.</p> - -<p>“She breathes! The Arctic princess!” Rufe shivered.</p> - -<p>Pidge didn’t answer.</p> - -<p>“And that second floor needs policing up,” Rufe resumed. -“I haven’t taken it to heart so much about -living in the Village, but that second floor’s a tenement -patch. Every time I go up and down——”</p> - -<p>“Fanny’s my fault and Miss Claes accepts it with -never a murmur,” Pidge said, wide-eyed. “I’d look -well running off uptown and leaving Fanny there. Oh, -Rufe, don’t you ever see any fault except on the outside?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span>Right then Rufe said something.</p> - -<p>“What’s the use of me looking after my own faults -when you’ve got them all in hand like Shetland ponies?”</p> - -<p>Pidge arose. Black waters were welling up in her -breast. It was so true. His faults were with her day -and night, and the greatest of them was his entire -irresponsibility. Also it touched her in the sorest quick -to have him point out that Fanny lowered the values, -not only of the second floor, but of the whole Harrow -Street house.</p> - -<p>Pidge never passed Fanny’s door but she was pressed -by something within to enter; yet her whole personal -nature rebelled. Often for hours at her work, there -was a gloomy semiconscious activity within her that -kept urging its notice up to her mind. When she -stopped to think, she would realize that she hadn’t gone -into Fanny’s room that day, or that she must drop in -to-night. It was so now, only more than ever, because -Rufe had located her private horror and brought it to -speech. On the second floor, returning from supper, -she told Rufe to go on up, that she meant to see Fanny -for a few minutes.</p> - -<p>“What to—come on, Pan, let’s go to a show somewhere!” -he said suddenly.</p> - -<p>She shook her head.</p> - -<p>“There isn’t a clot of work stirring in my brain pan,” -he went on.</p> - -<p>“I don’t want to go out. I’ve got to see Fanny——”</p> - -<p>He caught her sleeve. “It’s too hot to go up. Let’s -go somewhere. Let’s get on a bus and go uptown——”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span>She was too occupied in the thing she hated to do, -to notice his concern. He spoke again:</p> - -<p>“I’m not going up there alone. You’re colder than -a frog to live with anyway——”</p> - -<p>“Go out somewhere, Rufe, if you want to. Don’t -mind me.”</p> - -<p>She didn’t hear his words, but she heard the crying -of Fanny’s children. The door opened. Fanny stood -there, but looked past her, over Pidge’s shoulder, and -queerly enough Pidge thought of the words, “And Jove -nods to Jove.” The hall door was then shut.</p> - -<p>“Wot you coming in here for—to scold me some -more, Redhead?”</p> - -<p>“No, Fanny, to see you and the——”</p> - -<p>“I know why you come, all right. To find fault—that’s -why, and you needn’t kill yourself, because I’m -gettin’ along, so-so. Little old Fanny’s holdin’ her own—and -that’s more’n you’re doin’.”</p> - -<p>Pidge looked into the crib. A core of fetid vapor -hung above it, and Fanny’s words seemed to blend -with it.</p> - -<p>“Think you can hold your job and hold a man, too, -don’t you? Oh, yes, Redhead knows how. Redhead’s -got it all worked out. Redhead can tell us all how to -do it, oh, yes——”</p> - -<p>“What’s the matter, Fanny? Are you scolding, so -I won’t start? I didn’t come to start something. Just -came to see you. Wouldn’t you like to go out for an -hour and have me stay with the—with the——”</p> - -<p>Pidge always halted this way.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span>“Worried—eh? Worried about somethin’?” Fanny -piped up. “Well, I’m not tellin’ anything—except -you ain’t got your little mastiff tied to no corset -string——”</p> - -<p>“What are you talking about, Fanny?”</p> - -<p>“Like to know. Wouldn’t you?”</p> - -<p>Pidge felt cold. She cared to know what the other -meant. She didn’t say so, however. She knew a better -way—an effective way that seemed to come out of -depths within her that knew vast pasts and many lands, -all strategies of men and maids, all secrets of tent and -purdah, lattice and veil.</p> - -<p>“Don’t trouble, Fanny. I just came in to see how -you were getting on. I’m so sorry, you know——”</p> - -<p>“Sorry——” Fanny laughed.</p> - -<p>“So sorry, dear—that you’re penned in this way—and -Albert missing!”</p> - -<p>“Sorry!” Fanny screamed her mirth.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you want me to be sorry for you, dear?” -Pidge trailed. “Why, I haven’t been nearly so good as -I meant to be——”</p> - -<p>“Well, you dam’ little itch-face—talking to me about -being sorry. Who’n heller-you to tell me about being -sorry? Who’n heller-you to talk to me about me gettin’ -penned in an’ Albert missin’, when you can’t keep -your own man—when you don’t carry your own babies? -Who’n heller-you anyway?”</p> - -<p>Then Fanny got down to business and spoke of -life in the here and now.</p> - -<p>“Never mind, dear,” said Pidge. “We can’t attend<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span> -to everything. I’m going out to get you some ice cream. -I’ll be back in a few minutes.”</p> - -<p>She was in the street. She brought back a paper pail -without haste. Fanny had begun to cry.</p> - -<p>“Don’t feel badly,” Pidge said, washing a saucer and -spoon.</p> - -<p>Fanny cried on. Pidge served her a large dish, and -a smaller one for the older child. Then from the paper, -she spooned tiny mouthfuls into the face in the crib—spooned -until there was sleep from the novel coolness -of the sweet. Then Pidge patted Fanny’s shoulder, as -she passed out, promising to come back some time to-morrow.</p> - -<p>Upstairs she found Rufe, shirt open at the throat, -standing by the back window. The light in the room -was heavily shaded. He looked to her covertly, half -expectantly.</p> - -<p>“Want to read something?” he said in a pleasant -tone.</p> - -<p>“No. I’m going to bed,” said Pidge.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXX<br /> - -<small>THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">EARLY the next morning in the shadowy back -room, Pidge moved softly about as she dressed. -She saw the new golf suit, and her lips twisted -into a smile. Another toy; another bit of acting. That -was all of the game he cared for—the clothes that went -with it. She thought of the night on the corner when -the newsboy had pointed out Rufe as a movie actor. -She saw his desk by the window. It looked like a -troubled face. Here she was, as usual, furiously busy -with his faults—so occupied that he didn’t have to -bother at all, sleeping serenely on. But he didn’t understand, -never could understand, that her agony was because -she saw them as part of herself; that in her own -heart she couldn’t free herself from responsibility; -knowing deeply the <i>dis</i>-ease that comes from that soul-deep -question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”</p> - -<p>And there he was lying on his back, innocent as a -child. The pain darted into her heart ... the baby -carriage at Santa Monica. His complexion was almost -as fresh, his black hair brushed back. It was as if he -had fallen asleep with a tear in his eyes, for a little -penciling of salt was on the thin blue-veined skin under -the eyelid. His breast was uncovered and that spoiled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span> -the picture, spoiled the pathos; for Rufe, though the -least athletic of men, was hairy and glad of it.</p> - -<p>She hadn’t slept. This, since coming home last night, -was a show-down time, as she expressed it. She had -met the same several times with her father, when the -days became so black and evil that something had to -happen. Deep, under words and surface thoughts, lay -the affair of Fanny’s room. The dreary consciousness -of that never left her, but actual thinking of details was -another affair. She couldn’t give way to them, and -keep the outer quiet she had determined upon. She had -been too honest to hide from herself, even in the beginning, -that Rufe habitually took life as it came. She -never could forget his first appraisal of herself in the -reception room of <i>The Public Square</i>.</p> - -<p>So this hadn’t come in the nature of shock; rather it -was a pitiless uncovering of ugliness that had been -vaguely subconscious before. What hurt her most -keenly, so that she was close to crying out, as she lay -beside him in the night, was the inevitable tramp of -Fate, audible through it all—their meeting in Dicky’s -room; Dicky’s opening of <i>The Public Square</i> to him in -the first place; her own bringing of Fanny Gallup to -this house; the weaving back and forth into one, of the -different lives—even her father’s.</p> - -<p>Rufe wasn’t at home when she returned that night. -He hadn’t rung her at the office, but she found word -with Miss Claes that he had gone down to Washington. -She felt something was going to happen, but through -the day she had gathered her strength together to decide<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span> -that she wouldn’t be the one to bring it about. -Underneath all was the old sense of her responsibility.</p> - -<p>Pidge was half tempted to seek Miss Claes this night. -She even went so far as to learn that her friend was at -home. It always happened so, when she needed help: -Miss Claes might be out any or at all other times. A -light was in the basement room, and no voices, but -Pidge crept back upstairs without speaking.... She -had failed. She had run away from her father, failing -there; failing here. She must see this through alone a -little longer.... The next afternoon Rufe called for -her at <i>The Public Square</i>. His eyes held a glint of -triumph.</p> - -<p>“I’m going to France,” he said, when they were in -the street. “I’ve arranged to do a big feature for -Redge Walters and a Sunday newspaper syndicate set.”</p> - -<p>“But how about the draft?”</p> - -<p>“Went down to Washington to start things going to -fix that. Redge gave me letters. Looks as if there -won’t be much trouble. You see, the Government -needs the writers—public sentiment, you know.”</p> - -<p>It wasn’t that Pidge didn’t think of things to say on -this point of making public sentiment, but a great gray -ennui was over her. She had said enough about his -faults.</p> - -<p>“You know, I’ve been smothering in Harrow Street—had -to get away,” he added.</p> - -<p>“Yes, I know, Rufe.” After a time, she said, “I -think it’s a good thing.”</p> - -<p>“That’s the way to look at it, Pan,” he said in a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span> -relieved voice, and confided: “I need the experience, -too, you know, because I’ve never been to Europe——”</p> - -<p>It was out before she thought: “But how did you -get to the Tunisian sands?”</p> - -<p>“I mean I’ve never stayed long enough to look -around. Of course, I’ve passed through.”</p> - -<p>He grouched for the rest of the evening, but she felt -worse about this than he did. She had thought she was -through nailing him like that. It had done no good, -merely an additional breaking out of her abysmal temper.... -On the night before he left, Rufe was at his -best—the playboy she loved so much; and, of course, -she was pressed harder and harder into the realms of -the Arctic Princess, which was by no means her natural -habitat. At last, he had her crying, which was -something, because it hadn’t happened often.</p> - -<p>“Going to miss your Rufie,” he whispered, “sorry -he’s going away?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, it isn’t that!”</p> - -<p>“What is it, Pan?” he demanded in the tone of the -head of a household. “Get it off your mind—don’t -keep anything from me.”</p> - -<p>That started her to laughing. “It’s noth-nothing, -Rufe. I’m all right now,” she said brokenly. “I’m -only hurt because I haven’t done it better——”</p> - -<p>“What?”</p> - -<p>“Us.”</p> - -<p>“Forget it,” he said. “I never hold a grudge.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXXI<br /> - -<small>TWO LETTERS FROM INDIA</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap2">LATER in July, Miss Claes received letters from -Dicky Cobden and Nagar. Each, it appeared, -had been mainly interested in writing about the -other. She read Dicky’s first:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>... I think I’ve seen the Man you wrote of, but I’m -more interested in our own Nagar—altogether different -in his native dress. I never knew how civilized clothes -could slow up a man’s looks. If a white man in New -York were as good-looking as Nagar is here, the movie -folk would kidnap him, if necessary, for the screen.... -Things look differently over here. Sitting in this -plain house of the one they call Mahatma-ji, I seem to -understand things that would appear absurd in New -York.... Nagar has opened up. He talks freely and -laughs. He is human, and his American years show in -fine light. Try to think how startling all this was to one -coming up from Bombay, expecting the old sphinx of -your basement and halls.... I find myself frequently -at the <i>Ashrama</i>—a houseful of saints—young men -and women devoted to the Mahatma-ji, like Nagar, -and who apparently have taken vows covering self-sacrifices -unlimited. Gandhi is a bit of old brass with -a mustache; terribly battered, only fifty they say, but -he shows the wear of greater years. I seemed to feel<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span> -that he had been frozen, that he had been whipped, -that he had been burned. Some of his teeth are gone.... -He tells us that you can’t fight back and expect -to get anywhere. He says to answer a hurt with a -hurt is to prepare for hurt again. He says you never -can understand your enemy by hating him. He says -that India can only triumph by returning into herself. -Imagine such unearthly affairs from a barrister educated -in Middle Temple, London! And Nagar appears -to understand all this.... I haven’t the organs to -believe much. My training hasn’t prepared me easily -to accept miracles—more later, when I cool down. But -Nagar is great to me in himself. I think I find him -more interesting, even than Gandhi. Sometimes he -seems to contain Gandhi. But it would smash everything -I have to work with, if I gave either one of them -my entire belief. Yet I dread the thought of going -away....</p> -</div> - -<p>The letter from Nagar was then read slowly twice, -and the smile on the face of Miss Claes gradually lost -itself in a blur of white, as if twilight had crept into -the basement room.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>... The American whom we know never speaks -directly of the one he loves; it does not seem to occur -to him that we have sympathy that enfolds his secrets. -He asks questions—asks questions. He shakes his -head. His college-trained intellect does not reach up, -does not hold up its cup to receive the synthesis. It -moves wearily from one to another of its separate -analyses, with only rarely a connective flash of intuition.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span> -But his heart keeps burning, yearning all the time, and -as he learns, he acts. So he seems very safe.... I -have wished so often that he were going to you, instead -of to his work in Europe, but that, of course, is selfish. -He has his work there. We must hold him between -us. He knows already that he will not be able to see -and feel in France, as he does here. It is his ordeal. -I have told him many times; every day, in fact, that -what he sees and feels here, he must remember there, -and hold to, until it is made working knowledge within -him.... Our work is merely preparing. The Little -Man, as Richard calls him affectionately from that old -story, realizes that the hour is not yet. We work in -the midst of many shades of darkness and obliquity and -inhibition. We are marking time, marking time.... -Our American will return to India in time to see the -Day break. I have promised to keep him informed. -As Paul Richard says, “We must prepare in ourselves -that magnificent day.”</p> -</div> - -<p>Miss Claes sat in silence. Then she seemed to become -aware that voices above vaguely distracted. She -went to the door, and listened. Fanny Gallup was -crying, with little care who heard.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXXII<br /> - -<small>FRANCE, 1918. THE YANK</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">DICKY hadn’t had his clothes off for several -days. He was in the “Oregon” Forest with -Colonel Boulding who was no sort of man to -tie to for one who felt that a clean washrag was one of -the necessities of life. Dicky hadn’t cared for strenuous -field work but it had come to him in France; not -the actions of the big fields so much as the extraordinary -little back-line dramas that break the laws of -perspective by rising more clearly, as days drew on. -Four days before, on his way in to Paris, he had met -Boulding, who was taking out several fresh battalions -to relieve a hard-pressed front at St. Aignan.</p> - -<p>“I’ve got an extra horse,” said Boulding, “good old -Yorick, steady as a tram-car, and we’ll be back in three -days.”</p> - -<p>Dicky stood in the twilight, half rain, half snow—one -of the interminable waits for order, Boulding back -in the ranks somewhere. The firing had died down and -Dicky dropped his bridle rein to bang his arms about -to get some blood stirring in them. One of the problems -of life just now was why wet snow soaked through -leather quicker than straight rain water; another was -why letters from home always dragged around the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span> -wrong fronts before being delivered; another was how -long was IT going to last; another was hot coffee.</p> - -<p>His mount had turned gently away in the thickening -dusk, turned on his toe corks through the slush to -follow a wind-blown leaf. Plop—a water-soaked -trench-siding gave way, and Yorick disappeared into -an unused pit. Dicky stared down into the inky dark. -The beast snorted. A flashlamp was procured from one -of Boulding’s lieutenants and Dicky found his way -down into the trench.</p> - -<p>It became clear why Yorick couldn’t rise, even if -unhurt. The trench bottom was a six-inch paste of -water and clay. Holding the flashlight in front of -him, Dicky approached the sprawled beast. Yorick -looked like a monster in the process of being born out -of the mud. There was something both humorous -and hopeless about the gaunt lifted head that came up -into the ray. And now Dicky discovered that Yorick’s -left foreleg below the knee veered off suddenly to -the left, at a decided angle from the way it should lie. -Dicky felt alone in a harrowing under world. The leaf -that had caused it all, or possibly one like it, protruded -from the snaffle ring. Yorick had come up to his leaf -all right, and then forgotten what he had gone after.</p> - -<p>“Pretty lucky old boy, you are,” Dicky said. “Work -done, war over for you, nice warm ditch to lie up in -at the last, and I’ve got to take all the responsibility.”</p> - -<p>He drew the pistol from his belt and placed it on -the little twist of hair halfway between the eyes.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span>“I ought to take the saddle off first, but I’m not going -to. So long, old kid, and best luck.”</p> - -<p>The pistol banged in the dugout like a cannon -cracker under a flower pot, and the voice of an American -sentry above was heard to say:</p> - -<p>“Some fool’s blowed his head off, down there. Why -in hell can’t a man be patient!”</p> - -<p>Dicky climbed up on the level ground, no sicker -than before, but a trifle more tired.... He was -chafed. Yorick had done some of it in the last four -days, but not all. He was chafed in and out and -over, chafed from his boots and belt and helmet, but -especially from his key ring. This last had ground -into him all day. He took it out now, as he waited -for coffee. Meanwhile he edged as near as possible -(without murdering anybody) to the trench stove -Boulding’s cook had got going.</p> - -<p>There was the key to his mother’s house in Fiftieth -Street—a thick brass stubby affair that belonged to -the door of a house where hardware was well understood. -This key couldn’t be thrown away. Though -it was practically unthinkable—a man might some time -get home. It had been done. There was a key to -54 Harrow Street. The woman who ran the place -had told him to keep it with him, because it was a -symbol of something which he had professed at the -time to understand. Then there was a long, old-fashioned -inside door key, black and a little bent—the -meanest of all to dig into a man’s hip—this to the -hall door of certain rooms in the same Harrow Street<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span> -house. Its duplicate was in the hands of a girl he used -to know. She had said she would look in on the apartment -while he was gone, but she was married now. -No use keeping it any longer.</p> - -<p>He took it off the ring, but put it back again.</p> - -<p>Certain things were good, but hard to get. Brandy -was good. Coffee was good, especially hot. Saddle-horse -stew was good. Porkpie, pork and beans, pork -sausage and pancakes were reasonable and of good -report, but keys on key rings that gored a man while -he rode or slept, and stretched back into meanings of -the Utterly Absurd that a man couldn’t get straight -in Paris, much less in this slaughterhouse of the Western -Front—keys on key rings were sheer perversities, -especially when a man wasn’t game to toss them into -any one of these open sewers....</p> - -<p>They were saying at home that his stuff was blurred -and unconvincing. Even John Higgins had been singularly -silent of late. Chris Heidt, the managing editor -of his newspaper connection, had recently written: -“We miss that fine patriotic ring that we have come -to expect from our correspondent. Your stuff shows -subtleties and innuendoes and the dissatisfaction of the -boys—the little things back of the lines that make for -disorganization, rather than the big doings at the -front.”</p> - -<p>It was dawning on Dicky that there were two kinds -of American patriots, soldier and civilian; and that for -keenness and fire-eating zest, the man in the zone of -advance was not to be compared to the paper-fed folk<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span> -at home. In fact, there were only two ways for a -writer to please the firesides of America, as the hot -flames of Hun-hatred and world-correcting benefactions -went up the chimney. One was to stay at home and -write the war as you supposed it to be, and the other -was to remember how you felt, how the war seemed to -you, before you reached France, and write it from that -angle.</p> - -<p>Blurred, all right, and chafed. One thing he was -getting to understand a little, and to have an affection -for. That was the American soldier—not officer, so -much, but the ruffian in the ranks, <i>dogus bogus Americanus</i>—the -fellow fused of Irish, Scotch and Jew, of -German, English, Russian and French; something of -each in the solution, something of all. In the first -place, this Yank was the funniest thing ever turned -loose on the planet. His officers were occasionally funny -in a different way.</p> - -<p>Dicky vaguely perceived that an abyss was slowly -but surely forming between this Yank and the patriots -at home—an abyss only to be bridged by silence. Quite -as slowly but surely Dicky’s heart opened to this enlisted -man. One has to love something. Once or -twice, things he saw this laughing maniac from America -do made him very much ashamed of his own mental -antics in a certain red room of Bombay.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXXIII<br /> - -<small>PARIS, 1918—HADDON AND AMES</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">SO far as Dicky was concerned, the things of great -moment in his experience in France all happened -in the fall of 1918. He was in Paris at the end of -that shocking summer, and found a letter from Nagar -which reiterated that the curtain could not rise on the -Drama of India until Great Britain was through fighting -in France and the land of the Euphrates.... He -was stopping at the <i>Garonne</i>. There was a knock at -his room door one afternoon and voices outside. It -was Haddon and Ames, correspondents out of New -York, and they wanted money. Haddon talked first:</p> - -<p>“... He’s off his head and in a mess. He mentioned -your name. He says he sniffed some gas out -in the vineyards somewhere in April, and can’t get over -it. Either that, or the family he’s fouled up with is -feeding him ground glass.”</p> - -<p>“Who’s this you’re talking about?” Cobden asked, -though he had heard the name.</p> - -<p>“Melton—done some magazine stories,” said -Haddon.</p> - -<p>“You say he mentioned my name?”</p> - -<p>“His French father-in-law picked on me first,” Ames -put in. “Just happened. I’m at the <i>Charente</i>, where a -lot of Americans are putting up. Told me a long story<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span> -of wrongs to his only child—a female child now married -to Author Melton. Mentioned your name——”</p> - -<p>“He was gassed?” Dicky repeated.</p> - -<p>“He says he was,” said Haddon. “It’s an operation -case, all right. Melton will have to be cut out of that -French house.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know whether it’s gas in my case or not,” -Dicky said, “but the fact is I am not rightly aboard this -conversation.”</p> - -<p>“The idea is to get aboard with some American currency,” -said Ames. “American in trouble—fellows all -willing to help a little. Up to somebody to get the fool -out. Father picked on me——”</p> - -<p>“Let me get this straight,” Dicky heard himself saying, -though all he wanted under heaven at this moment -was to be alone.</p> - -<p>Ames was one of the best Washington correspondents -in the American press, a fact-getter extraordinary, who -had a semi-inspired way now and then of putting down -his stuff. He was fifty, a friend of John Higgins and -weathered to a fuzzy gray like a fence board. Just now -he bluffed out his embarrassment by speaking of one -of Melton’s stories which Dicky was professionally -familiar with:</p> - -<p>“A short story in one of the weeklies—called <i>Dr. -Filter</i>—hell of a good story.... It’s nothing to me,” -Ames finished. “Only the kid’s an American, and he’s -tight up against one of Paris’ prettiest ways.”</p> - -<p>Haddon took up the tale:</p> - -<p>“The Frenchman’s name is Ducier. Melton’s been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span> -living at his house—mixed with the daughter—forced -to marry. Now Parent Ducier says the least he can -do is to get a living for himself out of it—hard times.”</p> - -<p>“Actually married?” Dicky asked.</p> - -<p>“Showed me the passport,” said Ames. “I couldn’t -get a word alone with Melton. He can’t leave his bed. -One of the family always in the room.”</p> - -<p>Dicky was straining so hard that he resisted easy -comprehension. It was an intense moment. There -was more talk.</p> - -<p>“Of course, whatever you want from me——” Dicky -broke in.</p> - -<p>“What you can spare,” Haddon said. “The parents -ask twenty thousand francs, but they’ll take half that -easy. Just now the boy’s too sick to escape.”</p> - -<p>“Count on me for at least half of whatever it costs,” -Dicky said.</p> - -<p>Haddon’s eyes widened. Ames looked astonished.</p> - -<p>“I’ve heard Cobden is rich, Ames,” Haddon explained.</p> - -<p>The gray one came closer and examined Dicky’s -face. “I heard it, too,” he said. “You really mean -this?”</p> - -<p>“I would give you the amount now, but I understand -that you aren’t sure what it will be. I know -Melton. I’m glad to help, of course.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve heard you were rich, too,” Ames repeated -slowly. “But I didn’t believe it.”</p> - -<p>“Why not?”</p> - -<p>“You’re too good a newspaper man,” said Ames.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span> -“I didn’t think a man could have real money and be -as good a newspaper man as you.”</p> - -<p>Dicky hardly heard the tribute. The two men were -leaving. That was the important thing.... He was -alone. An intermittent geyser was at work within him. -Every few minutes a surge of hot hope boiled up in his -breast. It threatened to deluge him. Out of all the -year’s work was netted at this time one bit of working -knowledge, as Nagar might have called it, that he must -<i>not</i> be deluded by this hope! He tried to cork it up; -failing in that he stood as still as he could in the midst -of the surges. Gradually, he got the thing in hand, but -it was bitter work, this refusing to take the first real -breath of life he had known for years.</p> - -<p>He found himself in twilight. The day had slipped -off, while he struggled alone. His forehead was -clammy with the effort going on. To go back into -that dreary hopelessness, and not be able to think out -the reason why! The force that he had to work with -now came from the painful mistake he had made in -working for reward before; from the shock of that -realization in the red room, that underneath everything, -he had counted on his virtue being crowned with -Pidge somehow coming across.</p> - -<p>Now the fight changed. Persistently in the depths -of him grew an awareness that he had not done the -full task called of him merely in offering Ames money. -This point became so ugly and evident—that he had to -laugh. More and more, as moments sped on, it faced<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span> -him squarely. He had no sentimentalism to tide him -over; his emotions stayed ice cold.</p> - -<p>“But it’s like a fool Sunday-school story!” he -muttered.</p> - -<p>Then again the words broke from him: “But living -God, suppose she doesn’t want the bundle back! Suppose -she’s been trying to lose it, and here I am running -after her, saying, ‘You’ve dropped something, Madame——’”</p> - -<p>But he couldn’t budge.</p> - -<p>Full dark was in the room when he rung Ames at -the <i>Charente</i>:</p> - -<p>“I’ve been thinking over this thing, Mr. Ames, and -I’m asking a favor——”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” came coldly across the town. Ames believed -he was trying to wriggle out of his promise to pay -half.</p> - -<p>“I’ve come to the conclusion that this thing is up -to me—the whole business, and I’ll thank you very -much for Mr. Melton’s present address.”</p> - -<p>“No. 16, Rue de Belville, Villancourt.” The tones -had warmed.</p> - -<p>“Thanks. I’ll report to you presently,” Cobden said.</p> - -<p>“Sure you don’t want me—or one of us to go along -with you?” Ames persisted.</p> - -<p>“I’ll see what I can do alone first, if you don’t -mind.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXXIV<br /> - -<small>THE HOUSE OF DUCIER</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">QUEER drama, from eight to twelve that night -in the little house of Ducier. Four hours—as -long as an uncut opera! The sick man -moaned, and interrupted everything, calling to Dicky -Cobden:</p> - -<p>“For the love of God, don’t go ’way and leave me -here! I’m done for, if you leave me alone again.... -Oh, Cobden, Cobden——”</p> - -<p>The daughter wept. It was her entire part. She -had a brown mole upon her ruddy rounded cheek, and -very white small teeth in gums of a red that Dicky -had never seen before except in dental advertisements. -She was made of little curves, and all of them were -required in the art of her weeping.</p> - -<p>“What’s the matter?” Dicky asked her, during a halt -in the proceedings.</p> - -<p>“You are taking him away!”</p> - -<p>“I don’t seem to be very successful about it.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, but you will—you are taking him away!”</p> - -<p>Dicky was glad to hear that he was going to get -what he came for, but the obstacles still looked serious.</p> - -<p>“Isn’t that what you want—to be rid and paid?”</p> - -<p>“My father—yes—but me—no, no! He is my lover—oh, -such an adored!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span>It was new to Cobden’s experience just how obdurate -an outraged European can be. M. Ducier -reiterated grimly that weeks ago in this house, he had -suddenly discovered a condition which destroyed all -his past and future. He had forced marriage, but that -did not suffice. Dicky turned to the bed at this point.</p> - -<p>“How did you happen to stand for marriage, -Melton?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing to do with it—I was gassed!”</p> - -<p>Here the daughter’s cries arose, the hands of the -mother were uplifted to heaven, and the face of the -father became more grim. It was against Dicky’s -training and heredity to stand for being bilked, yet -he hesitated to call for help. To start the police at -work would mean the American Legation before he -was finished, and incredible delay. Momentarily Melton -made it harder.</p> - -<p>“If you go away and leave me after all they have -said,” he moaned, “there won’t be any need for you to -come back! I am telling you, Cobden, they keep me -here—just as if my legs were tied.”</p> - -<p>Rufe spoke in English, which the mother and father -did not understand, but of which the daughter had -plenty to catch the drift. Dicky did not miss the fact -that in the midst of her weeping there were subtle -affairs to confide to her father.... It cost him -eighteen hundred dollars to get Melton clear that night; -but, at least, Melton was thoroughly clear, the marriage -certificate and receipt for heartbalm in full, in his -pocket. He watched curiously now to see if the tears<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span> -of Daughter Ducier were dried—but no, though Melton -spurned her last proffer of a kiss—at least with her, -money was not all.</p> - -<p>In the days that followed, Dicky wasn’t able to get -any rest from a sense that he had done well. With -every ounce of his returning strength Rufe Melton -yearned to get out of Paris. He had been abused; he -was frightened to depths hitherto unplumbed. He -lived in a mortal dread day and night that the Duciers -would come for him again.</p> - -<p>“I can’t get a passage for you at a moment’s notice,” -Dicky would say. “Besides, you’re not fit to travel for -a few days yet. I don’t want to send you back to New -York looking like a hounded Apache. Let me do this -thing right, Melton, while I’m in on it.”</p> - -<p>“But don’t go away and leave me here!” Rufe -moaned. “Let me go out with you when you go.”</p> - -<p>“You needn’t have the slightest fear from the -Duciers.”</p> - -<p>The hands came up and waved hopelessly.</p> - -<p>“You don’t know them! You don’t know her!” -Rufe moaned. “I want to get out of here. I want to -get on the ship. I don’t want to be left alone.”</p> - -<p>And this was what he was getting ready to send back -to Pidge! Once, when Dicky was really hard driven, -a sudden chill of rage came over him and he proceeded -this far with a sentence:</p> - -<p>“Why, Melton, I really ought to put you——”</p> - -<p>The other words—“to death,” he somehow managed -to keep from speech. Dicky suffered especially from the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span> -feeling that he was playing the boob. To be sincerely -in wrong was his pet aversion—dating from the night -of the Punjabi dinner. Besides, he was tortured with -the thought that Pidge Musser wouldn’t thank him. -Surely, for her sake, his mind repeated, it would have -been better even to put old Ames straight, and let one -American meet Paris unaided. But Rufe had called -for him in his trouble, had mentioned the name of -Cobden to the others.</p> - -<p>One of the strangest things to Dicky now was that -Pidge’s husband could accept all this—somehow as if -it were his due. Like a family affair. Rufe seldom -spoke of Pidge. Apparently getting back to New -York meant her; apparently they weren’t separated. -Rufe had the most extraordinary sense of taking her -for granted. If he had any money or resources in -Paris, he didn’t let the fact be known. It was Dicky -who purchased his passage for New York. Again -Dicky’s capacity for astonishment was stretched, because -Rufe seemed able to comfort himself with the -fact that he had it all coming. He had never been -sick before. His present infirmity was entirely engrossing. -“I was gassed,” covered all discrepancies -of word and deed.</p> - -<p>Back in his room, after packing Rufe aboard the -steamer, Dicky found himself nervous, tired and irritable. -A servant came and took out the extra bed Rufe -had occupied. The place was stiller than ever, after -that—no moaning, no fears, no complaints; but it -wasn’t all relief as Dicky had fancied it would be. He<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span> -missed something—the world was so crazy anyway—something -that had taken him out of himself for two -weeks; something at least, that had played upon a -different set of faculties. Suddenly it dawned upon -him, though he couldn’t tell why, that Pidge would be -glad after all. If you play orderly and guardian and -benefactor to a child—of course you miss the wretch. -And Pidge was a woman, and she had said—what had -she said, about there not being two ways? Now Dicky -felt better. There had not been two ways for him. -The chapter was ended at any rate....</p> - -<p>Another event of this fall of 1918, so far as Dicky -Cobden was concerned, was the Armistice. You can -tell how inactive hope had become within him at this -time, and within the breasts of tens of thousands of -others, when he hadn’t believed that any other than a -state of war could exist.</p> - -<p>And finally, in December, six weeks after the Armistice, -at the time of the greatest rush in history for -trans-Atlantic steamers, when Dicky had about concluded -that the quickest way home to New York would -be around by Asia, a <i>sepoy</i> on leave crossed the city of -Paris from the cantonments in Lourdenvoie, and asked -to see the American at the <i>Garonne</i>.</p> - -<p>“You are Richard Cobden?” the young Hindu said, -when the room door was closed.</p> - -<p>Dicky nodded, a certain gladness in him that he did -not understand. At the same time he was intent in a -scrutiny of the caller’s face—a youth, but very worn.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span> -Something about the eyes made the American think -of a camel.</p> - -<p>“You have been to Ahmedabad, Mr. Cobden?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Might I ask the name of the river there?”</p> - -<p>“The Sabarmati.”</p> - -<p>“Are you expecting a message from an American -in Ahmedabad?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“From any one there?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.” Now Dicky knew that it was the patience -in the young Hindu’s eyes that made him think of a -camel.</p> - -<p>“Is the name Juna?”</p> - -<p>“Nagarjuna.”</p> - -<p>The soldier bowed. “It is well. I was told to be -assured, before giving you the message. It is this: -<i>That the curtain has risen, the play begun, and that a -seat is reserved for you.</i>”</p> - -<p>“Is there need of haste?”</p> - -<p>“<i>No haste, but no delay!</i>”</p> - -<p>“My plan now is to go to New York——”</p> - -<p>“That need not be changed, since it was added for -me to say—that it will be well for you to travel westward -rather than to the East.”</p> - -<p>“To Ahmedabad at once?”</p> - -<p>“You will do well to go first to Bombay.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you. Is there anything I can do for you?”</p> - -<p>“Only say to Nagarjuna—that I, too, hope to come -for the end of that play.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span>“Your name?”</p> - -<p>“He knows his messenger. Here I am not a name, -hardly a number——”</p> - -<p>“A cigarette—a drink?”</p> - -<p>“I will not tarry since it is far to the cantonments.”</p> - -<p>The <i>sepoy</i> bowed and departed.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXXV<br /> - -<small>FANNY HEARS THE DRUM</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">PIDGE MUSSER had moved around in an -indescribable “deadness” for several days following -Rufe’s departure, before it landed on -her, theme and all, that she could do a book. Almost -four years had elapsed since she wrote the <i>Lance</i>. One -Sunday morning after the new work was begun, Pidge -took out the old story from the drawer under the wavy -glass, and glanced over the pages, a puckered smile on -her lips. Then she took the manuscript down to the -kitchen range, and there was a hot fire for a while.</p> - -<p>The new writing was not so simple and flowing. In -the first place, there were only Sundays and an hour -or two in the evening; but more than that was the -fact that she had learned so well what stories long -and short are not! She was now in the toil of technic, -which is a long passage. First the freedom of ignorance—“A -man’s a fool before he learns technic,” John -Higgins had said. “He’s a cripple while he’s learning -it. When he’s learned it, and forgotten he’s learned -it—he begins to be a workman. That’s the freedom -of knowledge.”</p> - -<p>The old editor didn’t know he had “said it all” for -Pidge Musser that day as he looked up from Rufe -Melton’s story. She wouldn’t forget. Edit and rewrite—some<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span> -evenings with nothing but a torturing inhibition -to go to bed with. There was no other way. She was -tough and broad shouldered. She could toil. She had -an instinctive awareness also, that the deadliest danger -in the whole scheme of things for her, at least, was to -brood inactively. Piled up energy to Pidge meant -inevitable disruption.</p> - -<p><i>The Public Square</i> was staying alive under the -energy amassed by the family of trowel makers, but -John Higgins wasn’t standing the punishment of the -days. Pidge saw him falling into the fear of small -things. Among other institutions he hated was the -U. S. Department of Justice, but this department was -hot after him and he was bluffed at last. The climax -had come upon the arrest of a famous pacifist, when -John Higgins was cornered with the necessity of -silence. Since there was no outlet in protest, his venom -turned in on himself. His periods of “illness” were -frequent, and Pidge had a great deal to do. His old -reaction against her marriage was apparently forgotten, -though his temper was unreliable. He was using her -now as never before. Once in a while, he would look -at her long and queerly, and often he said, “I wish -Dicky were here.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>In April, 1918, about the same time, a book and -a boy were born in 54 Harrow Street. Pidge was -present at both deliveries. The enactment of the boy’s -coming required a full night; and during the next day, -her activities at <i>The Public Square</i> were remote to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span> -Pidge, who had shrunk so deeply into herself from -nausea and a new kind of fright, that the meaning of -outer events was distorted and ungrippable. John -Higgins didn’t miss the fact. In the drag of the afternoon, -she was called to the telephone—Miss Claes on -the wire:</p> - -<p>“You’d better come, Pidge!”</p> - -<p>An hour later, between five and six in the afternoon, -she was in the Harrow Street house, looking down -into Fanny’s face which squirmed from side to side. -The eyes moved around the room and finally fixed on -Pidge.</p> - -<p>“That you, Redhead?”</p> - -<p>“Yes——”</p> - -<p>“You was a hell of a long time comin’.”</p> - -<p>“I know——”</p> - -<p>“That dirty animal hurt me——” Evidently this -referred to the doctor.</p> - -<p>“I’m sorry. He didn’t mean to——”</p> - -<p>“Know all about it, don’t yer? Know all about -everythin’, don’t yer?”</p> - -<p>Pidge didn’t answer.</p> - -<p>Fanny lay a moment in pallid anger. Then her eyes -slowly opened wider, stretched, filled with astonishment, -part rapture, part fear.</p> - -<p>“Why, Musser,” Fanny said in an awed tone, as -one listening to a far sound, “Holy Christ, I’m dying!”</p> - -<p>She was the last one in the room to know it—except -the baby.</p> - -<p>A queer little dud with his black hair that stayed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span> -combed. No telling what he knew any of the time. -He didn’t open his eyes so that anybody could catch -him at it for several days, but the nurse never would -have done raving over his black lashes. Finally Pidge -heard the news—that the eyes weren’t black after all, -as the hair and lashes would indicate, but a dense blue.</p> - -<p>“He’s going to be a soldier—such a soldier!” the -nurse exclaimed. “I know I’ll die when I have to -leave him.”</p> - -<p>Pidge’s lips worked without sound, and then a funny -little twisted smile stayed there—that made Miss Claes -love her as never before.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[218]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXXVI<br /> - -<small>RUFE HURRIES HOME</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">RUFE MELTON came home to find life not -the same. Matters had evolved while he was -away about his country’s business, matters -that didn’t please him now. He had rushed to Pidge. -As the steamer approached New York, a novel and -unforeseen eagerness awoke within to get to her, but -she hadn’t put off her Arctics. Besides, off duty from -her editorial job, there was an infant in her arms for -the most part—a seven-months-old male infant with -combed hair, that had looked into his face and begun -to yell. Rufe took this as a personal affront. He had -supposed it hers at first.</p> - -<p>“Sometimes, I forget that it isn’t,” she had said.</p> - -<p>Harrow Street furnished the statement and proof, -however, that it was Fanny Gallup’s, who was dead.</p> - -<p>“But why don’t you adopt the other two?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Miss Claes has found homes for Albert’s children,” -Pidge said.</p> - -<p>Rufe stood it for two days. “This can’t go on, Pan. -I’ve got to get to work—no nerves to work in this -racket, since I was gassed——”</p> - -<p>“Of course not.”</p> - -<p>Under his surface anger, she saw the old look of -hurt wonder that harrowed her so.</p> - -<p>“Come back—any time, Rufe—come whenever you -can. Always a place here, you know.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[219]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXXVII<br /> - -<small>JOHN HIGGINS’ CODE</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">WHEN Dicky Cobden reached New York, he -found that Pidge had been called to Los -Angeles, because her father was ill. It was -an evening in mid-January, 1919, and he went at once -to his mother’s house in Fiftieth Street. The strain -of waiting for his home-coming had been almost too -much there. Grandfather had flickered out; his bed -and chairs gaped and would not be comforted. Dicky -went into the living arms, however, and found rest -and gave it. His mother and aunt and sister livened -up like plants, newly-watered. He was queerly astonished -to learn that Pidge recently had called upon his -people—“just a social call,” his mother said.</p> - -<p>Outwardly things looked as hopeless as possible at -<i>The Public Square</i>. From his latest retirement to -his rooms for a change of luck, John Higgins had been -taken to the hospital, instead of returning to his desk. -It was a gray-faced old man that Dicky found in the -early morning of his first full day at home, in a room -that smelled of drugs. The face didn’t look at him -squarely. The light hurt John Higgins’ eyes and made -the features writhe. Dicky wanted to move around to -the other side of the bed, so the face would be shaded, -but his old friend was gripping him with both hands.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[220]</span>“We have been looking for you a long time, Dicky,” -he kept saying.</p> - -<p>It wasn’t the unshaven white stubble that changed the -face so much as the quiver of the upper lip, when John -Higgins spoke.</p> - -<p>“What’s the matter, John?”</p> - -<p>“Indigestion—all kinds of indigestion. Damn ’em, -Dicky, they’ve made me eat my own words——”</p> - -<p>“Who?”</p> - -<p>“The most pestiferous public nuisance ever organized—Department -of Justice.”</p> - -<p>Dicky did not need to be warned against the <i>bête -noir</i>. Its shadow was upon John Higgins’ face.</p> - -<p>“I rather liked yesterday’s issue,” he said, “and they -tell me that the next two numbers are practically -made up.”</p> - -<p>“You’ve been to the office then?”</p> - -<p>“No. I called up from home at breakfast. That’s -how I heard you were here. Just off ship last -night——”</p> - -<p>“Bert Ames got in three weeks ago. You were a -long time coming——”</p> - -<p>“My turn didn’t come—everybody dying to get home -since the racket stopped.”</p> - -<p>“Your paper’s alive, Dicky—that’s the best that can -be said.”</p> - -<p>“My paper——”</p> - -<p>“I’m looking for you to buy the rest. My equity -is on the market. <i>The Public Square</i> is alive, but it’s -not my fault.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[221]</span>“Whose?”</p> - -<p>“Didn’t they tell you that ‘The Weekly’ was away?”</p> - -<p>Dicky looked bewildered. A glint of the old humor -had come back to John Higgins’ eyes, as he added:</p> - -<p>“The woman thou gavest me.”</p> - -<p>“You mean about Pidge Musser being called to Los -Angeles?”</p> - -<p>“Suddenly discovered she had a father who couldn’t -be denied. Ripped out of here on the fifth and left a -hole in every department.... They say I’m done with -the desk for a time. I knew it without them telling -me. I’d have had to wire her to-day or to-morrow to -come back, if you hadn’t turned up.”</p> - -<p>Dicky’s thoughts now became busy adjusting to the -fact that John Higgins wasn’t returning to the desk -at once.</p> - -<p>“I know when I’m done,” the old man repeated. -“It’s taken nearly sixty years, but I know. You’ve -heard about the serpent that stings itself to death in -captivity?”</p> - -<p>“It’s just the chafing of the muzzle, John. You’re -not stinging yourself to death——”</p> - -<p>“We all have our little code, Dicky, and I haven’t -been true to mine. Your paper’s alive, in spite of what -I would have done. My code pulled me the other way—against -you—but that little thing stood by your -interests. You’ve got her to thank, not me.”</p> - -<p>“Tell me——”</p> - -<p>“They were doing things in this country that I -knew about——” the old man shut his eyes, as if in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[222]</span> -nausea—“but she kept me still. Then they arrested -an old friend of mine—man I’ve known for thirty -years—man who loves his country <i>all the time</i>—as I do -not—and they arrested him. One Sunday morning I -wrote my little say about it all, and as I wrote, I heard -them singing ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee,’ in a church -down the block from my rooms. That’s what I called -the article. I was sober. I wrote for all days, and every -year I had lived went into it—all I was. I was willing -to throw you—a little matter of money which you -could afford. I was throwing myself, but I was pleased -enough with the story to show it to her Monday morning, -instead of sending it down to the composing -room.”</p> - -<p>The narrative halted for several seconds. Dicky -moved around the bed to rest the old man’s eyes.</p> - -<p>“That little tumult had me bluffed from the beginning. -She barred the way to the printer, that’s all. -I thought she was done for when she married Melton, -but she came back stronger than ever.... Barred -the way, Dicky—put her arms across the door. ‘You -can’t do it, John Higgins, you can’t send that down. -It’s just wanton destruction. It won’t do what you -hope. It won’t help your friend, but make life harder -for him and for all the C. O.’s. This isn’t your property -to waste. My heart’s in it and Dicky’s money’s in -it——’ Well, she had her way—and the thing turned -in on me—my own words. My organs of assimilation -weren’t strong enough to get away with it.”</p> - -<p>Dicky gripped John Higgins’ shoulder. The old man<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[223]</span> -added impressively, “Dicky, I’ve sat at the desk for -hours and studied how I could ever tell you this one -truth! I haven’t written a decent line since that article! -My old side-wheeler doesn’t work—that’s the size -of it.”</p> - -<p>He was pressing his hand to the top of his head, -as he went on:</p> - -<p>“I’ve studied how I could tell you. It doesn’t seem -quite so hard this morning at the show-down—but she’s -written all the decent stuff that’s supposed to come -from the Desk.... I mean what I said. I’m for sale. -I’ve put it to you straight—the worst. But the paper’s -alive and the books are for you to look at. Times are -getting freer. The next two issues will get out themselves. -It’s all I’ve got——”</p> - -<p>“But you can take a leave of absence, and keep your -income——”</p> - -<p>“No. That would be a drain. That’s morals possibly, -but not business. I want to sell, Dicky, and what -I ask won’t break you. I thought for a while I was -done for, and I made out my part to her. That would -be simple—but the old hulk still floats—so I have to -have some money.”</p> - -<p>Now Dicky dwelt reverently upon the old man’s -secret. Only one thing could have prevented John -Higgins from getting his masterpiece into print; also -John Higgins had made out his single possession in -the world to Pidge—when he thought he was done for. -This thought now electrified Richard Cobden. He -wanted events to turn out this way with such one-pointed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[224]</span> -fury that he forgot for an instant that it entailed -the death of his friend. But some time Pidge must have -this gift—some way—John Higgins’ life work! Dicky -arose. The fact that he could do nothing right now -required extraordinary self-control.</p> - -<p>“I’ll look the whole property over to-day and tell -you to-morrow morning, John. Be sure it will be all -right for you. We’re——”</p> - -<p>Dicky didn’t know what he had started to say. The -old man beckoned him back.</p> - -<p>“... Bert Ames can help you for a few days until -she comes back. No better Washington man, anywhere, -but Bert knows the desk work, too.... Wait. I’ve -got to tell you before you go how he dropped in to see -me, day or two after he came back from France. I -asked him if he’d seen you. He rather allowed he had—and -launched into the story of your saving young -Melton from the clutches of the French family. -Couldn’t stop him in time. He hadn’t the slightest -notion that the woman at the desk yonder was Mrs. -Melton.”</p> - -<p>Dicky was pale.</p> - -<p>“It didn’t knock her out. That’s the queer part,” -John Higgins added. “... Get Bert Ames. There’s -one man who isn’t doing any damage to you as he loafs -around New York.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll be back to-morrow morning,” Dicky said. -“Where’s Melton now—Los Angeles?”</p> - -<p>“No, here in New York. I’ve heard he’s stopping -at the Vici Club.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXXVIII<br /> - -<small>AN OFFICE OF THE WORLD</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">DICKY was in the street and it was still only -ten in the morning. The first thing he did -then was to telegraph Pidge of his arrival; -that all was well, and for her not to hurry. He spent -the day at <i>The Public Square</i> offices studying the books, -reading up in the files. He fancied that he found an -aggressive sort of integrity here and there through -the systems, that was familiar. The publishing property -had weathered the war; it was a building base. -Dicky found much that he liked, but fought enthusiasm—fought -back a rush of possessive impulses, until he -was tired.</p> - -<p>At six, when he reached Harrow Street, for the -first time, he was not permitted to use the key to the -street door that he had carried so long, for Miss Claes -met him at the basement entrance. He had heard her -voice over the telephone in the morning, but had not -remotely anticipated the stir of feeling that the sight -of her awakened. No emotionless reporter about Mr. -Cobden at this moment. He followed her to the open -fire; the door was shut. They stood together in -silence, and he had never seen her look so well.</p> - -<p>“Why, Miss Claes, you are just the same!” he was -saying. “I mean, all day I have been seeing the ravages<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[226]</span> -of the war years in the people at home, in John -Higgins, in everybody. But you——”</p> - -<p>“Your coming makes me happy.”</p> - -<p>Firelight and a fragrant room, and the stillness of -Harrow Street. Miss Claes was speaking of Nagar—of -Pidge—of Pidge and the child—of Rufus Melton—of -Fanny Gallup—of himself—as if they were all -one, all blent in destiny.... Pidge had taken the -child to Los Angeles.</p> - -<p>A ring at the street door! Dicky watched Miss -Claes’ face as she left the room, purse in hand. She -returned in a moment with a telegram for him.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Welcome home. So glad to hear, so relieved. -Needed here a little longer.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Pidge.</span></p> -</div> - -<p>The door shut again.... Miss Claes had heard of -everything—even of his experience with Rufe Melton -in Paris, and from Pidge what Ames had told John -Higgins.</p> - -<p>“I should have put Ames wise about that,” Dicky told -her. “It was pretty hard to have Pidge hurt that way.”</p> - -<p>“She brought home the news exultingly,” Miss Claes -said. “Hurt, of course—her old sorrow for Rufus -Melton, but a compensating gladness, too. You would -have to be a woman, to feel exactly what it meant to -her. Pidge learned that day that you were close enough -in sympathy to share her work. That was light to her -out of the depths.”</p> - -<p>Dicky studied the shadowy face.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[227]</span>“Pidge accepts no revelations from the sacred writings,” -Miss Claes added. “Only messages of action -count with her. Your action in Paris freshened up her -life—that you had been brave enough to help her with -her task. And how richly Pidge will pay!”</p> - -<p>“It wasn’t hard to do, but hard to know that it was -the thing to do.”</p> - -<p>“All that matters now is that it is done. One crosses -a goal, or one does not. The rest is forgotten.”</p> - -<p>He told her of John Higgins and <i>The Public Square</i>; -of his talk in the morning and the day with the files. -She inquired regarding details, mechanical and commercial—her -same old rational grasp upon materials. -Of course, he did not speak of John Higgins’ secret, -nor of his own possible purchase. It was a matter of -mercantile tradition in the Cobden house not to discuss -an incompleted transaction; but he told her of Pidge’s -part at the time of the arrest of the editor’s old friend.</p> - -<p>“John Higgins calls her ‘The Weekly,’” he added. -“He says it was Pidge who kept the paper going.”</p> - -<p>Miss Claes turned to the fire to smile. Dicky didn’t -notice. He was lost in the problem of how John Higgins -could give half-interest to Pidge, and sell it to -himself at the same time.... They were speaking -of India.</p> - -<p>“Of course, I’ve arranged to go,” he said. “Nagar -promises the story of the age——”</p> - -<p>“Nagar sent his message here for you, in case you -did not receive word from the <i>sepoy</i> in Paris—‘No -haste, but no delay.’”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[228]</span>He started. This house of Harrow Street seemed -like an office of all the world to him to-night.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>“... The hardest part is with my people—for me -to go away again,” he was saying, a little later at the -door. “Of course, they can’t understand—my mother -and aunt and sister. Everything looks all right, except -that—leaving them so soon again.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps I can help a little. I’ll go to them often—while -you are away.”</p> - -<p>“That’s quite too good for me to think of,” he said, -and told her of Pidge’s call. “Why, Miss Claes, I -haven’t known what it meant to be rested and straightened -out like this—since Ahmedabad,” he said at last.</p> - -<p>Her hand was raised before him:</p> - -<p>“Don’t think about it. Don’t analyze. Just—go to -them—and come back when you can. This also is -your home always.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[229]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XXXIX<br /> - -<small>SEVEN FLAWLESS DAYS</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">DICKY was riding westward through the citrus -groves of the last fifty miles into Los Angeles. -Eight days in New York; there had been no -public announcement of a change in ownership of <i>The -Public Square</i>, although John Higgins had retired and -new energies were actively in operation. The old -editor’s faith was gone in himself, but anchored all -the tighter to the son of the trowel makers.</p> - -<p>The great Range was crossed. All the forenoon the -air had been clear and cold, but at noon the Limited -had slipped down into San Bernardino, into summer and -fruit fragrance. Now it was two in the afternoon -and Dicky looked out upon one little town after another, -the like of which he had never seen before. Sun-drenched -and flowery towns; breathing-spaces between -the houses and vine-clad trellises; and everywhere the -great orchards, sometimes palm-bordered and often -with rose-covered fences of stone.</p> - -<p>“Sit tight, sit tight,” he said to himself.</p> - -<p>A hundred times he had repeated this to-day. There -was loose in him a power of feeling which made the -days of his straight unemotional reporting look like -a feeble affectation. Coming into the harbor of New -York less than two weeks before, he had learned to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[230]</span> -accept the emptiness of life. But since then, curiously -enough, a new order of content had filled him. Was -it necessary to be emptied of the old entirely in order -to be filled with the new?</p> - -<p>Pasadena was behind; the Limited was running down -grade into Los Angeles; then momentary halts with -Mexican faces turned to the car windows—Chinese -faces, a tangle of freights—finally a slow down, and -on one side, groups of up-turned faces, expectant, some -strained to an intense kind of pain to catch the eyes of -their own.... The bags had to be put out. There -were people in front of him; he was shut off from -windows.</p> - -<p>“Sit tight, Dicky——”</p> - -<p>A white limp-brimmed straw hat pulled down over -her ears like a bonnet! A taller Pidge—no, she was -standing on her toes to look over the shoulders of the -crowd. Now she saw him; her eyes blinked, her -shoulders lifting quickly. He moved slowly, positively -not crushing anybody. Her hands were raised—one -higher than the other, the fingers apart. They stayed -so, until he pressed against them. She was taller. -Their faces were so close—both shaded for an instant -under the wide brim of her hat. He had been looking -into her eyes; then they were too close to look into. -It seemed neither had anything to do about it. He -hardly dared remember.</p> - -<p>Some one near by knew a happiness that shrieked. -They walked away from the many voices. Then he -realized that he was carrying his two hand bags.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[231]</span>“Where’s the parcel room?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“I’ll show you the way. The station is very old and -dingy.”</p> - -<p>He checked them. They walked to the other end of -the yards where the big palms called.</p> - -<p>“How’s your father?”</p> - -<p>“I think—he’s better. You heard about the baby—Fanny -Gallup’s baby?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“I brought him west with me. He’s in Santa Monica -now, so I’ll have to hurry back. You’ll come?”</p> - -<p>“To Santa Monica?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Shall we get a motor car?”</p> - -<p>“No. The interurban. I’ll show you.”</p> - -<p>“Is there a place to stop down there?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, I’ll show you.”</p> - -<p>“My steamer trunk can wait here for a day or two. -I’d better get my small bags——”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>He unchecked them.... In the city car to the -interurban station, she said: “Oh, Dicky, it’s so good.” -Then after a pause, she added: “We don’t need to -talk about ourselves.”</p> - -<p>“I understand.”</p> - -<p>“It’s days before your ship?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“I can show you around. It’s hard for me not to -be troubled about <i>The Public Square</i>——”</p> - -<p>“Everything’s all right there. I’ll tell you everything<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[232]</span> -when we get on the other car. You’ll like it all.”</p> - -<p>“And must you really go to India?”</p> - -<p>“I arranged with Nagar, before I left. It’s the story -of the age, he says. After that——”</p> - -<p>“Yes?”</p> - -<p>“After that—New York.”</p> - -<p>They were in the Santa Monica car, on the way down -to the ocean. She had shown him Hollywood, pointing -out some of the moving-picture plants.... If -he could only keep calm now—and not rush out to seize -the incredible little attractions of the moment! It -seemed so important to keep calm right now—as if -this were a sort of trial trip. He must be able to move -right into this light without flinching—must endure all -delight in stillness. It wasn’t like repression—this that -was called of him now, but faith. The wonder of it all -was her perfect fearlessness with him. Their old word -came back to him—<i>comrade</i>. He almost spoke it, but -stopped in time. He must live it. But why all this -holding back—after years of holding back?</p> - -<p>“... So he won’t be coming back, I’m afraid,” -he was saying of John Higgins. “He understands that -his desk is there for him as long as he wants it, but he -doesn’t encourage any one to believe he’ll use it again. -I told him he could do Washington, and leave Bert -Ames on the desk for the present, but he only shook -his head.”</p> - -<p>“I saw it coming,” said Pidge. “Oh, I’ve seen it -for a long time. There was never anything I could -do to help him. I never can really help when I want to.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[233]</span>He felt she was thinking of Melton. She was, but -she was thinking of Fanny Gallup, too.</p> - -<p>“He has no relatives,” Dicky went on, “but it’s arranged -for his income to keep up; anything he wants -to do for the magazine——”</p> - -<p>He saw her look of sadness.</p> - -<p>“John Higgins is so helpless,” she said softly.</p> - -<p>“We’ve taken on young Bothwell for the advertising, -and given him a little fund to work with,” Dicky reported. -“Bothwell isn’t a plunger, steady sort of genius -in his game. The idea isn’t to plunge in any department—just -to work softly and slowly and steadily, giving -everybody his money’s worth. Also, if a story or -article just suits, we mustn’t let the price stand in the -way any longer.”</p> - -<p>She nodded wonderingly.</p> - -<p>“Bert Ames has two or three good ideas to work -out at the desk before he leaves for Washington.”</p> - -<p>“But who after that?”</p> - -<p>“<i>Sit tight, Dicky.</i>”</p> - -<p>... He coughed. “It isn’t like the desk in the old -sense. We have talked about that. Pidge, I’m wabbling -a bit, but the desk is yours.”</p> - -<p>They were sitting in the windy front seats. She -appeared to be looking into the back of the motor-man’s -neck.</p> - -<p>“When you get back,” he added.</p> - -<p>Her eyes did not move.</p> - -<p>“This isn’t reward, this is your place; no other can -hold down the job. You’ve done it for months. There<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[234]</span> -wouldn’t have been any <i>Public Square</i>, if you hadn’t. -I know all about the ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee’ story, -and the editorial paragraphs and how you have kept -up the reviews, and somehow got stories without money -and without price. John Higgins told me everything. -It isn’t giving you reward. It is only going on as you -were, with some money to work with, and two or three -good men to help, and a salary for yourself that will -make up in a small way for the pittance you’ve been -living on for years.”</p> - -<p>“There mustn’t be any desk, Dicky,” she said -queerly.</p> - -<p>“What do you mean?”</p> - -<p>“I mean we’d be the laughing stock of New York, -if I perched on a desk, calling myself the Editor.”</p> - -<p>She halted, thinking of what Miss Claes had advised -about her authorship of <i>The Lance of the Rivernais</i>.</p> - -<p>“You’ll take it, Pidge?” he said with deadly calm.</p> - -<p>“I’ll do what I can until you come back. It must be -managed very silently. No announcements. I’ll be -there as I was. I’ve been thinking a lot. <i>The Public -Square</i>—I know how dear it is to you, Dicky. It is -to me, too. It will be wonderful to have some money -to work with. I know about Bothwell. He’s the right -man for the advertising.”</p> - -<p>“I left it open—for you to choose the one to help you -when Bert Ames goes over to Washington.”</p> - -<p>Her eyes turned to him directly now, searchingly. -There seemed to be something intelligible for him in -them, but he did not divine the meaning.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[235]</span>“That’ll all work out,” she said presently. “We -mustn’t try to plan it all now.”</p> - -<p>Her eyes filled with laughter.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Dicky,” she said, “if I’d ever get self-conscious -about feeling all the responsibilities of <i>The Public -Square</i> resting upon my shoulders—I’d muddle the -whole business in a day!”</p> - -<p>“They have rested on your shoulders, Pidge.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, but I didn’t stop to think.... In another -minute you’ll be able to see the ocean!”</p> - -<p>They were silent. Then she pointed over the motor-man’s -shoulder, and he saw a vast stretch of leveled -azure, like sky ironed out smooth.</p> - -<p>“And—you’re—going—across!” she said suddenly—“still -after the Big Story that you’ve always been -looking for. And oh, Dicky, I’ll go to see them when -you’re gone—your mother and aunt and sister.”</p> - -<p>“It did a lot for me to learn that you had called.”</p> - -<p>“Dicky,” she said solemnly, “when they told me -what you’d done in Paris——”</p> - -<p>“Let’s not—Pidge.”</p> - -<p>“And when I remembered that Sunday afternoon -you took me to your house—and what a beast I was—oh, -how that hurt! I’ve been so sorry and so grateful.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He had seen Pidge with the baby in her arms. He -had held the baby himself, in fact, while she got breakfast -one morning, and their laughter had disturbed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[236]</span> -Mr. Adolph Musser, who felt that the world was no -place for such laughter with his nerves in the condition -they were.</p> - -<p>“His back feels so funny,” Dicky had reported concerning -the infant.</p> - -<p>Pidge gave him a look, and went on timing the eggs. -Mr. Musser’s egg had to lie three and one-half minutes -in water that had ceased to boil.</p> - -<p>“And his hair stays combed,” Dicky added.</p> - -<p>He had held converse with Mr. Musser, which was -an experience. Mrs. Rab Gaunt Hastings had gone -her way after a series of such experiences, her fortune -undivided. It had been said that the undivided nature -of her departure was in a measure responsible for Mr. -Musser’s nervous breakdown, though he explained it -metaphysically. Since he could not be left in his weak -state, it was arranged for him to return with Pidge -to New York.</p> - -<p>“I have known for many months that the field of -my labors was to be amplified,” said Mr. Musser, with -one of his sudden hopeful flashes. “My illness is but -a cleansing in preparation. Always the wrecker before -the builder. My throat, for instance——”</p> - -<p>Pidge called at this point from the fig tree back of -the bungalow. It was their last day.... For seven -days they had walked the sunny silent mesas, traced the -interminable canyons, and miles and miles of curving -shore of the sea. To-night for him, the Valley train -to San Francisco; to-morrow afternoon, the Pacific<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[237]</span> -Mail steamer.... She had spoken of Rufus Melton -for the first time.</p> - -<p>“You think he was really married in France?” she -asked.</p> - -<p>“They frightened him into it,” Dicky said. “It -seemed to me as if Rufe looked upon it as a way out—then -found that they didn’t mean to let him escape, -even then.”</p> - -<p>There was no suffocating emotion about this talk. -It was only in moments like this that he understood -that he had earned something through the years. They -had to go back to the bungalow for lunch with the elder -and the child, who objected to each other. There was -only a little while alone in the afternoon, because he had -to be in Los Angeles for his train at six.</p> - -<p>“I started things going among the agents in New -York, for a serial,” he said at the last, “but you’ll have -to decide. We want a corking long story, Pidge—one -that has brain and brawn——”</p> - -<p>Her face was turned away.</p> - -<p>“Just the right one should be lying around somewhere,” -he added.</p> - -<p>“I’ll look,” she said.</p> - -<p>She would have gone into the city with him, but he -objected: “You would have to come back alone!”</p> - -<p>Their real parting was on the Palisades, and there -were few words about it.</p> - -<p>“It’s work, now,” he said. “We go opposite ways -for the same job—the Story of the Age.”</p> - -<p>“And after that—New York,” she answered.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[238]</span>They stood in the superb sunlight at the edge of the -escarpment. Hundreds of feet below was the old abandoned -bathhouse, and the three white lines of surf -pressing into the land, like tireless fingers of a modeler -upon the clay. To the left was the portal of the Canyon, -to the right the fallow lands with feathery brushes of -eucalyptus against the sky.</p> - -<p>“We’re all meshed yet, Dicky—meshed in wantings -and struggles, all tracked up with recent experiences. -We can’t see each other clearly yet——”</p> - -<p>He was looking into her face in half profile. Quietly -it had dawned upon him that he couldn’t have spared -a single one of the hard days of the past five years, not -a single one of the black patches, even. They were the -dark rooms in which this present striking film had been -developed.</p> - -<p>“We can’t—what?” he said strangely.</p> - -<p>She was speaking, but still he didn’t hear, for that -moment in the superb sunlight, he saw Pidge Musser -as he had never seen her before.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[239]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XL<br /> - -<small>THE YANK DEVELOPED</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">DICKY reached Calcutta toward the end of -March, 1919, and had no difficulty in learning -that the Little Man would be in Bombay -within a week. Where Gandhi was at any given time -in the Indian Empire these days was the most public -of all facts. It was as if one entered a house and asked -the children where their mother was. Both the native -and English press were full of his sayings and doings, -though he was seen and heard, of course, from different -angles. The Rowlatt Bills had just been passed, and -Dicky painstakingly looked into the nature of these.</p> - -<p>He heard that Gandhi was ill; that he scarcely could -stand, in fact; but that he was speaking to great throngs -every day. A few days ago he had talked to thousands -on the Beach at Madras. Since then he had traveled -to Trichinopoly, to Tuticorin, to Negapatam where he -had addressed a monster gathering in the Nazir gardens, -pledging the people to <i>Satyagraha</i> by thousands, -and warning them with terrible warnings before they -pledged, that the step they took meant self-suffering; -that they must not use violence against the Government -in thought or deed.</p> - -<p>Dicky crossed to Bombay immediately, hoping to -find Nagar there. On the train a young officer of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[240]</span> -military who had come from Singapore on the same -ship with him, met an elderly friend of the civil service. -They talked in Dicky’s presence.</p> - -<p>“But why don’t they arrest the fanatic?” the soldier -asked.</p> - -<p>The elderly departmental officer smiled. “That’s -what they all ask at first,” he said.</p> - -<p>“But, if he’s preaching sedition——”</p> - -<p>“He is also preaching nonviolence. British Government -hasn’t a better friend in India at the present hour -than this same little barrister. The people are upset -over the Rowlatt Bills, and Gandhi is calming them -down. Arrest him, I think not!... We have much -to thank Gandhi for. He helped along enlistments, and -now he preaches nonviolence. It’s all religion with him. -He’s a political saint. The thousands follow him like a -Messiah. Pretty safe sort of thing, to have a Messiah -around advising the multitudes to turn their other -cheek. Not that we’ve slapped one, you know.”</p> - -<p>In the sweltering core of the native city, Dicky found -the house which Gandhi used as headquarters while in -Bombay. Here a letter awaited him from Nagar, written -at Lahore, advising him to look to Mahatma-ji for -counsel; and hoping that they would soon be together. -In his room Dicky sent out for an armful of recent -newspapers and publications, determined to get the -situation further in hand.</p> - -<p>... No question about India being a bit stunned -over the passage of the Rowlatt Bills two weeks before. -These measures provided that the ordinary criminal<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[241]</span> -laws should be supplemented, and certain emergency -powers added by the Government to deal with anarchical -and revolutionary movements. The shock to native -India lay in the fact that she had been led to expect -that the measures adopted during the War would be -mitigated, rather than intensified at this time. And -Mahatma-ji was on the war path of the Soul.</p> - -<p>Gandhi reached Bombay on April third. He was -followed by a great crowd from the railroad station to -the house of his host. Dicky, who had watched from -a distance the emerging of the Indian idol from his -third-class coach, wondered if he were ever again to get -the Little Man alone in a room as in Ahmedabad. He -hadn’t been in the hotel an hour, however, before he -received a message to accompany bearer to Gandhi’s -headquarters.</p> - -<p>The native led him through the crowd without difficulty, -and to an inner room where Mahatma-ji sat -alone, both hands extended. Dicky sat down on the -empty cushion before him.</p> - -<p>“It is good to see you again, Mr. Cobden.... I -regret that I was not in Bombay when you arrived; -especially since it happened that Nagarjuna was needed -in the north at this time, but we cannot think first of -our own affairs. I am expected in Lahore on the tenth, -but doubtless you will start for there or for Amritsar, -which is very near, before that. Nagarjuna is now in -Amritsar.”</p> - -<p>“I will wait and travel with you, if you permit,” -Dicky began.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[242]</span>The other smiled.</p> - -<p>“My way of travel is not yours, I am afraid. It -might be interesting enough for just one journey, but -I question the judgment of it. To be seen too much -with me is to become persona non grata to the English. -This would prove a detriment to the work you are to -do. Remember that you are an American, and that -basically the American spirit is above partisanship.”</p> - -<p>Gandhi was slightly changed. The wasted body was -even lower on its cushions. The look of intense weariness -was still apparent, but the look of fearlessness was -enhanced. Dicky heard the humming of the <i>charka</i> in -the next room as before. The fragrance returned to -his nostrils. The old feeling stole over him of eagerness -to do something for the physical welfare of the -man before him, something to make the mere enduring -of life easier.</p> - -<p>“Physicians tell me that I should be very quiet,” -Gandhi explained with a smile. “It is true that I was -unable to keep all my appointments to speak on the -other side of India, but in the main I am very active. -The human body may be made to do what is required -of it, after a fashion.... Yes, there are many -changes. Our position is rapidly becoming one of direct -opposition to Government. We were slow to realize -these things.... Our movement depends for its -success entirely upon perfect self-possession, self-restraint, -absolute adherence to truth and unlimited -capacity for self-suffering. In this manner only may -we dare to oppose the Rowlatt legislation, and resist<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[243]</span> -the spirit of terrorism which lies behind it, and of -which it is the most glaring symptom.”</p> - -<p>Dicky’s reaction was queer. He understood the -point about the Government daring to leave this man -at large, but didn’t Government see deeper than this -placid mask? Of all keepers of the peace, Gandhi was -apparently master; but in the fearlessness of the eyes -that gazed on him now, Dicky fancied for a moment, -at least, that he saw what British Government did not. -The Little Man suddenly appeared to him as the living -embodiment of the Enemy to all existing Governments, -utterly terrible in stillness and poise. At the same time, -Dicky didn’t lose for a moment his feeling of pity for -the wasted figure before him, that tenderness which he -could not even have explained to an American.</p> - -<p>“... I see you have been faithfully at work, Mr. -Cobden,” the Little Man was saying now. “Some time -I would have you tell me of your days on the French -fields—what you found there after India—whatever -you care to speak of experiences which evidently have -brought you forward in kindness and understanding -and peace——”</p> - -<p>“I am glad you find——” Dicky began in an embarrassed -tone.</p> - -<p>“It is well for me to tell you, but that is sufficient,” -Gandhi added. “These are our affairs, not yours——”</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid I don’t understand that.”</p> - -<p>“We have a saying that one who is coming forward -in attainment must not delay his progress by pausing -to contemplate or analyze himself. One’s attainment<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[244]</span> -rightly is the joy and affair of every other being but -that one.”</p> - -<p>Dicky now felt that there was something to report to -America in the story of Gandhi and his following of -millions. For three days he was with the Little Man, -morning and afternoon. Very sternly he had impressed -upon himself the fatuousness of expecting anything like -the old “miracle.” There was no need for that miracle -now, Dicky informed himself gravely and repeatedly, -for something of Pidge Musser ceased to be alive in his -heart at no time, though much pain of yearning was -connected with it and pity and human questionings. -He had learned well by now that all really important -experiences are spontaneous and can only steal into a -mind that is emptied of anticipation and its own inferior -pictures.</p> - -<p>But on the third day something came to him—as -fruits from his dreary months of France. He had been -speaking to Gandhi of the hideous directionless campaign -days there. Suddenly, as he himself talked, the -American Soldier in composite was unveiled before him—the -game and grinning Yank, who had held fast in -faith to but one thing under smoke and sun, against -shock and night itself—his sense of Humor, the fun -of the thing.</p> - -<p>Dicky <i>saw</i> the Yank, now. That was all there was -to it. In the dark room of France the picture had developed -and the presence of Mohandas Gandhi now -brought it out to the light. It was Dicky’s for all time, -and his eyes closed with pain that his old friend John<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[245]</span> -Higgins had missed it—the one thing that one needed -to know, to keep one’s faith in America, and to gamble -even to life itself that the new order of nobleman should -one day arise with laughter.</p> - -<p>... He walked the streets of Bombay afterward, -and then wrote to Pidge late at night, though he was -leaving for the north early in the morning. It seemed -he could not wait to tell her. All the meanings of New -York that he had caught as a New Yorker, in his own -home and in the house of Miss Claes, as an exile in -Asia and correspondent in France—fused into a sort of -splendid synthesis at last.</p> - -<p>He saw ships coming from all Europe to New York -Harbor—coming in through The Narrows bearing the -emigrants of all Europe—passing under the Statue of -Liberty—tiny seeds diffusing into the vast crucible of -The States, running out from the meeting point of -Manhattan on all the red lines of railroad, into all the -green rivers, planting themselves in all parts, for the -emerging of the New Race at last—the Laughing Men, -the dense physical model of which he had seen in -France.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[246]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XLI<br /> - -<small>UNDER THE MANGOES OF CAWNPORE</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">“NO haste, but no delay.” Gandhi had used -the very words in suggesting that it would -be well for Dicky to join Nagar in the -north. The American telegraphed that he would reach -Amritsar on the evening of the ninth, and made his -way northward leisurely, stopping over in Cawnpore, -for a full day. It was in Cawnpore, toward midday, -after a two hours’ ramble in white dust and the -killing colorless heat, that Dicky halted in the shade of -a little grove of mangoes. He took off his helmet and -mopped his brow with a piece of silk already damp. In -the shade, at a slight distance (his left foot twisted into -the ground), sat an ascetic who kept on with his muttering, -not turning the way of the American.</p> - -<p>The look of an iron statue suggested itself. There -were ashes, and worse, in the holy man’s hair, and in -one empty eye socket. The hands were held out in -space—twisted, seared hands, but so moveless that -Dicky thought of the iron statue again. The wrists -were thick and very strong. Cobden squinted his eyes -back toward the pitiless Indian street, and then he perceived -the Hindu’s face turned to him. A single vivid -eye held him, as by the scruff of the neck. The voice -was deep and resonant as from one who had learned to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[247]</span> -breathe, a rare art. The words in English were quietly -spoken:</p> - -<p>“It is written, my son, that you are to come to the -end of your search within six days.”</p> - -<p>Dicky edged closer, and asked courteously: “Do you -really get it that way?”</p> - -<p>“So it reads in the crystals. To one who truly reads, -the tale is one—whether read in the crystals or the -stars.”</p> - -<p>The holy man lifted from between his thighs a handful -of stained and rusty stones.</p> - -<p>“You will go to a wall,” he added studiously. “You -will enter through the gate of the wall——”</p> - -<p>“What wall, father?”</p> - -<p>“Who knows? I see the wall. The end comes within -six days, and there is tumult.”</p> - -<p>“The end of my life?”</p> - -<p>“There seems no surety of that, but it is possible.”</p> - -<p>The deep voice of the <i>hathayogin</i> went on: “The -crystals foretell, but the wisdom and daring of man -forestall. Had you not come to this tree, there would -be no hope. As it is, you may come again to-morrow -at this time.”</p> - -<p>“I’m afraid not, father. Whatever wall it is, I shall -be one day nearer it, to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>Few would have noted the faint film of pallor under -Dicky Cobden’s tan. As white men go, he knew something -about the Indian holy men. The more he learned, -the more he respected certain rare types. There is a -saying in India that the real mystic never begs. Dicky<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[248]</span> -determined to learn the quality of the man before him, -for he arose now to depart without offering a present -in money.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps, father, from this meeting, I shall be wiser -to face the fate that awaits me at the wall.”</p> - -<p>“You should be wise enough to take one day from -your journey.”</p> - -<p>“I cannot take what is not altogether my own,” the -American laughed. “I am saying good-by now.”</p> - -<p>He walked slowly out of the shade of the trees. -With each step, his blood chilled a little, in spite of noon -heat. He thought of <i>The Public Square</i>, of Pidge -Musser at the desk there, of Harrow Street. Death -had to come some time, but life wasn’t boring him just -now. The sunlight of the open stretch stung his eyes -with great weariness. The deep voice called from behind:</p> - -<p>“Stay, my pupil!”</p> - -<p>Dicky halted and returned, looking down into the -apparently guileless and desireless eye. “Alms for the -temple in Cawnpore,” the lips intone.</p> - -<p>“By all means, father,” the other said, no visible -change upon his face, as he placed in the palm of the -beggar several bits of silver from his purse. In the -burning day again, he lifted a tired smile to the sun. -No true mystic, perhaps, but what had this man seen in -the crystals?</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[249]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XLII<br /> - -<small>LALA RELU RAM</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">NAGAR took him by the hand at the railway -station in Amritsar on the evening of the -ninth of April, 1919. The need for many -words seemed past; there was quiet gladness. Dicky -took up his quarters in the <i>Golden Temple Inn</i>. Under -the lights at the entrance, as he passed in with Nagar, -groups of Mohammedans and Hindus stood together, -with self-conscious but eager shows of mutual friendship, -and the American rubbed his eyes.</p> - -<p>If there was one thing in India that could be counted -upon like Government itself, it was the mutual hatred -of these two great divisions of native life. Dicky had -heard in recent days much of the swift breaking down -of these barriers, under the influence of Mahatma-ji, -but he had seen no example of it working out like this -under the lights of the Inn.</p> - -<p>“But what do the English think when they see the -Hindu and Moslem <i>kowtowing</i> to each other—as at the -door below when we came in?” Dicky inquired.</p> - -<p>“The Deputy Commissioner, the highest English -civilian of Amritsar, looked upon a similar spectacle -to-day,” Nagar said. “I did not hear him, but he is -reported to have remarked, ‘There’s going to be a row -here,’ and drank much cold soda water.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[250]</span>“What is your work here, Nagar?”</p> - -<p>“I have been working among the students at the college -of Lahore, and now here in Amritsar, working -with the young men and women.”</p> - -<p>“Preaching Gandhi’s sort of peace?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Nagar.</p> - -<p>“I still wonder that the English don’t ‘get’ the Little -Man, Nagar.”</p> - -<p>“The Government regards him as harmless because -he speaks of Soul-force. It deals with precedents; -Mahatma-ji with ideals——”</p> - -<p>“You think the Government will arrest him sooner or -later?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes.”</p> - -<p>“Won’t that stop or hurt the work?”</p> - -<p>“I remember,” said Nagar, “hearing the school children -in New York sing, ‘John Brown’s body lies -a-moldering in the grave, but his Soul goes marching -on.’ A spiritual beginning never stops. Mahatma-ji -has already brought his few spiritual principles into -matter, into action.”</p> - -<p>“Tunnel,” said Dicky.</p> - -<p>“Night and day Mahatma-ji has been preparing his -entire people to stand quiet and hateless; no matter -what happens to him,” Nagar went on with a smile. -“He tells them that in the event of his imprisonment, -or even of his martyrdom, they would only wound -his spirit, by answering the shedding of blood with -blood——”</p> - -<p>They talked late. For fully an hour after Nagar left,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[251]</span> -Dicky sat by the open window, smoking to keep the -insects away. Tobacco did not entirely quench the -stale tired smell of the town. Even after he put out -the light, sleepless hours passed, so it was late in the -forenoon when he awoke, hearing cries in the street -below. He crossed to the window.</p> - -<p>“<i>Hindu Mussultmanki jai!</i>” a voice cried. This he -took to mean a native impulse to promote Hindu and -Moslem unity, or something of the sort. Also he heard -the cry repeatedly, “<i>Mahatma Gandhiki jai!</i>” Also -Gandhi’s name associated with the names of “Kitchlew -and Satyapal,” native leaders in Amritsar, of whom -Nagar had spoken last night. Presently there was a -knock at his door. A serious but friendly young -Hindu in student’s garb bowed, entered and walked to -the center of the room, saying in careful English:</p> - -<p>“From Nagarjuna I have come to be at the service -of Cobden Sahib for the full day.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you. Is Nagar busy?”</p> - -<p>The student bowed again and proceeded: “My name -is Lala Relu Ram and I am glad to come and make -you acquainted with the disposition of the city.”</p> - -<p>The shouts were raised again outside.</p> - -<p>“What’s in the air?” Dicky asked.</p> - -<p>This was too much for Lala Relu Ram.</p> - -<p>“I mean the shouts below—is this another holiday?”</p> - -<p>“My people are gravely disturbed. Doctors Kitchlew -and Satyapal have been sent for by the Deputy Commissioner -Sahib. It is feared for them by my people.”</p> - -<p>“What have they been doing?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[252]</span>“In the terms of public speech they have cried out—also -against the Rowlatt Bills, and for the amity of all -peoples in Amritsar, Dr. Kitchlew being a Mohammedan -and Dr. Satyapal a Hindu, which is anomalous.”</p> - -<p>Dicky was still unshaven, and there were some notes -he wished to put down.</p> - -<p>“I’ll be ready to go out with you in an hour or less,” -he said. “Would you not like to go down and get a -line on what is going on?”</p> - -<p>The student confessed that he would, but plainly -the American idiom “get a line on” fascinated him. He -paused to inquire, and Dicky explained.</p> - -<p>“That is very good,” the student observed. “We -are taught that the language of the future is to be made -of most flexible symbols. I will get a line upon what -is in the air and return.”</p> - -<p>He was back within a half hour saying that the worst -had happened. Doctors Kitchlew and Satyapal had -been arrested under the Defense of India Act, ordered -to write farewell letters to their families, and been -driven out of town, their destination unknown.</p> - -<p>“My people are gathering to go to the bungalow of -the Deputy Commissioner with a <i>faryad</i> (petition) -that will remonstrate very firmly,” the Hindu boy said.</p> - -<p>“We had better be there, don’t you think, when the -doings begin?” Dicky inquired.</p> - -<p>“Doings?”</p> - -<p>“When the performance is pulled off.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, <i>tamasha</i>!”</p> - -<p>“I think so,” said Dicky.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[253]</span>They heard the slamming of boarded shop windows -in all the native streets. The word for suspension of -trade had gone abroad. The two pressed through -gathering groups all making their way in one direction.</p> - -<p>They had passed through a stretch of bazaars and -before them now was a carriage bridge over the railroad -right of way. On the bridge, they were packed -tightly in the throng by the railings on either side. In -a moment, the crowd in front halted and surged back. -Lala Relu Ram gripped his arm queerly. Now they -heard voices far ahead—angry voices in English—demanding -the people to disperse. The van of the crowd -had been confronted by a police and military piquet, -but the pressing forward did not cease.</p> - -<p>“My people are refusing to be stopped. They claim -the right to make their plea,” the student whispered.</p> - -<p>Dicky was sinking himself into the purpose of the -populace. As ever from his training, he sought to -clear his mind of preconception and self-interest—so -that the events might write upon a clean surface. Just -now a shot was heard; a bullet sang overhead—then a -volley. It was not until that moment that he remembered -the dusty twisted ascetic in the mango grove at -Cawnpore. But that was only two days ago, and where -was the wall?</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He found himself in the very quick of the Indian -people—under the cuticle of India herself. India the -timid, the terrible; India talking of Soul-force; India -running with its <i>faryad</i> to the ranking English representative<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[254]</span> -of Amritsar; explaining her griefs and her -hurts to herself and to the English, seeing neither the -humor of her plight on one side, nor its grimness on -the other; India led about on a string which she might -have broken with the flick of a finger.</p> - -<p>That was what India had always seemed most like -to Dicky Cobden—<i>hathis</i>, the elephant, gentlest and -strongest of creatures. For many generations she had -been banged about by the shouts and blows of the -white <i>mahout</i>, who was not in the cult of elephant lore, -never a native of her habitat. He had made her stand -around according to his own ideas—India, the great -female elephant, full of tremors and flutterings; of vast -strange delicacies and uncomputable powers.... -Now she was leaving her white <i>mahout</i> to follow about -a little black man with an invisible string.</p> - -<p>“<i>Mahatma Gandhiki jai! Gandhi Maharajiki rai!</i>”</p> - -<p>Dicky heard the voice raised now in the lull that -followed the first volley.... A little black man -with an invisible string, called Soul-force.</p> - -<p>One with the crowd, he felt its galvanic jerk of -ugliness pass through himself. The murmur of protest -that now arose from the open mouths was like -something from himself—as if his mouth, too, were -open with sound. A bearded native in soiled white -garments turned suddenly and pressed him back. This -man had felt a stone under his bare foot and he was -making room to reach down to pick it up. Dicky saw -his fingers stretch toward the muck. He understood. -Here was one of the primal impulses of the human<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[255]</span> -body in a stress of fear and hate. Far ahead, the -English officers roared commands for the natives to go -back. The voices of native leaders standing with the -English, also implored the people to disperse. But the -people had their <i>faryad</i>. They wanted talk. Also -there were dead and wounded on the earth before the -eyes of the front ranks. Another volley sounded.</p> - -<p>Instead of being driven back by the second pelting -of shots, the native crowd crushed its way across the -bridge. In the opening on the other side, it halted, now -in the Civil Lines, no longer jammed by the narrow -rails of the bridge. The throng had not yet become -insensate; no individual had seized the office of leadership. -This was the instant of all to Dicky Cobden, the -turning point. The native gathering might still have -been reasoned with, as it stood leaderless, looking upon -its own dead; but instead of reason, came the third -volley from the soldiers and police, the prod of the -ankus that turned the elephant <i>musth</i>.</p> - -<p>The shuddering of revolt that the people felt passed -through Richard Cobden as well—whipped up in his -own breast. Then he was carried forward with the -mob. Nothing gentle or yielding about the bodies -now, a rough, bruising, muscular mass pushed from -behind by incredible power.</p> - -<p>Dicky glanced about to look for Lala Relu Ram, and -that instant was whacked to the ground, a slug from -the pistol of one of the troopers, gouging his left -shoulder. He arose to one knee, still turned back, a -laugh on his lips, looking for the student.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[256]</span>And now a most extraordinary shock was meted out -to the son of the trowel makers. A running native -with gray, patchy face, completely carried away by -mob impulse, halted, stood above the kneeling white -man, struck him in the face with both hands, emptying -his mouth at the same time. Some of the natives immediately -behind, without questioning but that Dicky -was one of the English, now tramped over his body as -they ran. Though fallen, he still preserved a final -waver of consciousness—face down, head covered in -his arms. Finally he was caught by the arm and jerked -to the side.</p> - -<p>It was Lala Relu Ram who had pulled him out of -the crowd and looked down into a face covered with -blood and mud, and a welt or two. The only white -about that face now was the lips which smiled and -repeated a word which the Hindu student had never -heard in all his linguistic studies of the East and West.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[257]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XLIII<br /> - -<small><i>HATHIS</i> LAMENTS</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">DICKY really came to back in an apothecary -shop on the way to the Golden Temple, where -Lala Relu Ram had carried him. The filth of -that face that had opened upon him as he looked up -from his knee—a shudder about that, something he -would never be able to tell. It had been uglier to take -than the blows. As moments dragged on, he fell to -wishing Nagar would come. A curious wonder played -incessantly in his mind about the twisted ascetic under -the mango trees in Cawnpore, but where was the wall? -The crystal gazer had repeated that the thing which -was to befall would be within a wall.</p> - -<p>“... The bullet didn’t think enough of you to -stay, Mr. Cobden,” the young English surgeon said -after examination. “It merely bit out a chunk of -muscle and went its way. Since there is no cavity for -it to drain into, it means nothing but a stitch or two, -and a clean bandage. But you’ve been considerably -mashed about the face. There’s going to be a strain -on your drainage system for a few days to carry off -dead tissue.”</p> - -<p>He was taken to his room at the Inn, much bandaged, -and Lala Relu Ram sat by his bedside, his face<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[258]</span> -often turned to the open window that looked out over -the street.</p> - -<p>“I’m all right—don’t stay,” Dicky urged, as he -began to understand the sacrifice of the student in -remaining with him instead of following the mob.</p> - -<p>“Nagarjuna did not say for one hour, or for half of -one day, but for the full day,” Lala Relu Ram declared, -“and who knows but that I too might have disobeyed -the orders of Mahatma-ji and become violent?”</p> - -<p>Dicky hadn’t much of a grin left, but such as it -was, he was free to let it work under the folds of -gauze. He sent the student below on one pretext after -another, knowing that the young man was exhausting -himself from strain to hear all that had happened.</p> - -<p>“It is more terrible than we supposed,” the student -reported, as the long day ended. “Enraged by their -dead and wounded, and being prevented from carrying -their request to the Deputy Commissioner, my people -have burned buildings, bank buildings—the National, -the Chartered, the Alliance banks——”</p> - -<p>“That’s hitting them where they live,” said Mr. -Cobden, impelled to Americanisms as never before.</p> - -<p>“Sir?” said Lala Relu Ram, bending forward on -the scent of the idiom.</p> - -<p>“A Government bank is an English nerve center, -Lala Ram,” Dicky said.</p> - -<p>The student was thoughtful, and then resumed: “It -is with sorrow that I have to confess that my people -have forgotten themselves in the case of Mr. Stewart<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[259]</span> -and Mr. Scott of the National Bank and Mr. Thomason -of the Alliance Bank——”</p> - -<p>“Hurt?” said Dicky.</p> - -<p>“Dead,” said the student, with a dramatic pause. -“And that is not all. Miss Sherwood was most brutally -assaulted, and outside the city a railway guard named -Robinson, and a havildar in charge of the Electric, -named Rowlands, were beaten to death where they live, -and the station goods yard burnt——”</p> - -<p>Dicky’s eyes squinted under the cloths. “And what -of your own people?” he managed to ask.</p> - -<p>“Oh, many have been killed!”</p> - -<p>This was an item that did not require the enumeration -of details. <i>Hathis</i> had gone <i>musth</i>, but not for -long. <i>Hathis</i> was horrified at the awfulness of the -thing she had done. <i>Hathis</i> was back in her pickets -again, not realizing her own hurts, anticipating a clubbing -on the toes, and in the immortal way of <i>hathis</i>, -half suspecting that a clubbing was deserved.</p> - -<p>“I’d like to doze a little,” said Dicky.</p> - -<p>The student rose, but lingered.</p> - -<p>“Would Cobden Sahib permit me to ask one question?”</p> - -<p>“Why, of course, shoot—I mean—ask it.”</p> - -<p>“It is about that moment when you fell,” said Lala -Relu Ram. “Rather, it was when I reached you, and -had driven off my people who thought you were one -of the English——”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“You were partly out of the body—unconscious.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[260]</span> -Yet your eyes were open and you were speaking some -word that I have never heard—several times, as you -would speak the Holy Name in devotion, with breathing.”</p> - -<p>“What was that name?” Dicky inquired, pulling the -bandage down farther over his eyes.</p> - -<p>“It is not one which I have ever heard in my speech -or yours—that is why I ask. It was like this, ‘Pid-gee—Pid-gee.’”</p> - -<p>Dicky laughed.</p> - -<p>“That is—the fact is, that’s right curious,” he said. -“I must have been ‘out of the body,’ as you say. That—that -is a little expression we use in childhood!”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>As Nagar stood under the light that evening, Dicky -saw that his eyes, too, were burning with strange -sorrow. Lala Relu Ram bowed himself out, walking -backward. When they were alone, Nagar came to the -bedside, drawing a chair, and his hand found the -American’s.</p> - -<p>“We have not done well in Amritsar to-day.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t think you understand it quite,” Dicky said. -“I was there this noon, at the place they call the Hallgate -Bridge——”</p> - -<p>“There was violence,” said Nagar.</p> - -<p>“There were three volleys——”</p> - -<p>The Oriental smiled. “It is not the provocation that -we deal with, but the losing of oneself in anger. Nothing -remains to us but the fact that Amritsar lost its -self-control.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[261]</span>“You think the Little Man will be unhappy about -what has happened, when he comes?”</p> - -<p>“Mahatma-ji was arrested this morning at Kosi, -served with an order not to enter Punjab, nor the -district of Delhi, but to confine himself to the Bombay -Presidency.”</p> - -<p>Dicky studied his friend. He couldn’t help feeling -if Nagar had been at the Hallgate Bridge—— Finally -he spoke:</p> - -<p>“I’m just a reporter, Nagar. I’m not granting that -Gandhi knows it all or that the natives to-day are all -right, and the English all wrong. Still, I can’t help -wondering at what you ask of your people—as a reporter -would ask, you understand. They turned the -other cheek! They took the first volley and the second. -I was there. No man has three cheeks. I saw it all -in that minute between the second and third firing.”</p> - -<p>Nagar’s hand pressed his and Dicky lowered his -voice, though his tone had not been loud.</p> - -<p>“Anything might have happened that instant had -there been a bit of leadership,” he added. “The people -wanted to talk to their father—the Deputy. You would -have wept for their forbearance, or stupidity, as you -like. Their dead were at their feet, the cries of the -wounded in their ears, and still they weren’t maddened. -They only wanted to show their <i>faryad</i>. If there had -been the right Englishman on the spot—why, the crowd -would have been allowed to go forward with its document. -I’ve an idea that it was something dangerously -like funk that caused that third volley, and that nobody<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[262]</span> -will ever be so sorry for what happened to-day, as -England herself. I call it human the way your people -lost their heads.”</p> - -<p>“Mahatma-ji’s ideal isn’t human, Richard. It is -of the Soul. We shall suffer and India shall suffer—for -to-day.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve got a lot to learn about this man’s India. I can -see that,” the American said queerly.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[263]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XLIV<br /> - -<small>THE SLATE AND THE SPONGE</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">PIDGE was choosing a serial for <i>The Public -Square</i>. The choice lay now between two -manuscripts on the desk before her eyes. One -was by a maker of the “new” American literature, -named Carver, who had dared to perform the work in -one sustained, slow movement, bound to ward off -excessive popularity, a thing of drabs and tans and -grays, but earnest, even in its hopelessness. It consistently -portrayed a cross section of life, a fine piece -of human observation, but altogether unlit with intuition.</p> - -<p>The other book was a novel of New York, by a -woman whose name was entirely unheard of. This -manuscript had been refused several times as a serial -in the past year, and several times as a book prospect. -The letters of refusal from the different editors were -also on Pidge Musser’s desk. One said, “This book is -too much of a gamble for an unknown name.” The -united opinion of all professional readers was that this -story was unquestionably an augur for the future of -the novelist, rather than a compelling announcement of -her arrival.</p> - -<p>In her own heart, Pidge believed that the woman’s -story would interest more readers than Carver’s. Also,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[264]</span> -<i>The Public Square</i> would be saved considerable money -in taking the woman’s story, for Carver stood out for -rather a high price for his first American serial rights.</p> - -<p>“It isn’t the freedom of ignorance,” she said at last, -about the lower-priced book, “but it isn’t the freedom -of knowledge, either. ‘A man is crippled while he’s -learning technic.’... No, I can’t take the chance!”</p> - -<p>So the novel by the unknown woman went back to -Harrow Street with its refusals, and found a resting -place in the drawer under the mirror that waved; and -only Miss Claes and the author, herself, knew who was -hurt.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Mr. Adolph Musser, in New York with his daughter, -began to have callers. The two small upper rooms -in Harrow Street were not adapted for callers, even in -the adaptable Village. Especially this was so because -an adopted male child of one year was rooted and -ramifying in the place. One of the ramifications was -a female lodger and one-time nurse who looked after -the child while Pidge was away at the office. Mr. -Musser, during his first week in New York, before he -found an apartment in the Sixties, had pronounced this -woman too heavy-footed to live with.</p> - -<p>Though Pidge had received an important increase of -salary, dating from the first of this year of 1919, she -did not find herself in a greatly improved condition -when the additional expenses of nurse and her father’s -separate maintenance were considered. However, -something happened which she had not foreseen. Mr.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[265]</span> -Adolph Musser became rapidly self-supporting. According -to his predictions, New York proved to be -suffering from a “biological hunger and thirst” for his -very sort of metaphysic. Los Angeles had been sated. -One had merely to move from temple to temple in Los -Angeles. Cultists of all colors were there; light-bringers -from all lands. Mr. Musser, according to -predictions, found New York a virgin oil field and he -was not long in getting his derricks up.</p> - -<p>Late in May there was a letter from Richard Cobden, -mailed at Bombay in early April. Though it was -written to Pidge personally she saw in it Dicky’s first -real work, his first actual grasp and retention of -essentials, to her idea. It opened to her, also, the lineaments -of the Big Story they had talked so much about. -She read the letter through twice on the day it arrived, -and that night took it home to read to Miss Claes, who -came to the upper room in the latter part of the evening, -as she had come to hear <i>The Lance of the -Rivernais</i>, over five years ago. Their faces were close -together, and Pidge read low and rapidly:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>I have been with Gandhi several times in the past -three days, and early to-morrow I start north for -Amritsar to join Nagar. I hadn’t thought of writing -this until just now, on my way to bed, and the subject -of the Little Man suddenly filled me. I feel an unadulterated -American to-night, and there may be an -advantage, at least an angle, in a study of Gandhi from -that point.... He is very ill, can scarcely stand, -but more than ever full of his kind of light and power.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[266]</span> -In the last three days with him, I have come to understand -<i>you</i> as never before—and America and the -American soldier. I have found out, Pidge, what you -mean by stating and living the fact, that it isn’t how -much one knows that counts, but how much one does. -Gandhi is a doer. I used to hear in church something -about the Spirit being made flesh, and now I’ve got an -inkling of what that means. Gandhi’s genius doesn’t -dream. <i>It does.</i> The sun shines on all India, but -Gandhi has become a lens. The rays focalize through -him. The ground burns under his feet.... He is -called a bigot, a fanatic, a living Blue Law, and it is all -true, Pidge. He is drawn in black and white. He has -no half-tones, no twilights, no afterglows. He is devoid -of atmosphere as the moon. His lines of light and -shadow are never blent or diffused. He is vivid noon -where his light strikes, densest night where light ends.... -It is not that he loathes the West, but that he -knows the East. He has become a specialist, as Nagar -says repeatedly. He has withdrawn his attention from -the world to India, Herself. He has brought in his -eyes from the future, to the Now. He sees the next -step which India must take, and leaves to the dreamers -of the world to point out the glories and the penalties. -He stands in the road in front of India to-day, like a -man before a runaway horse——</p> -</div> - -<p>Dicky had ended the letter suddenly, saying he was -sleepy, but had more to say later. The two women -talked low, because of <i>another</i> in the room. This other -was not to be disturbed. They stood over him now. -He would not have approved at all of their gayety and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[267]</span> -know-it-all manner, had he been awake. His lids were -down, however; the black curving lashes reposed in -their hollows; the world, which was the big horse he -must some time ride, was away minding its own business.</p> - -<p>“I’m glad to hear this much before I go——” Miss -Claes stopped and took both of Pidge’s hands.</p> - -<p>“Before you go—where?”</p> - -<p>“This little slate of Harrow Street is all written over. -It is to be rubbed out now, Pidge. My part is finished -here—I don’t know how well, but it’s finished. I am -leaving New York.”</p> - -<p>“Why, that—that seems—insupportable!... -Why, I thought anything could happen but that—to -my New York!”</p> - -<p>“Only you are to know, dear,” Miss Claes said -moments afterward. “Yes, it is India——”</p> - -<p>“To Nagar—you are to be with him—the Hills!”</p> - -<p>“Don’t, Pidge. It isn’t for words——”</p> - -<p>“Forgive me——”</p> - -<p>“These are terrible days for India. It means work—work—tests -for every one’s courage. Little Harrow -Street is still and steady, compared.... But this is -dear to me—the thought that I go ahead to make -ready for you another place to come——”</p> - -<p>“My upper room,” said Pidge softly. “My upper -room.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[268]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XLV<br /> - -<small>AMRITSAR, APRIL 13, 1919</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">TOWARD the end of the afternoon of Sunday, -the 13th, Richard Cobden ordered a carriage. -He was still bandaged about the head, his left -arm in a sling. This was his first descent from the -room since his hurts on the 10th, and meanwhile General -Fyatt had taken control of the city, bringing in -troops from nearby stations. Dicky had met Fyatt in -France, and was on his way now to pay his respects -to the General at his Headquarters in the Ram Bagh. -He was getting it very clearly just now that if it were -observed that he had any sort of affiliation with the -natives, he would promptly be placed out of reach of all -Punjabi events, even as a spectator.</p> - -<p>The American was personally and intensely interested -in Nagar and Gandhi, but still he did not feel -that he had taken sides in the least. He looked upon -Gandhi’s work as visionary, and the work of the British -in India as substantial, and the more likely to endure. -He had seen Nagar but a moment or two each day -since the 10th, and had kept in touch with developments -through the English sources.</p> - -<p>The air was still furiously hot, though it was after -four in the afternoon. The streets were crowded, this -being the day of the <i>Baisaki</i> fair, and thousands were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[269]</span> -in from the country. Dicky heard the roar of a ’plane -over the city, and craned out of the window of his -half-closed carriage for a glance at its flight. The pilot -was making circles over a point at a little distance -ahead—a low peculiar hovering.</p> - -<p>Dicky inquired of his driver the meaning, and was -told that the ’plane appeared to be hanging over the -great crowd assembled in the Jallianwalla Bagh—that -thousands of the visitors attending the fair were there, -listening to the speakers, as well as many townsfolk.</p> - -<p>“But didn’t the General give orders for no public -assemblies?”</p> - -<p>The driver had not heard. Dicky reflected that the -’plane didn’t appear to be there for the amusement of a -crowd—no circus ’plane, but an effective bit of government -property, rather, with an air of business. It rose -now and vanished over the city.</p> - -<p>The carriage continued on the way to the Ram Bagh, -until it was halted for the passage of troops in the -street. A half-hundred Gurkhas and Baluchees, two -motor cars with English officers and civilians, the whole -outfit trailed by a pair of armored cars, and moving in -the direction where the government ’plane had hovered.</p> - -<p>“Where are they going?” Dicky asked of his driver.</p> - -<p>The man was not sure, but suggested the Jallianwalla -Bagh.</p> - -<p>“What is that place?”</p> - -<p>“It is a <i>maidan</i>,” the man said, “a big open square, a -public place.”</p> - -<p>“Public square,” Dicky muttered. “Turn in short<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[270]</span> -after the armored cars,” he commanded the driver. -“Follow close.”</p> - -<p>“Ram Bagh is not so.”</p> - -<p>It is a difficult proceeding, requiring formalities, to -alter one’s orders in Asia.</p> - -<p>“Listen. I am changing my purpose. Not Ram -Bagh, but Jallianwalla. Turn in after the soldiers—now!”</p> - -<p>The driver obeyed, but was hurt and murmuring.</p> - -<p>To Dicky, that afternoon, Amritsar was a place of -heated and offensive stenches. As they passed through -hot and narrow streets, certain of these odors startled -his comprehension, because they were so subtly vindictive. -The thought occurred to him, as he watched the -naked children playing in the wet shadows, of what a -correspondent had remarked in Cawnpore: that it was -hard to tell whether the streets soiled the children, or -the children soiled the streets. The movement forward -was very slow, and Dicky bent to inquire at length if -they were still moving toward Jallianwalla Bagh.</p> - -<p>“Yes, it is very near,” said the driver, churning at -the lines with both hands.</p> - -<p>The American did not let himself think further. He -fell into his old queer absorption; the reporter of his -makeup taking him over. He shut out Amritsar from -mind; the Native Idea, the English Idea, and his own -that hovered between. He was just a stranger in a -half-closed carriage looking out from under a bandaged -brow. He heard the flies in the air. He did not seem -to have any mental guard to shut out that distracting<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[271]</span> -buzz—flies winging across the vapors of filth. They -came to a narrow lane, a <i>kucha</i>, the driver called it. -The armored cars ahead were having difficulty in this -constricted place. Finally they halted and Dicky heard -a British soldier on the nearest turret call out that the -cars could proceed no further.</p> - -<p>His own carriage was of course blocked. The <i>kucha</i> -appeared less than eight feet wide. He was still lame, -and had not intended to do much walking about in the -furious heat, but beyond the armored cars he had -glimpsed the Gurkhas filing forward and the officers -stepping out of their machines. He let himself to the -ground, ordered the driver to wait, and followed the -soldiers through the wet trampled lane.</p> - -<p>A minute later he was in the broken ranks of the -Gurkhas—little muttering men with big sprawly hands -holding fast to their rifles, fingers running loosely over -breech and stock and barrel. The halt had come because -there was a sudden rise to the ground—a mound -of earth closing the lane, and running at angles to each -side. The soldiers were ordered up and deployed along -the mound; equally divided to the right and left.</p> - -<p>Now Richard Cobden, in the midst of the officers -and civilians who had occupied the two motor cars, -also gained the eminence with some pains; and at this -point he saw the man he had started out to find that -afternoon—General Fyatt, a significant picture, indeed, -here in Amritsar, who had been but a small obscure -exhibit in the broad gallery of France.</p> - -<p>Fyatt didn’t see him, and the American looked over<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[272]</span> -the vast assembly of natives in the burning light. On -a raised frame toward the center, a Sikh speaker stood. -Dicky could hear his words, but did not understand. -He saw, however, that the coming of the soldiers had -interrupted the tenor of the speech and that many of -the people were frightened and drawing away. An -English officer beside him, after listening a moment, -spoke with an ironical laugh:</p> - -<p>“<i>We have nothing to fear. Sarkar is our father and -our mother. Government would not injure its children</i>——”</p> - -<p>Dicky realized that the young officer had quoted a -translation of words the Sikh speaker had just spoken -to the people—from twelve to fifteen thousand in the -<i>maidan</i>, he reckoned. All faces were now turned to the -soldiers—waves of faces. It was as if the color of a -tree had changed by a steady pressure of wind that -showed the under side of all the leaves. A nervous -laugh from the young Englishman who had interpreted; -then from General Fyatt, the low single -sentence:</p> - -<p>“You may give the order.”</p> - -<p>“Fire!” the young officer called to his Gurkhas.</p> - -<p>To Richard Cobden it was quite incredible, but -another officer on the far side of the lane repeated the -command, and the line of leveled rifles spurted on either -side. Dicky winced at the crashes. He had been in -the firing pits many times, but one can never remember -how these concussions close by hurt one’s head and -spine.... Of course, they were firing blanks. This<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[273]</span> -was Martial Law. The people had been ordered not -to assemble and they had disobeyed—twelve thousand -of them, or more. General Fyatt had undertaken to -impress upon them that his word was Law, Martial -Law. Of course, this was also the English answer to -April 10th, at the Hallgate Bridge. A bit uncouth to -stampede a big crowd like this.</p> - -<p>Surely Fyatt couldn’t have realized what this firing -of blanks would mean.</p> - -<p>They were trampling themselves to death already. -This wasn’t English humor. It was more like the -fool who yells, “Fire!” in a packed theater.</p> - -<p>The great open place was walled. There were no -broad exits. The several narrow vents had locked of -themselves by the pressing of bodies against them. -“Why,” Dicky thought, with a wrench and shiver at -the sight of the monster throng in the process of -constricting itself, “why, this is a womb of death!”</p> - -<p>Cries were sustained at the end of this April holiday—cries -of battle and accident and pestilence, the -cries from a great ship going down.</p> - -<p>Dicky thought of a pot beginning to boil. He -thought of a yard of leaves suddenly caught in a -swirling wind. He thought of all the old stale similes -used and over-used since bloodshed began, and his -mind sank back in the hollow of hopelessness. It -couldn’t be told, but his faculties tried again and again, -even though his heart sobbed with the people.</p> - -<p>A great square of colored cloths in the sunlight—from -twelve to fifteen thousand human beings listening<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[274]</span> -to a man who cried out against violence, who cried out -that <i>Sarkar</i> couldn’t hurt his children—suddenly being -ground in the great crush of Fear, being sprayed with -rifle fire—blanks, of course—but to a result almost as -deadly, for the people were destroying each other. They -didn’t mean to, but they were trampling each other to -death. Thus his mind viewed and reviewed—all this -in a matter of seconds.</p> - -<p>Now Mr. Cobden saw something he didn’t understand. -Down in the <i>maidan</i> on the ground, not fifty -feet away—a giant Sikh in white turban, running forward -with raised hands, like a messenger—a close-up -possibly for Dicky’s eyes alone—suddenly halted, spun -and slapped limply to the ground with a curving fling. -A glorious fall, if it had been a bit of acting—the fall a -man makes when a bullet hits him.</p> - -<p>But Dicky was quite possessed with the idea that the -soldiers were firing blanks.</p> - -<p>At this point, an English officer roared at his -Gurkhas, who apparently had been firing high. His -words were in vernacular, but the American saw the -little dark men shorten their range.</p> - -<p>Thus it dawned upon him slowly, as if he were a -very stupid man, that Fyatt was punishing Amritsar -indeed—in fact, that the General was making a day of -it. Also at the same time it dawned upon him that the -public square was walled. He had seen the wall before, -partly formed of buildings, but it hadn’t properly registered -in connection with the words of the twisted -ascetic of Cawnpore.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[275]</span>Now he knew also that the several narrow throats -of the walled square, none so wide as the <i>kucha</i> through -which he had entered, had become points of intensified -death, because the great throng had divided to crush -itself against these impossible apertures. The English -officers appeared to be directing the fire of the soldiers -toward these points where the maddened masses were -most dense.</p> - -<p>Almost directly across the square the wall was low, -less than six feet. Hundreds were jammed against it, -but their bodies were so locked by the pressure from -behind that no one could climb or be pushed over into -safety.</p> - -<p>The Gurkhas looked like monkey men. They -stamped queerly as they pumped. They were being -told what to do and were in a great concentration to -obey exactly. They emptied their magazines, each -man taking his own time, and halted to fill them again, -carefully avoiding with their fingers the burning metal -of the barrels, as they refilled and fired.</p> - -<p>An English civilian, an elderly man, face livid, -bumped Cobden’s wounded shoulder, as he lurched past, -muttering:</p> - -<p>“My God! I can’t watch this.”</p> - -<p>Another Englishman followed him, venting an hysterical -laughter—both faces Dicky had seen in one of -the motor cars. For an instant it seemed the only sane -action left in the world—to rush out into the lane the -way he had come, as these Englishmen were doing, to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[276]</span> -cover face and ears, to rush forth, to continue to the -ends of India and the uttermost parts of the earth.</p> - -<p>Dicky started to follow, but turned back.... No, -he wouldn’t rush off to be sick. This was the wall that -he was to come to. It was something else.... What -was it? Oh, yes, it was the Big Story that he had been -pacing up and down the world to find.... Of course, -it would be like this. He would find himself in the -midst of it, without knowing at first.</p> - -<p>He ducked forward under the rifles of three <i>sepoys</i> -to reach the staff. He couldn’t go away without paying -his respects to the General. Was not this what he had -started out for to-day? He stumbled over a soldier on -his knees—a Baluchee, vomiting with all his might. -He saw Fyatt a few paces forward—Fyatt, grizzled, -square-shouldered, behind a field glass. A mocking -laugh rose in Richard Cobden’s heart. A man didn’t -need a field glass to cover the <i>maidan</i>. One could see -the faces; one could see the fallen; one could see the -writhing cords of human bodies. Oh, no, one didn’t -need a field glass. One could see the thousands on the -<i>maidan</i> now—as one up-turned face, the face of a -child betrayed, but unable to believe. Fyatt merely -chose this way to cover his own face. His back looked -stiff and blocky as he swung slowly around behind the -glasses. His shoulders and neck didn’t move. He -turned from the hips, Dicky perceived, as he touched -the General’s sleeve.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[277]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XLVI<br /> - -<small>THE HOOKED MAN</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">A  NOTE of unison had come to the great cry -from the people at this moment—one note that -tugged at the white man’s soul—the deadly -hurt of a child.... General Fyatt was not tall for -a soldier, with square lines of figure; square of chin -and temple and shoulder and elbow, pivoting on his -hips. But there were two remarkable curves in the -ensemble, the sidewise curve of the hooked nose and -the bow of his booted legs. Now as the American -stood by, a new key presented itself to the man—that -hooked smile. It opened other hooks—hook of the -eye-corner, as well as the corner of the mouth and the -bent nose, hook of the fingers on the field glass. The -face turned to him—a white welt from the glasses on -the bridge of the nose.</p> - -<p>Dicky felt the horrible slowness over everything—that -somehow there was not in this man’s volition the -power to order the firing to cease. No recognition -showed in Fyatt’s eyes. He stared. It was like the -man who had stared at him on the docks in Bombay, -when he heard that America had entered the War.</p> - -<p>“Well, sir!”</p> - -<p>Dicky felt rebuked. Then came to his ears again -the terrible drowning cry of the children, and he saw<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[278]</span> -Fyatt differently—not as England; at least, not all of -England—a black crooked finger operating merely—the -face of England turned away.</p> - -<p>“I only wanted to ask——” Dicky stopped and -raised his voice above the tumult of shots and voices. -“Cobden of New York—saw you in France!”</p> - -<p>It was utterly ridiculous to yell one’s identity. He -had forgotten that his face might look different under -a bandage. The field glass that had been partly raised -again was whipped down. The hooks tightened.</p> - -<p>“Ah, Cobden. Heard you were in town. Busy, you -know!”</p> - -<p>“I see!” the American yelled back. He felt like a -maniac. “I see! I merely wanted to ask, General, -if you had gone mad—or have I?”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>A young officer ran between them reporting that the -ammunition was running out.</p> - -<p>“Sixteen hundred and fifty rounds, sir. Mainly used -up. Some of the men finished——”</p> - -<p>“Ease them off back to the armored cars. Let the -others finish firing—fire low.”</p> - -<p>“Not much wasted—only at first, sir!”</p> - -<p>Fyatt turned to Cobden, shouting staccato sentences: -“Didn’t catch what you said. Teaching Amritsar a -lesson! Plover says we ought to take a thousand for -one! Teach them to assault women——”</p> - -<p>“Isn’t the lesson taught?” This time Dicky didn’t -yell.</p> - -<p>“They haven’t dispersed yet.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[279]</span>“Dead men can’t disperse, General. The rest can’t -get out——”</p> - -<p>Dicky walked away. He had looked again at the -<i>maidan</i>. Everything was overturned. The thousands -were prone or kneeling.... If one steel rifle bullet -plows through sixteen inches of oak—how many human -bodies will it plow through? How many will 1650 -steel bullets?... No shots wasted since the first -minute or two. They couldn’t be all down—wounded -or done for. Suddenly Dicky realized that many of -the people were now praying. He was back at the head -of the lane, moving in circles like a man who has been -beaten on the head.... A black-coated Englishman -with a clergy’s vest, grasped him by the arm, -peering into his face—eyes gone utterly daft. He -shook Dicky’s arm and pushed it from him; then ran -to a soldier near by and peered again.</p> - -<p>“Tell it to the General,” Dicky called absurdly, but -his words weren’t heard.</p> - -<p>Now he saw one of the elder civilians who had -escaped a few moments before, coming back. This -person scrambled upon the mound from the lane side -and inquired of the earth and sky:</p> - -<p>“I say—can’t he stop?”</p> - -<p>“He’s dispersing the people,” Dicky answered.</p> - -<p>The firing was desultory now. He heard orders for -it to cease entirely.</p> - -<p>“We might need a cartridge or two in the streets -going back——” a voice behind him said.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[280]</span>“We’ve got the armored cars——” another answered.</p> - -<p>Then Richard Cobden happened to look at the west -and found the sun still high in the sky. This struck -him as altogether peculiar.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[281]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XLVII<br /> - -<small>IN THE WARM DARK</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">COBDEN found himself in the lane, turned -away from the <i>maidan</i>, his hands lifted and -clenched. From behind still came the sounds -of a ship going down—all but down, the firing ceased. -In front of him, the <i>sepoys</i> were running low as if to -escape. It made him think of ball players leaving the -field in the summer dusk after a game, running through -the crowd to the clubhouse. The armored cars were -backing out before him.</p> - -<p>“... Of course,” he kept telling himself, “it -had to come this way—end of the old story, the beginning -of the story of the age. This isn’t an English-Indian -story. It’s a story of all the world.”</p> - -<p>Only natives were about him—ashen-lipped, muttering, -frightened, dazed. He continued through the -<i>kucha</i>, following the armored cars. He must get to -the hotel. He had something to write, copy to file. -But this delusion did not carry him far, before its -absurdity struck home. The outer world would never -hear of this story, until it leaked through by letter or -word of mouth. The cables had been tight before. -They would be drum-tight now.</p> - -<p>Vaguely and dully he realized that all things were -changed for him for all time. The reporter in his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[282]</span> -makeup that had blithely set out for Jallianwalla Bagh -was done for, all aloofness of the spectator gone—the -little poise of ego which had carried him so well and -so long, so far as associations with men went, up and -down the world until this hour—that ego poise was -leveled and smeared. Amritsar’s public square—the -massacre in the <i>maidan</i> had cloven him, and into the -opening all India had rushed. The face of the hooked -man came back to him—hard unto silliness, the English -stare against the sinking city.</p> - -<p>He had overtaken the nearest of the armored cars. -He looked upon them strangely, their sleek integration. -They had not been needed; India had died and been -born again without them. Something similar had -happened in himself. No casual reporter now—one -living emotion, rather—one fire, one fury, a burning of -unqualified pity in every cell that held his life.</p> - -<p>The driver of his carriage hailed him. Cobden lifted -his hand in return, but halted. Suddenly he realized -that he didn’t want to go back to the <i>Golden Temple -Inn</i>. The thing alive in him now was bigger than a -story to be written, bigger than the finding of a free -cable, which was not in India. He paid the driver and -stemmed his way back against the people that thronged -the lane. He knew now that he must keep his mouth -shut in an altogether different way; that a new life, -terrible in its potency, had seized upon him, was somehow -being born in his flesh and brain. He must hold -still—hold still.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[283]</span>“Sixteen hundred rounds in ten minutes,” an English -voice reiterated.</p> - -<p>Dicky’s head bowed under his helmet. He was slow -to believe that the firing had lasted only ten minutes. -It amazed him now that this was still a world of hot -daylight. He looked back upon his coming through -this lane as one does upon the last memory before a -great sickness. He had to memorize and register again -and again upon his faculties that he had alighted from -his vehicle only fifteen minutes ago, and this was all -one day, all one afternoon, all one quarter of an hour. -In the interval there had been death and birth for -India and for himself—a mysterious conception, at -least.</p> - -<p>“God forgive me for losing my head,” he muttered, -for there was something in him that still counted -losing one’s head as the first moral offense. He was -thinking of the moment standing before Fyatt. He -would move very quietly now. As he reclimbed the -mound where the <i>sepoy</i> firing line had stood, it came -to him that a man might lose his head for a moment, at -least, to find his heart.</p> - -<p>He let himself down from the mound to the bloody -ground. There he found presently a man wedged -under the bodies of two already dead. He dragged this -man loose, only to find that he was apparently bleeding -to death from a shattered knee. He unwound a turban -from one of the dead men and wrapped the wound, -knotting it tightly above the flow of blood. His own -left hand was impeded by the sling. Presently, he freed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[284]</span> -it entirely, his personal scratches appearing ridiculous -in this broad field of bloody men. Thus began his -work. It was as if he had entered single-handed upon -a task to alter the sewerage system of a city.</p> - -<p>There were no English about, no police or native -soldiers. Martial Law had done its part and gone to -supper. The people flocking into the <i>maidan</i> with -moanings and horror-stricken cries now were those -looking for their own. From the farthest parts of -Amritsar they were drawn, from many houses to which -one or more did not report for the evening meal. Living -men and women—hurrying, bending—hands reaching -down, hands pressed to faces—the quick and the -dead.</p> - -<p>A while afterward he looked up to find that the sun -had gone down. His knees were wet with blood. He -felt the wet spreading heat upon his left shoulder. His -wound had opened from exertion—a smile at that.</p> - -<p>He had worked a little on battlefields before, but -they weren’t like this. A persistent thought held him -that this was the field of his own dead! He didn’t -understand how his brain could deal with such weird -stuff. He concluded that he was in a half-dream where -thoughts appeared veritable that wouldn’t hold water -when he fully waked.</p> - -<p>Now he had extricated from the mass near the -Hasali Gate the body of a trampled girl child. She -was warm, possibly not dead. She smelled of the -earth and tears.... His heart thumped, and pity -like a warm breath surged through him—pity, which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[285]</span> -some one said was the pain of love—oh, yes, that was -Miss Claes’ expression. He touched the girl’s long -coarse black hair in the thick twilight.</p> - -<p>His lips formed with explanations and thoughts as -he worked—the things he would tell Pidge, the way he -would tell these things to Pidge. He placed the unconscious -one down at the feet of a native doctor who -was binding wounds, but often raising his eyes to -heaven in prayer that the soldiers might not come -back.</p> - -<p>Dicky stood up in the warm dark, lifted his helmet -and mopped his forehead with his grimy right hand. -He could actually smell what horses smelled (as he -remembered in France and Arabia) when they snorted -and ran aside.... The dead would never end—hundreds -of dead—public square covered with dead. -And what was pulling at his brain—something trying -to gain admittance? He had it now. Pidge Musser -was close again; close as she had come in the <i>Ashrama</i>—not -weeping, horrified, not in the least dismayed or -hopeless by all these lifeless ones on the ground, but -the spirit of swift-handed helpfulness, utterly in accord -with him in thought and purpose, no words being -necessary. So this was why he had been standing in -the dark with uncovered head, rubbing his hand over -his brow—that her closeness might come through to -him! Not so weird, after all, that he should know -this, standing upon the soaked turf of the <i>maidan</i>. -Things of this kind had often happened to soldiers on -the battlefields of France.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[286]</span>Was this what it was all about then—the separation, -the struggling—at last to become connected to her this -way, though across the world? He mustn’t study it -too closely. He had a warning that he would spoil it, -unless he kept on heartily with the work. So he continued -separating the wounded, but every little while -when his hands were free he would stop and uncover -his head to the moist warmth of the evening. Would -she come nearer and nearer through the years?... -And these were her dead and her dying, and she had -blessed the little Hindu girl with coarse black hair. -He smiled at the absurdity of his thoughts.</p> - -<p>Now it was full dark and the cries of the living -women across the <i>maidan</i> were raised in agony because -they must leave the Bagh before the curfew sounded. -Hundreds were still searching. They had not found -their own, but it was close to eight o’clock and this—the -dead on the field—was what had come of breaking -Martial Law to-day. It did not matter that lives might -still be saved if the wounded could be taken out from -the dead. <i>Sarkar</i> had fired upon them to-day. <i>Sarkar</i> -would come with more death, if they disobeyed. Husbands -dragged away the women whose faces turned -back.</p> - -<p>Richard Cobden stayed on. He had the sense of not -being alone. Moreover, there was much to do. There -were voices to answer. He heard cries and callings -from the windows of the houses that overlooked the -<i>maidan</i>. No English came that night—but the pariah<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[287]</span> -dogs from all the city and outskirts. They moved like -ghouls in the shadows. There were mysteries everywhere—white -vapors from the ground. He saw and -felt the unutterable; became rich for future years in -that one night with the fruits of sadness.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[288]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XLVIII<br /> - -<small>“INDIA’S MESSENGER”</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">COBDEN walked back from the <i>maidan</i> through -the streets of Amritsar in the dawn. He did -not feel like a foreigner. That which had -happened during the night had furnished him with -what rarely comes to a white man—the Indian point -of view. He was in the Indian fabric for the moment, -at least; no longer a spectator from the West. He did -not hate England, not even the crooked finger that had -mismanaged for England. He knew something right -now that he might not be able even to remember—more -sorrow than anger.</p> - -<p>As he approached the Golden Temple, near which -was the Inn, Nagar appeared in the street, and they -walked together in silence. As he tottered a little, -Nagar’s arm swung around him and Dicky said:</p> - -<p>“Don’t. I’m very dirty.”</p> - -<p>Now that the light was coming on, they saw people -hurrying to the Jallianwalla Bagh.</p> - -<p>In the room, Dicky said:</p> - -<p>“Make a lot of tea, Nagar. Sorry you won’t join -me in a little drink from the flask.”</p> - -<p>A moment later, he said:</p> - -<p>“I think after all, you’ll have to help me get off this -shirt. I’m a rubbed-in mess of blood and dirt.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[289]</span>Nagar perceived that the body of the American -trembled full-length; also that his clothing was soaked -with blood from the wounded shoulder, as well as -from stains received from handling others.</p> - -<p>“... Some of them crawled about in the dark!” -Dicky was saying. “A woman sat there moaning -through the whole night. The pariahs came—I heard -them lapping, lapping. From the windows of the -houses around the Bagh came the cries of the women -who dared not disobey the curfew.... Why, that -ten minutes of firing was longer than whole years I -lived as a schoolboy, but the ten hours since dark—that -passed, Nagar, like a man walking by a house, not -a lame man.... I saw your India, oh, yes. The -gentlest-tempered crowd I ever moved through, but -something dangerous and deadly in its pain and grief. -God help us—when you wake up——”</p> - -<p>Nagar helped him. Dicky bathed his neck and face -and hair copiously with one hand, and then washed the -left arm. With Nagar’s help the wound was packed -with clean lint. Dicky drank hot tea, filling his goblet -several times and shivering, though the heat of the -night was still in the room. Finally he sat down in his -bathrobe by the open window and lit a cigarette. The -sunlight had found the gold of the Temple dome.</p> - -<p>“... I actually forgot myself,” Dicky repeated. -“When an American forgets himself, Nagar, you can -be sure a big show is being pulled off.... I’ve -smoked too much, talked too much. I am going to lie -down for a little—until breakfast.... Bed! Think<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[290]</span> -of having a bed, in Amritsar. A bed with sheets.... -Out there so many were lying on the ground. -Oh, I say, Nagar, where will they put them all?”</p> - -<p>The Hindu’s cool, slim fingers reached over and -touched his hand. He didn’t speak, just kept his hand -still, and Dicky found it easier to stop talking, because -of that hand; easier to endure the furious forces of -activity in his brain. Finally Nagar spoke:</p> - -<p>“I had to stay with the students. They wanted to -go to the <i>maidan</i>. That would not have been well, but -it was well for you to be there—to forget yourself -there through the hours. It will come forth from you -for years—not as the voice of an American, but as a -citizen of the world. You have prepared long; last -night India found you prepared, and dared to show -you something of herself. Miss Claes would be very -glad to be here with us this morning.”</p> - -<p>Dicky’s mind fumbled with the idea that he had not -only come closer into the Indian heart, but into Nagar’s -as well.</p> - -<p>“You might sleep a little until breakfast. I shall not -leave you until after that. You are very tired and -spent, but you will not be injured from last night. -When a man forgets himself, as you say, he is strangely -replenished.”</p> - -<p>But Dicky did not sleep. They breakfasted early -and Nagar arose, saying:</p> - -<p>“... In the days that you remain in Amritsar -finishing your work (for last night will mean more -and more to you as the days go on) you and I shall not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[291]</span> -be much together. What you see in Amritsar—you -must watch without feeling or partisanship. One cannot -tell—you may see strange things. Remember, -always remember, that you are American; that as an -American you have no enemies, and belong to the -world. In the fusion of all Europe, which America is, -to form a new type of nobility, remember that no -country has furnished a nobler ingredient—than England. -And forgive my many words, Richard, if I ask -you to remember this also: that anything which might -happen to me here in Amritsar in the days you remain, -must never make you forget that you have a message -to carry to America.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t understand, Nagar.”</p> - -<p>“It is difficult to say. I can only repeat: Anything -which might happen to me in this city must not arouse -in you a personal or partisan effort to help me. We -must be strangers—unless I come to you alone. The -English are beside themselves; they know not what -they do. You must have no feelings about me—to -betray you. Go further into the English. Forget me—except -as a part of your own source of kindness and -strength.”</p> - -<p>Nagar was gone. As Dicky conned all this, he -began to wonder if he would see his friend again. All -the days before this in Amritsar, he had been waiting -for things to get quiet so that he and Nagar might -really begin to get together.... “India’s messenger,” -he muttered, as he fell asleep.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[292]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">XLIX<br /> - -<small>PIDGE TRIES GRAMERCY PARK</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">THE second part of Dicky Cobden’s letter about -Gandhi written after his three interviews in -Bombay, reached Pidge fully a fortnight after -the first. Of course, it interested her, as it could no -one else.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>... From several angles I placed before Mahatma-ji, -the concept of dreamers of all countries—the -dream of the mating of the East and West, that the -New Race is to be born of this mating; that globe -means globe, and a world citizen must belong to all; -that as Goethe says, “above the nations is Humanity.” -This thing, you understand, has attracted me merely as -a concept, not with the dreamer’s fire at all. Short -work Gandhi made of the mating of the East and West. -The damsel, New India, is not ready for marriage. -She is not clean. She has not found herself, therefore -has not herself to give. (These are not his words, -but the idea.) She must become free, before she has -anything to bestow. She is just a perfumed body, -which the West has already desecrated and begun to -despise—merely an offering now, not a wife. What -Gandhi arrays himself against to-day is the fact that -India has already fallen under the lure of the West. -She has felt the fascination of his big toys, the glamour -of his mighty works. The Little Man has made me see<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[293]</span> -that a woman who “falls for” a man, can never become -the man-maker which a wife must be, maker of her -husband as well as child. Queer, how it came to me -that way first, before I saw the man’s side of it—the -great thing you have done, pushing me back, forever -pushing me back into myself, until that day when I -shall be able to <i>stand</i>, not “fall for” you. I am learning—learning -so slowly what I bargained for that night -at the Punjabi Fireplace. “... Go back into your -house!” Gandhi cries to India. (Not his words, you -know; merely my picture of him.) “Fast and pray. -That is safe. Fast and pray and spin! Pray to the -hum of the <i>charka</i>. Forget your lover. Find yourself. -You are the East, the inner. Already you have been -lured by his brutal boyish games. You have flattered -him, but already he despises you. What does he bring -now, but a bloody carcass to your hearth, saying, -‘Arise. Gut and skin.’”... Mahatma-ji is on -the ground. Now, To-day, seeing but one step—the -next step—crying, “Go Back!” This is the most -extraordinary part to me, that his very limitations -appear to be in use!</p> -</div> - -<p>In early July, Pidge made her first move since coming -to New York. The spirit had gone out of the -house in Harrow Street for her, with Miss Claes’ -departure. She sent the boy-baby up into the country -and took a room at the <i>Sennacherib</i> in Gramercy Park, -a step of which Rufe Melton strongly approved:</p> - -<p>“You were getting stale down there, Pan,” he said, -one night when he came to dine. “The Village is all -right for a novelty, but real New York hasn’t time for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[294]</span> -that sort of thing. I see you’re running Carver’s novel -in the <i>P. S.</i> What did you get in on that for? Did he -give it to you?”</p> - -<p>“Rather not. It cost real money.”</p> - -<p>“A hang-over from John Higgins’ desk?”</p> - -<p>“No, we took it after—after——”</p> - -<p>“Carver could never have slipped that over on you, -Pan,” he broke in, “if you had lived uptown. But no, -you never would listen to me, that a thing isn’t great -because it’s nasty——”</p> - -<p>“You think it isn’t a successful serial?”</p> - -<p>“Not a chance——”</p> - -<p>There was truth in what he said. The new novel -was rapidly unreeling in generous installments, without -much gratifying noise from the readers.</p> - -<p>Rufe confided that he was doing a long story, and -that Redge Walters was very much interested in it as a -serial prospect.</p> - -<p>“What’s it on?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“Business,” said Rufe. “Shipping—grain—iron—packing-houses. -Everybody’s panting for business -since the War.”</p> - -<p>“Sounds American.”</p> - -<p>“Epic of the Great Lakes, Pan. Never knew what I -was about, till now——”</p> - -<p>She was thinking of Amritsar—of the first Amritsar -mail recently in from Richard Cobden, posted at -Pondicherry, French India—of <i>hathis</i> and her new -<i>mahout</i>—of British bulletins, native documents, and -Dicky’s own straight story of April 10th and 13th. It<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[295]</span> -had been difficult for Pidge not to become too excited -by all this. For the first time Dicky’s work had carried -her off her feet. That had been days ago, and she had -not altogether trusted her fiercely fresh enthusiasm, -but it didn’t subside, and at the present minute, the -epic of the Great Lakes sounded to her like a forlorn -side show. Moreover, Dicky’s Amritsar story, about -to be printed in <i>The Public Square</i>, took away most of -the disappointment in that Carver’s novel hadn’t proved -a powerful stimulus to circulation.</p> - -<p>“Its capital is Chicago,” Rufe further divulged about -his book. “Funny how you have to get away from -there to see that big town. All the years I lived in -Chi—never got next to her, as I have since I came to -New York.... Yes, it’s booming along. Haven’t -been really right until just now, since I was gassed.”</p> - -<p>“I’m glad, Rufe.”</p> - -<p>“It’s got a <i>mahatma</i> in it,” Rufe chuckled.</p> - -<p>“A what?”</p> - -<p>“What’s the matter with you, Pan?”</p> - -<p>“That word—from you!”</p> - -<p>“You look as if you’d seen the Dweller——”</p> - -<p>“The what, Rufe?”</p> - -<p>He chuckled again. “Didn’t know I’ve been going -in for the occult, did you? Say Pan, there’s one fine -thing about you. I never feel as if you could be -disappointed in your Rufie.”</p> - -<p>“Why is that?” She was entirely off his trend.</p> - -<p>“You haven’t started to expect anything of me.... -Oh, yes, had to have a <i>mahatma</i> in the story.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[296]</span> -It’s the new thing. Everybody’s got one since the War. -Not enough to go round.... This <i>mahatma</i> of -mine in Chi is wise to the stock exchange. It’s his tip, -you know, that the whole tale turns on. Reader never -thinks of it—until it’s pulled.”</p> - -<p>“Where did you get your model?”</p> - -<p>He laughed again. “Right in the family, Pan. Been -going to hear Adolphus. Say, you never did appreciate -your father. Bad habit of yours, Pan, honest to God—to -lose respect for a man just because you live with -him.”</p> - -<p>Pidge was in a whirl. Her hands dropped down to -the seat of her chair on either side and gripped hard. -The world looked about as big to her as Delaware; -Amritsar and New York signaling to each other.</p> - -<p>“Heard him this afternoon—in the ballroom of the -<i>Pershing</i>—swell crowd out,” Rufe pursued. “Talked -on Lytton’s <i>Zanoni</i>. I’m going to read that book. -And didn’t Adolph put it over to the damsels and dowagers! -Just what I need for my white <i>mahatma</i>. -Where does the old man get all that? It’s a wonder -you haven’t gotten in on your father’s stuff, Pan.”</p> - -<p>She wanted Miss Claes as never before. This was -too much for one small person to hold. When she -really listened again, Rufe was asking to go upstairs -with her to see her room.</p> - -<p>“It’s just a common room. What’s the use?”</p> - -<p>“Little afraid to see me alone, eh, Pan?”</p> - -<p>“Not afraid—only what’s the use?”</p> - -<p>“You might see it different——”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[297]</span>“I might have once, Rufe——”</p> - -<p>“Say, Pan——”</p> - -<p>“Yes?”</p> - -<p>“Does Mrs. Melton want to be free?”</p> - -<p>Her hands dropped to the seat of her chair again. -She saw the new want in his eyes and something -else—the old captive thing.</p> - -<p>There were two possible answers to his question, and -it took every minute of her twenty-five years, and all -that had gone before, to choose. This is what she -said:</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Melton will never be free!”</p> - -<p>“What—what do you mean?”</p> - -<p>“Ask your <i>mahatma</i>, Rufe.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[298]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">L<br /> - -<small>DICKY’S IDEA WORKS</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">PIDGE felt the hugeness of life around her at -last. Doors were being opened as never before. -She saw as clearly as if Rufe Melton had confessed -to her, that it was he who wanted to be free. -She could grant this well enough; having been forced -to it, in effect, from the beginning. He would doubtless -come again soon, making it plain that he wanted her to -agree to divorce. The point was that certain barriers -and limitations in her own life were suddenly lifted. -It was as if she had emerged from a city, to the shore -of the sea, and before her eyes was an unbroken horizon -line.</p> - -<p>The abrupt extension frightened her. The story of -Amritsar now unfolding for her from the Indian -mail—in its hatelessness, in its devotion to truth and -unsentimental love for the people—unveiled for her -eyes a <i>man</i>—not Gandhi, not Nagar, but Richard -Cobden, himself. The few sentences he had inserted -in his letter about Gandhi, “—the great thing you have -done, pushing me back, forever pushing me back into -myself, until the day when I shall be able to <i>stand</i>, not -fall for you!”—in these words there was for Pidge -an invincible call.</p> - -<p>She had searched the language for another expression<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[299]</span> -to convey what that little slangy verb “to fall for” -meant. It was one of her treasures. When one “fell -for” a person or thing—one couldn’t stand for the -same. One was captive, not co-worker. Here was -the difference between infatuation and romance. Dicky -had found it out. There was expressed in his letter -more than she had dreamed as possible; and this time -words thrilled her furiously, because she believed they -had become working knowledge, before it had occurred -to him to express the idea. She saw this knowledge -working out in his studies of Gandhi. He did not -“fall for” the Little Man. He did not rush into -eulogy; he sought to understand. In a word, he stood -for Gandhi. But now that Dicky was ready to stand -for her, she was ready to fall, and all her horizons were -being pushed back to give her room.</p> - -<p>... She was very weary. She had not known -it before. <i>The Public Square</i> thrived. It was strong -pulsed with new life. For the first time in her experience -she sensed from the magazine’s field, following the -issue of the first Amritsar story—silence, the perfect -tribute, the instantaneous readjustment of all other -journals; then crowded mails, the answer from people -everywhere. Something about Gandhi touched hundreds -of people to the point of saying so, in a letter to -<i>The Public Square</i>.</p> - -<p>Yes, she was weary. She had held grimly to the -post. She wanted to turn it over to Dicky Cobden -now.... It had been like this once before—on the -night of Somebody’s Shoulder. She had wanted to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[300]</span> -give him what he wanted that night—the tiredest and -most hopeless girl in New York. Only that night it -had been—for what he had. Now it was for what he -was.</p> - -<p>John Higgins lost his bearings in the city traffic. A -copy of the issue containing the first section of the -Amritsar story was in the old editor’s hand when he -fell in the street. She was with him for several hours, -until the end. He looked at her long and strangely—eyes -more “run-out” than ever. He did not seem to -hear her words, but if she remained in silence too long, -a little frown gathered on his forehead, and his hand -would pull at hers. He had waited for the big story. -Once he said:</p> - -<p>“I wish Dicky would come,” and that brought -Pidge’s slow tears.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The next day a solicitor called at the office and Pidge -still felt squally. She couldn’t grasp what he was -saying. She thought it had something to do with a -secret society that was going to attend an absurd matter, -known as “obsequies.” She was deluged in words.</p> - -<p>“... Be perfectly calm, Mrs. Melton,” the -solicitor said at last. “This isn’t exactly bad news, but -I’ve known lasting injury from the one, as well as the -other——”</p> - -<p>“Please—what are you talking about?”</p> - -<p>“Your legacy——”</p> - -<p>“My—I don’t——”</p> - -<p>“From the late John Higgins——”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[301]</span>“But it was only last night!”</p> - -<p>“The late John Higgins, nevertheless. The demise——”</p> - -<p>“And what about it?”</p> - -<p>“That he has left you—this paper in my hand -being the memorandum—his interest in <i>The Public -Square</i>——”</p> - -<p>“Me——”</p> - -<p>“A half-interest in the ownership, to be exact——”</p> - -<p>Pidge glanced around the room. The man was -sitting. The first and terrible obstacle of life was to -remove him, or escape from him.</p> - -<p>“What have I to do?”</p> - -<p>“Just sign——”</p> - -<p>But he was still sitting, after she had signed. He -wanted to be sociable.... She was on the car going -home. She hopped off at Eighth Street, and was -turned into Harrow, before she realized that she didn’t -live there any more but in Gramercy Park.... -Curving Harrow Street was quiet and calling. She -went in to the curve and stood before the old green -front. A sign on the door announced “Rooms, Permanent -and Transient.”... “What kind of rooms -are transient rooms?” she thought. The curb and -doorstep thronged with memories. “Oh, Dicky, it’s -too much,” she whispered at last. “Come soon, and -prop me up!”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[302]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">LI<br /> - -<small>“WE LOOK UPON WOMEN AS SACRED”</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap"><i>“DO you people want peace or war? If you -wish for war the Government is prepared -for it, and if you want peace, then obey my -orders and open all your shops; else, I will shoot. For -me the battlefield of France or Amritsar is the same. -I am a military man and I will go straight. Neither -shall I move to the right, nor to the left. Speak up, -if you want war. In case there is to be peace, my order -is to open all shops at once. Obey orders. I do not -wish to have anything else. I have served in the military -for over thirty years. I understand the Indian -sepoy and the Sikh people very well. You must inform -me of the budmashes. I will shoot them. Obey my -orders and open shops. Speak up if you want war.”</i></p> - -<p>General Fyatt was talking to a large company of -Amritsar’s native representatives, lawyers, merchants, -doctors, in the <i>kotwali</i>, the day after the massacre.</p> - -<p>The Deputy Commissioner added: “You have committed -a bad act in killing the English. The revenge -will be taken upon you and upon your children.”</p> - -<p>The large company of natives listened. Not one -spoke of the Jallianwalla Bagh, or of the dead which -still lay there. Richard Cobden reasoned with himself; -neither did he speak. Out of all the burn of feelings -and the great waste of ineffectual thoughts, it was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[303]</span> -dawning upon him that in their own good time, the -dead of Amritsar’s public square would speak for -themselves.</p> - -<p>In the days that followed Dicky worked quietly, -worked from the standpoint of the English almost -entirely. He “exposed” himself like a film to the -aftermath of the tragedy. He went after facts and -statements. It was never to be ascertained, the number -of killed and injured. The English granted about -three hundred dead; the natives claimed five times that, -even more. He was much at Headquarters; and confined -himself altogether to the Civil Lines. Through -Lala Relu Ram, he received certain secret reports from -the native point of view, and guarded these little tissues -assiduously. A cigarette case contained them all.</p> - -<p>He went each day to the Crawling Lane, as one -doing a city beat for a newspaper would call at city -hall or recorders’ court. This was the place where Miss -Sherwood was assaulted by the natives, on the 10th. -It was narrow and thickly populated, with double-story -buildings on either side, and numerous blind alleys -shooting out of the lane.</p> - -<p>The crawling order remained in force for eight -days. Although General Fyatt called it “going on all -fours,” and it had been called the “hand and knee -order” by the press, the process consisted in the persons -lying flat on their bellies and crawling like reptiles. -Any lifting of the knees or bending thereof brought -the rifle butts of the soldiers and police on the native -backs.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[304]</span>“But, General,” Dicky said cheerfully, “people are -forced to crawl through there or go without food and -medicine—people who have never seen Miss Sherwood, -much less taken part in the assault.”</p> - -<p>“She was beaten,” General Fyatt declared. “We -look upon women as sacred.”</p> - -<p>“Ah,” said the American.</p> - -<p>In the Crawling Lane and elsewhere were erected -<i>tikitis</i> for flogging. These were triangles of wood, -upon which the hands could be suspended and tied. A -general order was issued for all the native population -of Amritsar, a city of one hundred and sixty thousand, -to <i>salam</i> to English in the streets. Those who did not -<i>salam</i> were arrested, often flogged. Many of the people -were so terrified, that they dared not sit down -anywhere outside of their own houses, lest one of the -English appear suddenly and not find them standing -and in position to <i>salam</i>.</p> - -<p>During the late days of April, Richard Cobden did -not see Nagar, though occasional brief messages -reached him from his friend through the students. -One of these was a suggestion, which Dicky followed, -to send off whatever mail he had ready, in care of one -of the young men who was leaving for Pondicherry, -French India. Finally there was the episode of the -tennis court, in the Civil Lines. Dicky drew up to the -crowd.</p> - -<p>A set of doubles or singles was not in progress. -This was a game of triangle—a <i>tikiti</i> in the center of -the court; a naked native strung up and being whipped.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[305]</span> -Dicky had seen about enough of this, and was ready -to turn back, when something of the carriage of the -native’s head arrested his eye, and started a peculiar -sinking in his heart.</p> - -<p>The bare back was toward him, but the face turned -sidewise revealed the profile of Nagar. His hands -were strapped high toward the top of the great frame -formed in the shape of the letter A. Nagar had been -stripped to the loincloth, his head bare, his white robes -and turban cloth flung upon the turf. The stripes were -being put on by one of the native police. The whip -was a rigid canelike affair, but longer than a walking-stick. -A detachment of native soldiers was drawn up -on one side, police on the other. Two young officers -of the military, one of whom Dicky knew, were in -charge of the affair.</p> - -<p>Dicky had halted, hand to mouth. Each stroke -blinded his eyes; his body became, for an instant after -it, like a house in flames with every curtain tightly -drawn. Then he would see the sunlight before the -next stroke, and the naked man with bleeding back. -He had direct need to turn his back upon this thing—the -old nausea. It never occurred to him that this was -his own great test, greater than Nagar’s, for such -tests of the human heart do not come announced; but -out of all past experience, one thing stood in the midst -of a rocking universe—that if he did anything in this -red blindness, he would do worse than nothing.</p> - -<p>He walked away, his elbows jerking up as another -stroke fell. The thing that saved him was already<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[306]</span> -accomplished. The turning of his back was all that -was required, apparently, since in this instant he got a -life and death grip on the word <i>Messenger</i>. Was he -Nagar’s friend or India’s messenger?</p> - -<p>Then he knew just one furious smearing doubt. -What of human loyalty—to stand by and allow this -thing to go on? He was answered in his mind from -Nagar’s own words, “Mahatma-ji’s ideal isn’t human, -Richard. It is of the Soul.” Action of a foreigner in -behalf of a native would only intensify the English -fears and the native’s plight. To rush in was John -Higgins’ code. Evidently there was another.</p> - -<p>He walked around to meet Nagar face to face. Ten -feet away, he stood until Nagar’s eyes came up to his. -Had Nagar’s hand been free to lift and command -<i>Silence</i>, his lips free to speak, the word could not have -been more fiercely impressed. Indeed, the word <i>Silence</i> -seemed to have been shot into the American’s consciousness.</p> - -<p>A blow fell. Nagar’s eyes closed; his lips stretched -out as if struck by an invisible hand. Then under the -trailing eyelids, Dicky saw a look of inexpressible -gratitude and relief—the barest beginning of a smile. -Nagar had found him fit to trust. It was another -moment of real life, that moment of the look, another -instant of essential recognition.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>“Oh, I say, Cobden—have you seen a ghost?”</p> - -<p>It was Langoyer, one of the young English officers, -who spoke. He was leaning upon his cane, to flick a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[307]</span> -cigarette stub off the court with his boot. Langoyer -paid no attention to the flogging. The men attended -to that, you know. One had to stand by—as one would -wait for his horse to drink.</p> - -<p>Dicky was now being lashed to the quick himself. -He had seen clearly—but a sort of hideous night had -settled upon him again. He had to watch his temper.</p> - -<p>“How many does this man get, Langoyer?” he -managed to ask.</p> - -<p>“Thirty.”</p> - -<p>“What for?”</p> - -<p>“He knows more of the sedition of Kitchlew and -Satyapal than he’ll tell.”</p> - -<p>The figure had gone limp on the triangle.</p> - -<p>“Fainted,” gasped Richard Cobden.</p> - -<p>The whipping stopped. A tin bucket of water was -brought and dashed upon Nagar’s face and shoulders. -A moan came from him because he was not quite -conscious. Then the knees drew up and his feet felt -for the ground.</p> - -<p>The lieutenant stepped forward taking Nagar’s ear -in his right hand and calling aloud:</p> - -<p>“Will you tell the truth now of Kitchlew’s plot -against Government?”</p> - -<p>Nagar looked at him without hatred. He tried to -speak twice before the words came:</p> - -<p>“I have already told the truth——”</p> - -<p>“How many stripes have been given?” Langoyer -asked.</p> - -<p>“Twenty-six.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[308]</span>“Finish the thirty, then take him to <i>kotwali</i>. A few -days more will make him tell all right.”</p> - -<p>The American remained. One—two—three—four.</p> - -<p>The hands were unstrapped. The robe was cast -about the shoulders. Nagar could stand. Dicky left -the officers and followed his friend and the native -policemen to the station, feeling like a pariah’s whelp.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[309]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">LII<br /> - -<small>THE OLD FACE</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">DICKY reflected that there were two ways of -looking at a person or a thing, a fact proven -several times in his experience. There had -been a moment in the presence of Gandhi, after many -minutes of talk, when the face, that had been dull and -unattractive as a camel driver’s, had suddenly appeared -to him with memorable, essential significance. It had -been so with Miss Claes: also the moment when he -had really seen Pidge, as they stood together on the -Palisades of Santa Monica. Recently he had caught -an immortal something in the look from Nagar on the -rack.</p> - -<p>He did not see Nagar again in Amritsar, but up to -mid-May the students reported that his friend was still -imprisoned. The sound of those falling strokes was -slow to die out of the corridors of Dicky’s memory. -They awoke him in the night. It was far easier, however, -to recall the splendor of gameness in the way -Nagar had taken his beating. This satisfied every -American instinct; and even above this, was the mystery -of compassion for the English, in Nagar’s face. -Here was a man on a tennis court in a remote Punjabi -town, hardly heard-of in this war-racked world, plainly -putting over the thing he had marveled at, as a small<span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[310]</span> -boy in Sunday school: “Father, forgive them, for they -know not what they do.”</p> - -<p>Apparently the same majestic composure. Life held -many things; yet Richard Cobden couldn’t be sure altogether, -that he had not outraged the spirit of friendship -in failing to register his protest of word and deed. -Of course, the consequences might have been disastrous, -but, at least, a certain man-to-man loyalty would -have been satisfied.</p> - -<p>If further tortures were inflicted upon Nagar, Dicky -was not informed. The Amritsar story was no longer -on the outside; it was in Richard Cobden’s brain and -heart. He wrote some of it and his letters were forwarded, -but still he conned and brooded. Having held -still through the whipping of Nagar, he found it easier -to stand in the midst of current events without losing -his head, or letting emotion or opinion have right of -way.</p> - -<p>Late in May, a student brought word that Nagar -was free and had gone south. This was all that Dicky -had been waiting for. Crawling, salaming, flogging, -imprisonment and forced testimony had long since become -to him a full and bitter cup. At the station, as -he waited for his train, a student, edging near, managed -to whisper two words:</p> - -<p>“<i>Ashrama</i>, Ahmedabad.”</p> - -<p>The American’s head bowed slightly. He had -meant to go to Ahmedabad anyway.</p> - -<p>He was not met at the station there, but a servant at -the <i>Entresden</i> told him to go at once to the <i>Ashrama</i>.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[311]</span> -He obeyed, and found himself listening for the voice -of Mahatma-ji, as he entered, but his eyes searched -the shadows of the hall for Nagar, a kind of breathless -pain about it all.</p> - -<p>As the door of an inner room opened, at last, and the -native who conducted him drew back, Dicky saw a -woman standing in the dimness. Her face, turned -toward him, was a mere blur of darkness, but there was -a leap toward her in Richard Cobden’s breast. Then -he stood before her, in a daze of joy, one hand in hers, -one upon her shoulder.</p> - -<p>“It happened very quickly in New York,” she told -him. “A letter saying that I was coming could hardly -have reached you before the steamer that brought -me——”</p> - -<p>“But, Miss Claes—New York! What are we to -do—no Harrow Street?”</p> - -<p>“You will know what to do,” she said. “And about -the things that were in your rooms. I had them carefully -boxed and sent to your mother, who was well -when I left. Also your aunt and sister.”</p> - -<p>He took from his pocket the old dark key to the -“parlor” door. She bent and touched it.</p> - -<p>“Keep it, Richard,” she said, “until I send you another.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>“And Nagar——” he began at length.</p> - -<p>“He is here.”</p> - -<p>“And well? I could get so little word.”</p> - -<p>“Nagar has been hurt, but is healing. Look——”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[312]</span>Dicky turned to find his friend standing behind them -at the door. He had felt a presence there, but thought -it was the native who had brought him. Nagar’s eyes -looked very large in the wasted face.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, all is well with me,” he said. “I have been -sorry to leave you so much alone in the north.... -Yes,” he added, “it was harder for you than for me—the -test that day on the tennis court. You were brave, -my friend. I knew all was well—when the instant -passed and you remained silent.”</p> - -<p>“How do you mean—all was well?”</p> - -<p>“I knew that the message of India would get to -America—since you did not spoil it by defending me.”</p> - -<p>Nagar turned to Miss Claes, adding:</p> - -<p>“I saw the fury and fright rise in his eyes, and all -the impulses of ethics of the West—then silence over -all. It was as if we were cemented——”</p> - -<p>Dicky remembered that last word afterward.</p> - -<p>As he moved about and talked, he was vaguely conscious -of watching the other two together. It was as -if Pidge would want to hear of every gesture and detail. -Miss Claes was less Indian here than in Harrow -Street. There he had thought of her as belonging to -the East; here she seemed of the West. Something of -the composure he had noted on the tennis court had -come to stay in Nagar’s eyes. As moments passed, -Dicky knew that they contained deep vitalities of meaning -that would appear in coming days.</p> - -<p>It was as if his limitations were being stretched, but -by consummate hands. There was repeatedly brought<span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[313]</span> -to him, from them, something that he refused to hear -or dwell with: that he had done well, that he was -deeply approved of in their sight; that there was much -more to take place between them as a group, even -though they were to stay in Asia, and he was leaving -for The States.... Then all faces turned, and in the -doorway stood the Little Man.</p> - -<p>No one spoke, but to Richard Cobden it was one -moment of his life that he thought of as religious. -Mahatma-ji came in between them, and Dicky felt the -old urge somehow to help with his hands; the sense, -too, of all India thronging, whispering around them. -For a moment the four had been standing in silence, -when they heard the <i>sweep</i> of bare slow feet in the hall, -and now an old dark face was in the doorway, a smile -serene as nothing else on earth but the Hills themselves—a -dark wrinkled old face, and she came forward and -stood very low and little in the midst of them—Gandhi’s -comrade.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>In San Francisco, waiting for the departure of his -train east, a card was sent up to Cobden’s hotel room. -It was from Chris Heidt, the managing editor of his -former newspaper connection.</p> - -<p>“Hello, Cobden. Just noticed you were off ship. -What did you bring back?”</p> - -<p>Dicky reflected. “The story of Amritsar,” he said -finally.</p> - -<p>“Amritsar, what’s that?”</p> - -<p>“The first big story I ever ran across. I feel like<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[314]</span> -one of Job’s servants, who said he alone remained to -make a report.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Heidt had been much on trains during the past -few days, and had missed the fact, so far, that <i>The -Public Square</i> had begun to publish the story.</p> - -<p>“Not going to bury it in a weekly, are you?”</p> - -<p>“I have much more than <i>The Public Square</i> could -use in months. It really should get out into the broad -market. The end of one world and the birth of another -took place that Sunday in Amritsar—all in miniature, -you understand——”</p> - -<p>He spoke of Gandhi, whose name had scarcely been -heard at this time in America, and touched upon the -story of <i>maidan</i>.</p> - -<p>“Sure,” said Mr. Heidt. “Sure, it’s a big yarn, but -months ago. No way to substantiate it. You’re a little -out of perspective, Cobden, seeing it all first hand -that way.”</p> - -<p>“I can substantiate it,” Dicky said queerly.</p> - -<p>“I know, but the whole story’s a trouble-maker. Far -as I can make out, this Gandhi is a sort of sanctimonious -Lenine, and we’re not promoting any kind of -Lenines just now. Red roughhouses all over the world, -but we’re not advertising the fact. The best newspaper -interests here and in England are letting that sort of -thing die down. Everybody’s healthily intent on getting -back to business right now. Make a corking fiction -setting—your Amritsar—series of short stories -that would do no harm.”</p> - -<p>Thus Richard had his American perspective restored.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[315]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">LIII<br /> - -<small>THE WHITE LIGHT AGAIN</small></h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-cap">DICKY was considerably subdued. India had -permitted his ideas to romp at large. He had -forgotten that, home again, these ideas must -be brought down to an orderly trudge. America, as a -whole, seemed one-pointedly trying to get back to work -after the War, calling all protestors untimely and in -bad taste. Dicky thought out the situation minutely -and severely during the three full travel days to Chicago. -At the end of each day he was somewhat exhausted -from the big bonfires that had taken place -within him—piles of rubbish, glamour and the like.</p> - -<p>In Chicago he procured two numbers of <i>The Public -Square</i> preceding the current issue, and before his eyes -was the manner in which Pidge had “sprung” the -Amritsar story. He felt the magic of her working -with him in an altogether new way. The latest number -confessed, not without grace, that the story of Gandhi -and Amritsar had aroused the more open-minded element -of the American public, as nothing else since the -War; but thanks to Chris Heidt, the returning correspondent -watched the rising tide of public interest in -his work, as a spectator unexpectant, instead of a performer -who fancies he has the world by the tail. It -dawned on him, however, that Chris Heidt hadn’t<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[316]</span> -known quite all that was going on in America under -the homely thunders of trade.</p> - -<p>He reached New York in the early evening and went -to Fiftieth Street at once. There he had dinner, and -an hour of talk, before he rang up Mrs. Melton at the -<i>Sennacherib</i>.</p> - -<p>“Is this Mr. Cobden?” a voice asked presently.</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Melton left word for you to go to 54 Harrow -Street—to the parlor on the second floor, the card -says.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Cobden didn’t take out his own car that night. -Perhaps he didn’t feel as if he could keep his mind on -getting himself downtown. He sat back in the cushions -of his mother’s limousine; and Conrad, whose -career as Cobden coachman had changed to Cobden -chauffeur nearly twenty years ago, handled the big box -like a hearse.</p> - -<p>“Sit tight, Dicky,” he breathed, and never once urged -Conrad forward. In fact, Dicky didn’t speak, until it -became necessary to show the way a little, for Harrow -Street is tricky to find from Washington Square.</p> - -<p>“Don’t wait—yes, you’d better wait, Conrad,” he -called, crossing the walk to the door.</p> - -<p>The outer door was unlatched. He hurried up one -flight. The same curtain, the white light.</p> - -<p>“Pidge——”</p> - -<p>She came forth from the inner room. She halted a -few feet from him, and he saw her searching, imploring -look. His shoulders straightened, his hands<span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[317]</span> -dropped to his side. The finer elements of his understanding -sensed the great need of a woman, which his -brain did not actually register. To answer her need -in action, however, was instantly more dominant within -him than his thirst for herself.</p> - -<p>She came a step nearer. Light was filling her eyes—the -shining of an almost incredible hope.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Dicky, you can! I believe you can!”</p> - -<p>“Yes?”</p> - -<p>She was nearer.</p> - -<p>“And I can come and rest—a little?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Pidge——”</p> - -<p>“I want to rest so badly, you know.”</p> - -<p>She had come to him under the light.</p> - -<p>“... And, oh, since I knew you were coming, everything -has been different. I haven’t been <i>me</i> at all! -I’ve never played—and now everything—all work—is -silly, unimportant. Dicky, everything seems to be -done!”</p> - -<p>“I’m on the job, Pidge; you can play——”</p> - -<p>“Until I find myself—you—you will stand for two?”</p> - -<p>“Of course, Pidge.”</p> - -<p>“All my things, your things, Dicky—so I can rush -away and breathe?”</p> - -<p>“That’s what I’m here for.”</p> - -<p>“Rufe Melton and my father and the desk—all -yours?”</p> - -<p>“And the baby, too, Pidge.”</p> - -<p>“Dicky—Dicky—don’t dare to look! I’m going to -cry!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[318]</span>“... Since your telegram from San Francisco—it -seemed I could hardly stay alive! Oh, it’s so good to -rest!”</p> - -<p>“Not a hurry in the world!”</p> - -<p>“Everything seemed done—and no place for me!... -Rufe and a rich girl uptown—oh, they’re in full -blossom and he wants to be free! My father caught -on in New York—no need now for me. <i>The Public -Square</i> on the high road at last; your Amritsar story -capturing the whole field; nothing to do but to feed the -presses more and more; Miss Claes gone, and the -Legacy—oh, Dicky, I saw your hand back of that! I -couldn’t miss it. It touched me—touched me——”</p> - -<p>“It was his idea first, Pidge. All I had to do was to -help him carry it out.”</p> - -<p>“All happened at once—all the strains lifted—no one -depending—no one needing me!... I’ve been dying -to be a woman just once. I’ve never dared—never had -time. It’s so terrible to feel like a woman and not be -able——”</p> - -<p>“Why not now, Pidge?”</p> - -<p>“Don’t think, Dicky! I’m just resting a little. We -must work together a lot. We must clear our heads -with stacks of work—and then maybe we’ll know if -we can play.... Fanny Gallup did that for me, and -Rufe Melton is as much a baby as his infant. Other -girl, or not—Rufe will always need—us!”</p> - -<p>“Pidge, listen! I couldn’t stand any more than that -now. To have you say that—<i>us</i>! To have the work -with you—to have earned that—to have your faith;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[319]</span> -that you dare come this close—to have years to make -the big moments we have known apart, come true together—I -couldn’t stand more, right now; that’s the -fact of it—quite!”</p> - -<p>She stepped back from him looking strangely into -his face again.</p> - -<p>“Dicky!”</p> - -<p>“Yes?”</p> - -<p>“The boy has come back to your face—that you lost -in Africa—but the new and lasting Boy!”</p> - -<p>He laughed and looked around the room. It was -furnished, but barely, the “parlor” having reverted to -a sleeping room.</p> - -<p>“But how did it happen—that we should come here, -Pidge?”</p> - -<p>“I couldn’t let you come to Gramercy Park. I remembered -that you waited to see me here after Africa, -not at the office. I came down this way—the afternoon -of the Legacy and saw the sign, ‘Rooms, Permanent -and Transient.’... I’m better now. It’s been hours, -hasn’t it?”</p> - -<p>He thought of Conrad, whom he had told to wait.</p> - -<p>“... This room’s all paid for,” she whispered. “I -mean we don’t have to stop to speak to anybody—only -walk out.”</p> - -<p>Their eyes held.</p> - -<p>“Dicky!”</p> - -<p>“Yes——”</p> - -<p>“Let’s go—now.”</p> - -<p>“I’m—I’m ready.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[320]</span>“Dear Dicky, the years have done so much for you! -The blur, the maze has gone out from between us. -It’s so much more wonderful, isn’t it, than that other -night here, when I almost, almost——?”</p> - -<p>He waited for her to reach the hall curtains, before -he turned off the light. In the dimness of the hall, he -heard her low, slow tone:</p> - -<p>“Fanny’s room was back—at the far end on this -floor——”</p> - -<p>“... I remember once, Pidge, I went up the next -flight and knocked at the door of your little back -room——”</p> - -<p>“That’s gone now,” she answered.</p> - -<p>“Gone?”</p> - -<p>“My two books that were written there—and all the -rest! I can tell you everything now—and of the book -that is still to be written—our story, Dicky.”</p> - -<p>“A continued story,” he said.</p> - -<p>They went down into the street, into the car.</p> - -<p class="center">THE END</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="ph3">NOVELS OF SUPREME LITERARY ART</p> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p><span class="large"><b>THE GLIMPSES OF THE MOON</b></span><br /> - -By EDITH WHARTON</p> - -<p>“I can think of no American novel, written within -the last few years, and dealing with contemporary life, -to compare with it. And not only does Mrs. Wharton -write better than anyone else, but she knows how to -unfold a more exciting tale.”—Katherine Fullerton -Gerould in the <i>New York Times</i>.</p> - -<p><span class="large"><b>THE MIRACLE</b></span><br /> - -By E. TEMPLE THURSTON</p> - -<p>A keen, human story of the west coast of Ireland, -with peculiar fascination in the rich background of -Irish folk lore.</p> - -<p><span class="large"><b>THE VAN ROON</b></span><br /> - -By J. C. SNAITH</p> - -<p>An unusual and totally absorbing plot, delightfully -told, and a remarkable set of characters, unmatched -since Dickens.</p> - -<p><span class="large"><b>THE MOUNTAIN SCHOOL TEACHER</b></span><br /> - -By MELVILLE DAVISSON POST</p> - -<p>How would Christ act if He appeared in the world -today? Through Mr. Post’s story of the Kentucky -mountains runs an impressive allegory.</p> - -<p><span class="large"><b>ABBÉ PIERRE</b></span><br /> - -By JAY WILLIAM HUDSON</p> - -<p>This charming novel of life in quaint Gascony has -proved that a novel that is a work of true literary art -may be a best seller of the widest popularity.</p> -</div> - -<p class="ph1">D. 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