CHAPTER VII
September brought an end to the yacht-racing and a few weeks later Martin’s beloved A-boat was towed with a number of others a mile or two down the Sound to be housed in winter quarters. Jeannette earnestly hoped that this would mean her husband would spend more time with her at week-ends. He was gone from Monday till Friday all day, and she felt that at least part of his Saturday afternoons and Sundays should be hers. But Martin always wanted todothings on these days; he wanted some active form of amusement, some excitement, a “party,” as he called it; he was never content to sit at home and read or go for a walk with his wife. He asserted he needed the exercise, and if he missed it between Saturday noon and Sunday night, he was “stale” for the rest of the week. Sometimes Jeannette came into the city by train on a Saturday, met him after the office closed at noon, and together they went to lunch and later to a matinée. Then the alternative presented itself of either remaining in town for dinner and going to another show or of taking a late afternoon train back to Cohasset Beach. Such a program, of course, cost money, but unless Jeannette did this, Martin would go off to the Yacht Club Saturday afternoon, and return there in the evening after dinner to play poker. TheSaturday night dances gave place at the close of the yachting season to “smokers” which only the men attended. A certain group called itself “the gang,” and prominent in it were such club lights as Herbert Gibbs, Zeb Kline, Fritz Wiggens, Steve Teschemacher and Doc French. Martin Devlin was warmly hailed as one of them. They played poker every Saturday night and the “session” lasted until an early hour Sunday morning.
Jeannette came to hate these men; she resented their taking her husband from her; she begrudged his gambling when he could not afford to lose. When she protested, the only answer from him was a testy: “Quit your crabbing.” He almost invariably won and divided his winnings with her, or at least divided what purported to be his winnings. His wife despised herself for taking the money; it made her want him to win, though she wished to be indifferent to his card-playing, since she did not approve of it. She tried to justify her acceptance of the money on the ground that it went to pay off some of their bills. But sometimes she bought a small piece of finery for herself with it. She was becoming very shabby in appearance. She reminded herself almost daily that she had not bought any new clothes since she was married, and the bride’s wardrobe, though ample, was now worn and much depleted.
It was towards the end of summer, when already there was a brisk touch of fall in the air, that Roy Beardsley fell ill with typhoid and for three weekswas a desperately sick man. Martin, who had various talks with the physician, told Jeannette that there was small hope of his recovery; certain phases of the case made it appear very grave.
Jeannette took Etta and Ralph to stay with her in the country and Mrs. Sturgis moved out to the flat in the Bronx to help Alice fight for Roy’s life. Jeannette, from the first, believed he was going to die; destiny, it seemed to her, had ordained it. For the first time in many years she got down on her knees in her bedroom and prayed. She realized more clearly than anyone else in the family what a tragedy Roy’s death would be to them all,—to helpless Alice and his helpless children, to her little mother, to Martin, to herself. She did not know what would become of Alice and her babies! How would they live? She and Martin would have to shoulder the responsibility, and they had difficulty in making ends meet as it was! Where would Martin get fifty or even twenty-five dollars a month to send Alice? And how could Alice and the children manage on so small a sum? Roy, she knew, had a three thousand dollar life insurance policy,—hardly more than enough to bury him decently! Alice could not go to work; she had not the faintest notion of how to earn a living. She was clever with her needle, but that was all. It was impossible to imagine her a seamstress! But she would either have to go into that work and let Jeannette keep the children, or she would have to live with her mother, while Mrs. Sturgis and Martin,—between them,—would have to contribute what they were able to their support! It was a terrible prospect in any case. Jeannette was ridden with fear of the catastrophe. How different it would be, she reminded herself,were she in Alice’s situation,—she with her profession and her experience in business! She had nothing to fear on that score; she could always take care of herself. Poor Alice!—poor little brown bird!—there would be nothing for her to do; she could not supportherself, not to mention her two children! Jeannette remembered that once she had begged to be allowed to follow her sister’s example and go to work, and she recalled how she and her mother had vigorously opposed her. She wondered now if that had been right. Perhaps every woman ought to have a profession or at least a recognized means of earning her livelihood. How secure Alice would feel now in that case if Roy died! Grief-stricken, yes, but with the comforting knowledge that neither she nor her children need be dependent on anyone!
All day long as Jeannette watched Etta and Ralph playing under the apple trees, which had begun to shed their yellow leaves and the scant weazened fruit from their scraggy branches, she thought of Roy’s possible death and her sister’s plight. Any one of the family group could be spared better than he! Yes, even Alice! ... Oh, it would be a calamity,—a dreadful, horrible calamity if Roy died! ... Twenty times a day she closed her eyes and thought a prayer.
She enjoyed having the children with her. Etta was an affectionate, ebullient child, always ready with hugs and kisses; little Ralph placidly viewed the world with reposeful solemnity, made no demands, was amiably satisfied with any arrangement his elders or even his big sister thought wise, and in his gentleness was extraordinarily appealing.
Late in the afternoons, Jeannette would dress themin clean rompers, pull on their sweaters and set them out on the lower step of the front stoop to wait for Martin. There they would sit for sometimes an hour, or even longer, watching for him and at the first glimpse, Etta would run screaming to meet him with arms flung wide, Ralph following as best he could. Martin was particularly in love with the boy, and he would hold the baby in his lap for long periods, neither of them making a sound; or the child would grasp his finger and toddle beside him, see-sawing from one slightly bowed leg to another, to inspect the pool and perhaps capture a frog.
Only a miracle would stay Death’s hand, the doctor had said, but the miracle happened; very slowly the tide began to turn and inch by inch the flood of life came back to the wasted body of Roy Beardsley. Jeannette shed tears of gratitude when it was definitely asserted he would get well. She left the children in Hilda’s care and went to the city to rejoice with her mother and sister. They clung together the way they used to do before either of the girls was married, wept and sniffled and kissed one another again and again. Roy’s blue eyes seemed enormously large and dark when his sister-in-law saw him; his lip was drawn tight across his teeth and these protruded like the fangs of a famished dog. His cheeks were sunk in great hollows beneath his cheek-bones, and his hands were the hands of the starved. He was a living skeleton, but his great eyes acknowledged her presence and her smile, and there was a faint twitching of the tight-drawn lip. Although she had been prepared, she could not keep from betraying the shock his altered appearance gave her; he was indeed ghastly.
The averted tragedy sobered them all. Roy would be many weeks getting back his health and he must take particular care of himself during the approaching winter, the doctor cautioned. No one ever whispered the word “tuberculosis” but each knew it was that which Roy must guard against. If it could be managed, he ought to be taken to a warmer climate, the physician advised, and he must make no effort, but rest, drink milk and eat nourishing food for a long time until he had entirely regained his strength. His father eagerly wrote him to come to California; Jeannette and Martin asked to keep the children; everyone urged Alice to take her husband to the Golden State. So just before the first snow of the year, she and Roy departed westward, waving good-bye through the iron grill at the station to the little group behind it, who waved vigorously in return until “All aboard” was shouted, the porter helped Alice up into the vestibule and the train began slowly to move.
The winter was hard. It was unusually cold and snow lay heavy in great mounds along the edges of the village streets, and beaten trails of it meandered through the frozen fields. Soot from the trains blackened the white drifts and the road-beds were rutted in sharp ridges, and gray ice, that crackled and shivered like glass underfoot, formed in the hollows. The leafless trees spread their branches in black nakedness against the bleak sky and the wind blew chilly across the bare countryside from the icy waters of the Sound.
Yet Jeannette knew her first happiness at CohassetBeach. Her days were full of the care of her small niece and nephew. They were endearing mites, exacting, but warmly affectionate. She had had no experience in bringing up children but her mother came down to stay with her for a while, and Mrs. Drigo, who lived a hundred yards or so down the street, and had four healthy youngsters of her own, gave counsel in emergencies. Jeannette devoted herself to her task. She attacked the problem much as she would have met some untoward circumstance in business. She considered herself efficient, set great store by efficiency, and proposed to apply it to the care of her sister’s children. She devised a system and adhered to it.
In the cold mornings when the children woke, they might look at their picture-books until she came in to dress them. They must not make any noise and Martin must not go in to play with them or even open their door to say “Hello” when he got up early to fix the furnace. They had their “poggy” and milk at eight and immediately thereafter were bundled into their woolly leggings, sweaters, hooded caps and mittens and sent out to play in the snow. They were to amuse themselves until eleven, when, furred and properly shod, their aunt appeared to take them with her to market, wheeling Ralph in his go-cart, while Etta trailed along beside them. Upon returning, the children had their luncheon, always a good full meal of baked potato, cut-up meat and vegetables, and a little dessert. Jeannette believed small children should have light suppers, and that their “dinner” should come at midday. After they had eaten, it was nap-time, and this was the blessed interval of relaxation for herself. Her charges must stay in bed until three o’clock, when they werere-dressed in their woolly leggings, sweaters and caps, and permitted to go out again to play in the snow. For the rest of her life, bits of watery ice stuck to the fine hairs of woollen garments always brought back to Jeannette with poignant emotion the memory of these days. When the children stamped into the house at the end of their play, their skins hard and coldly fresh, their breaths puffs of vapor, their cheeks crimson, the little sweaters and leggings would be encrusted with hard, icy snow. Jeannette would have a log fire going, and she would undress them before its crackling blaze and hang their damp outer garments on the fire screen to dry. The little naked figures dancing in the warm room in the flickering firelight was always a delightful sight to her. They were their merriest at this hour and said their cutest things with which she remembered later to regale Martin. Upstairs the oil heater would be warming the bathroom which Hilda had made ready and presently there would come a mad dash into the dining-room and up the cold stairway to the grateful temperature of the little room. And here began a great splashing with shrieks and admonitions, and here Jeannette dried their sweet little bodies and slipped them into their cotton flannel double-gowns. Then downstairs once more before the replenished log fire to sit on either side of her and empty their warmed bowls of crackers and milk and listen to the story she either read or told them until Martin came in to find them so. Then followed kisses and hugs all round and immediately thereafter the children were dispatched to bed with a final warning from their aunt that there must positively be no talking.
Thus it was day after day, always the same, relentlesslythe same, undeviating monotony. Martin always praised Jeannette, her mother praised her, even the neighbors praised her. Alice wrote loving messages of deep gratitude. She responded to the general approval, delighted in the applause. The thought that she was proving herself equal to this unfamiliar rôle, that she was doing her job efficiently, comforted and inspired her. Revelling in her righteous duty, she threw herself passionately into its perfect execution. She gave it all her energy, thought and time. She told her husband and mother with much emphasis that Etta and Ralph were far better behaved now than they ever had been with their own father and mother.
“It’s routine, I tell you,” she would say. “Children respond to routine and this business of deviating from a strict schedule is demoralizing. A little firmness is all that is necessary in making children good. They really are very adaptable. I confess I was surprised. They learn so quickly! The minute Etta and Ralph saw when they first came that I wouldn’t stand for any foolishness, they were as meek as lambs.... I declare! Alice is so soft and easy-going with them, I hate to think of their being spoilt when they go back.”
It was another surprise to Jeannette to discover how little the presence of the children in the house disturbed Martin. She had thought he would grow restless after a time and that they would be certain to annoy him. She had been sure he would soon object to ties which would chain her to the house. Martin loved children—loved them particularly well for a man, perhaps—but he was often unreasonable where her time and movements were concerned, and hadalways rebelled at restraint. Now he mildly accepted the new element in their lives without protest and as time passed continued amiable. If she could not go out with him or accept an invitation, he did not reproach or even urge her, but praised her for her devotion, and often stayed at home to keep her company. Saturday nights, however, when the “gang” gathered at the Yacht Club, he went off to join them, but since the children were with her, Jeannette did not mind being alone in the house.
“Come home early,” she would say to him. “It’s such fun to have you in the house on Sundays and the children love it. I hate to have you wake up tired and hollow-eyed, and you know, Martin, when you get only two or three hours’ sleep you are sometimes a little cross and the children notice it.”
“You’re dead right,” he would agree with her readily. “I’ll tell the boys I’ve got to quit at midnight. They can begin the rounds then; there’s no sense in our sitting up until three or four o’clock in the morning.”
And often he kept his word.
Alice and Roy had planned to stay six months in California, but in April Jeannette received a letter from her sister with the news that they had decided to return the first of May; Roy was in fine shape,—he was even fat!—they both were mad to see their children.
The letter left Jeannette feeling strangely blank. What was she to do without Etta and Ralph? Shehad talked a great deal about the fearful responsibility, the exacting care these youngsters involved and what a relief it would be to her when their mother came home to take them off her hands. She had aired these views to her own mother and to Mrs. Drigo, Mrs. Gibbs, and particularly to Martin. Yet now that Alice was coming a month, even six weeks sooner than she intended, she had none of the expected elation. A sadness settled upon her. She wondered how she would occupy herself when the babies were gone.
“What do you suppose Roy intends to do?” she asked Martin one day. “He hasn’t got a job. I don’t see how he’s going to manage for Alice and the children.... He might leave them with us for awhile.... No,—I suppose Alice will want them back immediately! ... It will be some time before he gets settled.”
“Oh, he’ll find something to do, right away,” Martin answered her cheerfully.
That was one of Martin’s irritating qualities, reflected his wife. He was always so optimistic, so confident, never appreciating how serious things sometimes were. Roy and Alice were facing a grave situation; it might be desperate. Martin refused to regard it as important.
“I wonder if Mr. Corey would take him back at the office?” Jeannette hazarded. Very probably he would. It was a brilliant idea and, acting upon it at once, she went the following day to see her old employer.
The visit to the publishing house was strangely disquieting. She was struck by the number of new faces, the many changes. The counter which formerly defined the waiting-room on the fourth floor had beenremoved and now the space, walled in by partitions, was converted into a retail book store with shelves lined with new books and display tables. A gray-haired woman inquired her name with a polite, indifferent smile, and when she brought back word that Mr. Corey would see Mrs. Devlin, undertook to show Jeannette the way to his office!
There were changes behind the partitions as well. It was amazing the differences two years had wrought. There was none of the flutter of interest her appearance had caused at her previous visit. One or two of her old friends came up to shake her hand and to ask about her, while a few others nodded and smiled. She did not see Miss Holland anywhere, and Mr. Allister of whom she caught a glimpse in a distant corner accorded her a casual wave of the hand. She was forgotten already, she, who had once enjoyed so much respect, even affection, who had been the president’s secretary, had been known to have his ear and often to have been his adviser! Miss Whaley, whom she remembered as having been connected with the Mailing Department, she met face to face on her way to Mr. Corey’s office, but the girl had even forgotten her name!
But there was nothing wanting in her old chief’s reception. Mr. Corey rose from his desk the instant she entered his room, and reached for both her hands. He was the same warm, cordial friend, eager to hear everything about her. How was she getting on? How was that good-looking husband of hers? Where were they living? He reproached her for not having been in to see him, appeared genuinely hurt that she had neglected him so long. He had changed, too, Jeannettenoticed; his face sagged a little and he no longer bore himself with his old erectness. She observed he still dyed his mustache; a little of the dyestuff was smeared upon his cheek.
News of himself and his family was not particularly cheerful. Babs was in a private sanitarium at Nyack; Mrs. Corey was badly crippled with rheumatism,—a virulent arthritis,—and, in the care of a trained nurse, had gone to Germany to try to get rid of it; Willis had picked up an African malarial fever while he had been exploring, and although he was home again, recurrent attacks of it kept him in poor health. Jeannette noted a gentleness in Mr. Corey’s voice as he spoke of his son; he blamed himself for Willis’ condition; that African trip on which he had sent him was responsible for the boy’s broken constitution. As for business, things were in bad shape, too. The public did not seem to be buying books any more; they weren’t interested;The Ladies’ Fortunewas doing pretty well, but the increased cost of production knocked the profits out of everything; the office was demoralized, the “folks” did not seem to coöperate as they had done in the old days; he, himself, found daily reasons to regret the hour when Jeannette had ceased to be his secretary; he hadn’t had any sort of efficient help since she left; recent secretaries all had proven a constant source of annoyance to him. Tommy Livingston had got married and asked for one raise after another until Mr. Corey was obliged to let him go; he believed he was doing very well for himself in the news photograph business; Mr. Corey finally had had to take Mrs. O’Brien away from Mr. Kipps, but even she was far from competent. There were other detailsabout the business that awoke the old interest in Jeannette. Something in this office atmosphere fired the girl; it brought buoyancy to her pulse, it stimulated her, it put life into her veins. How happy she had been here! Never so contented, she said to herself.
She hastened to tell Mr. Corey the object of her visit, and he promised to find a place somewhere in the organization for Roy.
“I have only a hazy recollection of the young man,” he said, “but I’ll do whatever you want me to, on your account, Miss Sturgis.”
Jeannette smiled. She would always be “Miss Sturgis” to Mr. Corey. She liked it that way; her married name meant nothing to him, never would. She thanked him warmly and promised to come to see him again.
As she made her way out through the crowded aisles of the general office, amid the familiar rattle of typewriters and hum of work, past old faces and new, her heart tugged in her breast. She was still part of it; some of herself was implanted eternally here in this tide of work, in the busy, preoccupied clerks, in the hustle and bustle, in the smell of ink and paste and pencil dust, in the very walls of the building.
The good news she had to tell Roy of the job she had secured for him warmed her heart. There was no time to write, but she treasured it to herself and imagined a dozen times a day, as he and Alice were speeding homeward, how she would break it to him.
Martin was unable to be present when they arrivedat the Grand Central Station, but Mrs. Sturgis, Jeannette and the two children were there waiting for them to emerge from the long column of passengers that streamed in a hurrying throng from the Chicago train. There were screams of joy and wet lashes as the parents’ arms caught, hugged and kissed the children again and again. Mrs. Sturgis had a cold luncheon prepared at home, and with bags and children, the four adults bundled themselves into a taxi and drove to Ninety-second Street, laughing excitedly, interrupting one another with inconsequences after the manner of all arriving travellers.
Roy indeed had put on weight; the emaciated look had entirely disappeared. His plumpness altered his expression materially and his sister-in-law was not quite sure she liked it. There could be no question about his splendid health. His face was round and there were actually folds in his neck where it bulged a trifle above his collar. Alice looked prettier than ever and as Jeannette studied her, she realized how much she had missed her sister during the past few months and how much she loved her. Yet when the children climbed into their mother’s lap and tried awkwardly to twine their short arms about her neck, Etta announcing shrilly that she loved her “bestest in all the world,” Jeannette experienced a cruel pang of jealousy. Now Alice would immediately begin to spoil them and undo all her good work! ... It was going to be very hard,—very hard, indeed.
She was anxious to tell her good news. Roy must be worrying about the future and it was not fair to keep him in the dark. But when she told him triumphantly, he and his wife only looked at one anotherwith a significant smile. They had good news of their own: they were going back to California and meant to take the children with them; they intended to live out there for a year or two in a place called “Mill Valley,” just across the bay from San Francisco, with Roy’s father. Dr. Beardsley was a dear old white-headed man,—the dearest on earth, Alice declared,—and he was rector of a little church in Mill Valley and lived in the most adorable redwood shake house up on the side of a mountain just above the village. The house was a roomy old place and Dr. Beardsley had talked and talked to them about coming to California and making their home with him for two or three years until Roy had gained a start, for it appeared that Roy wanted to write,—he had always wanted to write,—and while he had been convalescing out in California under the big redwoods, he had written a book,—not a big one,—but a story about an old family dog the Beardsleys had once owned, and he had sent it to a magazine and they had paid three hundred dollars for the serial rights and there was a very good chance that some publisher would bring it out in book form! The money was not very much of course, but it was unquestionably encouraging and Dr. Beardsley felt that he and Alice ought to combine forces and give Roy a chance at the profession he hungered to follow. He had never had an opportunity to show what he could do with his pen, and it was not fair to have him give up this ambition merely because he had a wife and two children on his hands. Dr. Beardsley had three or four thousand dollars in the bank and he declared he had no particular need of the money and was ready to invest it in his son’s career as a promising speculation in which he,himself, had faith. He believed, he had said, he would get a good return on his money! He had urged Alice and Roy to come with their two children and make their home with him for a while, live the simplest kind of life,—living was extraordinarily cheap in Mill Valley; Mama wouldn’t believe how cheap after New York!—and wait until Roy was on his feet with a well-established market for his work.
“So we talked it over and said we would,” concluded Alice with her soft brown eyes shining confidently at her husband, “only it’s going to be awful hard to leave you Mama, and Sis.”
Mrs. Sturgis promptly grew tearful.
“No—no, dearie,” she said between watery sniffles and efforts to check herself, “I don’t knowwhyI’m crying! It’s quite right and proper for you and Roy to accept his father’s kind offer. There’s no question in my mind he’ll be a great writer, and I think you’re very wise, and it will be lovely and healthy for the children and I approve of the whole idea thoroughly, only—only California seems so terribly far away!” A burst of tears accompanied the last. Jeannette felt irritated. Her mother would soon be reconciled to Alice and the children being in California,—but in her own heart there was already an ache she knew would not leave it for many months.
The end of May, when the dogwood was again powdering the new-leafed woods with its white featheriness, when the Yacht Club had formally opened its season, and Martin had towed his adored A-boat outof winter storage, had pulled it with a row-boat the two-and-a-half miles to its summer moorings, Alice, Roy and the children departed, and Jeannette faced an empty home with what seemed to her an empty life.
It was inevitable she should reach out for distraction. During the spring, Doc French had married Mrs. Edith Prentiss, a rich widow, whom Jeannette had liked from their first meeting. The new Mrs. French was her senior by only a year or two, and much the same type: tall and dark with beautiful brows and skin and masses of glistening black hair. She had a great deal of poise, and dash, and dressed handsomely. At the opening of the season for the Cohasset Beach Yacht Club, when there was a dinner and dance, the Devlins were Doctor and Mrs. French’s guests and had a particularly good time. Jeannette bought herself a new dress for the occasion. She would not have been able to go otherwise, she told Martin, as she had absolutely nothing to wear! All the pretty clothes that had formed her trousseau were completely gone now; she did not have a single decent evening frock left!
The affair led to the young Devlins being asked to a Sunday luncheon on board the new Commodore’s sumptuous yacht and this had been another happy event. Martin had been in high feather, and had proven himself unusually amusing and entertaining. The Commodore’s wife had singled him out for attention; the Commodore, himself, and Doc French had urged him to allow his name to be put up for membership in the Yacht Club.
It was a great temptation for both the young husband and wife, but it was out of the question for themto belong to two yacht clubs, and Martin resolutely refused to resign from the Family. No, he said, there were too many “good scouts” in the little club, and he wouldn’t and couldn’t “throw them down.” Jeannette did not urge it, although it was hard to decline the invitation to join the Cohasset Beach Club. Yet she felt that membership in it was beyond their means and would lead to other extravagances, while specially was she afraid of the free drinking that went on there. Martin had a mercurial temperament; one drink excited him; more made him noisy and silly; he was not the type that could stand it. Better the Family Yacht Club as the lesser of the two evils. She would have been satisfied if he never entered either.
She voiced her complaint to her mother, with a good deal of vexation:
“It makes me so mad! Martinwon’teconomize,won’thelp me save and insists upon being a member of that cheap little one-horse organization with its cheap common members, spending his time and money in a place he knows I detest and where I never set my feet that I don’t regret it. And if he would only help me get out of debt and would behave himself when there was liquor around, we might be able to join the Cohasset Beach and associate with nice, decent people of our own class and enjoy some kind of social life. It’s unfair—rottenly unfair! I’ve been struggling all winter taking care of my sister’s babies, and of course it’s been expensive and we haven’t been able to put by a cent. I’ve done my level best to economize; I haven’t bought myself so much as a pair of shoes since last year, ... and look at me!”
She held out her foot and showed her mother wherethe stitching along the sole had parted. Mrs. Sturgis shook her head distressfully, and made “tut-tutting” noises with her tongue.
“And what does he expect me to do?” Jeannette went on, her voice rising as her sense of injustice grew upon her. “Here’s Doc French and his wife, Edith,—she’s really a stunning girl, Mama, and I like her so much!—anxious to be nice to me, wanting me to go with them to the smart Yacht Club all the time, asking me to their house for dinner and cards, or to go motoring with them in their beautiful new car, and Commodore and Mrs. Adams inviting me to luncheon onThe Sea Gull, and I haven’t a decent stitch to my back! If I complain to Martin, he says I’m ‘crabbing’ or tells me to get what I need and charge it! And that’s just madness, Mama,—you know that. He denies himself nothing and expects me to do all the self-sacrificing. I declare I’m sorely tempted sometimes to take him at his word, to go ahead just as I like, get whatever I need and let him meet the bills as best he can. That’s what most wives would do! I’ve never known such humiliation since I went to that Armenian dance with Dikron Najarian. In all the time I was supporting myself, I was never so shabbily dressed as I am right this minute! It does seem to me that Martin could manage better. I knowIdid when I was earning my own money and financing my own problems. Martin makes just about what you and I used to have when we were living together, and you know perfectly well, Mama, we had money tothrow awaythen. Why we used to go to the theatre and everything! I haven’t been inside a theatre in—in—well, since last September and that’s nearly a year!Idon’t know what hedoes with his money! He swears he doesn’t gamble any more, but he’s always broke and I have the hardest time getting my sixty-two fifty out of him on the first and the fifteenth. He tried to borrow some of it back from me last month! I tell you, he didn’t get it! He never takes me into his confidence about money matters and he never comes and gives what’s coming to me out of his pay envelope of his own accord! I always have toaskhim for it! Think of it, Mama, having toaskhim to give me what’s my right! I never had to go to Mr. Corey andaskhim for my salary on Saturday mornings, and I work ten thousand times harder for Martin Devlin than I ever did for Mr. Corey! ... I was no shrinking violet when Martin married me! I was a self-supporting, self-respecting business woman and when we married we made a bargain, and I intend he shall live up to it. I don’t propose he’s going to welch on me merely because I’m a woman. He’s got to give me just as much consideration as he would a man with whom he’s made a contract. Our marriage was an honorable agreement with certain specified provisions, and if he doesn’t live up to them, neither shall I!”
“Oh, Janny, Janny!” cried her mother in alarm; “don’t talk so reckless, dearie! What on earth do you mean?”
“Walk out on him!” flashed Jeannette. “I’ll go back to my job and run my own life the way it suits me!”
Martin spent every Saturday afternoon at the Family Yacht Club, “tuning up” his boat. He loved totinker about her, adjusting this, tightening that; he was never finished with her; there was always something still remaining to be done. He and Zeb Kline sailed theAlbatrosstogether in the races; they constituted her crew.
As soon as Martin reached Cohasset Beach from the city on the last day of the week, he hurried directly from the station to the yacht club. He kept his outing clothes,—they consisted of little more than a shirt, a pair of duck pants and “sneakers,”—in a locker at the club. By two o’clock he was squatting in the cockpit of the teetering little boat, busy with wrench, knife, or rag, thoroughly happy. If there was sufficient wind later in the afternoon, he and Zeb might take a short sail up the Sound, round the red buoy, and home again, or over two legs of the course. The afternoon was all too short; it was six,—seven, before a realization of the passing time came to him. He wanted a quick swim then before re-dressing himself, and if someone did not give him a lift, there was the long hike homeward.
He would be sure to find one of three situations when he opened the door of the bungalow upon reaching home: Jeannette would be there, coldly unresponsive, resentful of his tardiness; she would be dressing for a dance at the Cohasset Beach Yacht Club in frivolous mood, or she would have already departed to dine with Doc and Edith French, having left word with Hilda for him to follow if he cared to. He came to accept these circumstances. He did not particularly like them but he did not know how to go about changing them. To dress and join his wife was generally too much effort after his long afternoon on the water. He eitherfound his own amusements or else, thoroughly weary, went to bed.
At an early hour on Sunday he was usually astir and often left the house while Jeannette was still asleep, or else they breakfasted together about nine o’clock and made polite inquiries as to one another’s plans for the day. Every Sunday afternoon during the summer there was a race and Martin would not have missed one for any consideration. As soon as he could leave the house, he was off to the club and Jeannette did not see him again until he came stumbling home late in the evening, sunburnt and thoroughly exhausted.
One Saturday night it was nearly eight o’clock when the flickering acetylene lamps of Steve Teschemacher’s big brass-fitted motor car swept into the circular driveway before the Devlins’ home, and Martin got out, called “Good-night and many thanks!” and opened the door of his house. Dishevelled, his hair blown, his shirt open at the throat, carrying his cravat and collar, he walked in upon a dinner party his wife was giving. The four people at his table were all in immaculate evening dress. He recognized Doc French and Edith, but the remaining person in the quartette was a man he had never seen before.
“Mr. Kenyon, my dear,” said Jeannette, introducing him. “Our little party was quite impromptu. I didn’t know how to get you. I telephoned the club twice but Wilbur said you were out on the water.”
Doc French welcomed him, clapping him on the back.
“Get a move on, Mart,” he said, jovially, “your cocktail’s getting cold.”
Martin hurried. The blankness passed that hadcome to him as, unprepared, he arrived upon the scene. His good-nature asserted itself; he was always ready for a good time. In fifteen minutes he was entertaining his wife’s guests with an Irish story, told with inimitable brogue, and had them all roaring with laughter.
Kenyon he did not fancy. The man was too perfectly dressed, his white silk vest had a double row of gold buttons and fitted his slim waist too snugly; the movements of his hands were too graceful, too studied; his heavily lashed eyes squinted shut when he laughed, and the eyes, themselves, were glittering and glassy.
Martin went with the party to the Cohasset Beach Yacht Club for the dance to which they were bound. Since he had declined to become a member he felt he ought not to go at all to the club, but Doc French on this particular night would not listen to him, and carried him off with the others. There were the usual drinks, the usual gay crowd, the usual music and the usual dance; Martin, pleasantly exhilarated, had his usual good time. He saw his wife here and there upon the dancing floor during the evening, and thought her unusually vivacious and pretty, but it was not until three or four days later that a casual happening brought back to him a disquieting recollection that each time he had caught a glimpse of her that night, her partner had been Kenyon.
The incident that stirred this memory was the chance discovery of two cigarette stubs in a little glass ash tray on the mantel above the fireplace. Jeannette did not smoke. She explained readily that Gerald Kenyon had been to tea the previous afternoon. But Martin was not satisfied. Kenyon was a type of rich man’s son,—idler and trifler,—whom Martin thoughthe recognized; Jeannette had said nothing about having had him to tea and the circumstance was too unusual for her to have forgotten to mention it; now he recalled the matter of the dance.
One of their old angry quarrels followed. It left both shaken and repentant, and in the reconciliation that followed, much of their early warm love and confidence in one another returned. Many differences were settled, many concessions and promises were made, and better harmony existed between them thereafter than they had known for a long time.
It was then that Jeannette seriously considered having a baby. Martin was anxious for a child, and she knew how happy one would make him, how grateful and tender he was sure to be to her. She dreaded the ordeal more than most women; she was fearful of the agony that awaited her at the end of the long, dreary, helpless nine months; Alice’s hard labor, and the following weakness from complications that had kept her practically bedridden for half-a-year, had made a grave impression on Jeannette’s mind. She shuddered at the idea of being torn, at being manhandled by doctors, at being pulled and mauled and treated like an animal. It represented degradation to her, but she was prepared to go through with it. She wanted a child; she wanted one as much as Martin did; she wanted more than one. Her husband had accused her once of not loving children, but after the devotion she had lavished upon Etta and Ralph during the long months of the past winter, she felt she had convinced him that such a reproach was wholly unjustified. Farmore than the agony of childbirth, Jeannette apprehended the fetters that maternity would forge about her feet. Once a mother she knew her liberty was over. She would be bound then by the infant at her breast, by ties of duty and maternal instinct, and above all by love. She hated the thought of restriction; she hated the thought of giving up her independence; she rebelled at inhibitions which would prevent her from going her own way, living her own life, being her own mistress.
Once again the question of money obtruded itself. What did the years ahead hold in store for her as Martin’s wife? How would she fare at her husband’s hands when she was thirty, forty, fifty? The infatuation of the bride for the man she had married, was gone now; she saw him in a cold, critical light. She loved him; she loved him truly and honestly; she loved him more than she had ever thought to love any man. Never was she so happy as when they two were alone together and in sympathy. She liked often to recall the happy day they had spent with Alice and Roy on the sand reefs off Freeport. Martin had been so sweet, and splendid and dear that day! No woman could love a man more than she did, then; he had been everything that stirred her admiration. But that was a year ago and he wasn’t the same; he and she had drifted apart. Perhaps it was as much her fault as his; perhaps their grievances against one another were no more than those of any average couple. She realized that both were strong-willed and opinionated; it was inevitable that they should sometimes clash. But if Martin differed with her, he could pursue his own way independent of his wife, while she must wait upon hispleasure. She did not—could not trust Martin with the old confidence he had once inspired. Perhaps that was the experience of all wives. Most women put up with it,hadto put up with it, made the best of conditions, lay with what equanimity they could in the bed they had chosen in the first flush of love. But with her,—and always with this thought ever since she had been a wife, Jeannette had breathed a prayer of gratitude,—there was a way out! The girls that had married blindly out of their father’s and mother’s house had no alternative if their marriages proved unsatisfactory but to endure them or seek divorce. But she and all other women who had achieved a livelihood of their own in the world of business, who had won for themselves an economic value that could be measured in dollars and cents, could go back to work! They did not have to appeal to the law, the disreputable divorce courts, to free them from an intolerable alliance, or compel a reluctant man to support them with alimony gouged from his unwilling pocketbook!
Ever since she had become Martin’s bride, Jeannette realized she had hugged this thought to herself and always found consolation in it. It had even been in her mind when she considered marriage; she had said to herself in those uncertain days, that if the experiment did not prove satisfactory, there was a stenographer’s job waiting for her somewhere in the world. Now this knowledge that she could be independent again if she chose had a vital bearing on the question of her having a child. Once a mother, the door of escape from a situation which might some day become intolerable would be forever closed. She could not leave a baby as she could leave a husband.
Should she risk it? Should she take the plunge, leave the safe return to shore behind her and strike out into unknown waters, placing faith in her husband’s devotion and his ability to take care of her? Ah, if she could only be sure! If she could only be convinced of Martin’s dependability! She did not care a snap of her finger for Gerald Kenyon, Edith French or the Cohasset Beach Yacht Club or anything! All she wanted was that Martin should be good to her, should protect and provide for her with as much thought and care as she had given herself when she had been a wage-earner and her own mistress! If Martin would stand back of her, she would welcome a baby, she would bear him half-a-dozen,—all that her strength was equal to! She would banish her fear of the ordeal!
She told him so passionately. She showed him the reasonableness and righteousness of her stand, and he admitted the truth of what she said. He promised to do anything she wanted.
“You’re dead right, Jan,” he said with a gravity that went straight to her heart, “I see your point. I’ll do the best I can. And golly! won’t it be great when there’s a kid in the family,—you know,—a kid that’s our own? Why, you were never so happy or so pretty, and you never were so good to me and I never loved you more than when Etta and Ralph were toddling round here.”
But she would agree to nothing until he had demonstrated to her that he had changed and was as much in earnest about the matter as she proposed to be.
“Mart, you’ve got to show me; you’ve got to convince me you’ve turned over a new leaf. I want tobe satisfied that I am always going to be glad I’m your wife before I anchor myself to you for the rest of my life. Now we’re in debt. While I’ve been out of sympathy with you, I’ve done some charging in town,—new clothes I had to have in order to go about with Edith French. If we have a baby it’s going to cost money, and we’vegotto be out of debt first,—don’t you think so? You can reëstablish my faith in you by showing me now how you can help me save. If we cut down and put our minds to it, we can save a thousand dollars by the first of the year. Now I’ll let Hilda go and do my own work, if you’ll resign from the Family Yacht Club!”
It was a challenge and Martin’s startled eyes found hers.
“And sell my A-boat?” he asked blankly.
“And sell your A-boat,” Jeannette repeated firmly.
“Well-l, my God,—that’s kind of tough,” he said slowly. “But all right,—if you say so, I’ll get out, I’ll sell it and quit.”
“Do you really mean it, Mart?”
“Yes, I’ll—I’ll resign.... Only, Jan, can’t I finish the season? Zeb and I’ve got a swell chance for the cup and all the A-boats have been invited over to Larchmont for their annual regatta, and Zeb knows that course, and we’re all going to be towed over the day before....”
He was like a little boy pleading for a toy. She could not find it in her heart to refuse him.
“Very well,” she conceded slowly, “only as soon as the season’s over you’ll positively resign?”
“Sure. I’ll tell the fellows to-morrow that it’s my last year, and I’ll quit after the final race.”
June, July and August passed, Labor Day came and went, the yachting season closed with gala festivities, special boat races, a big dance at each of the clubs, and one day Martin announced that Zeb had paid him sixty dollars for theAlbatross, and that he had sent in his letter of resignation to the board of directors. It was then that Jeannette told Hilda she would be obliged to let her go. She had grown fond of the girl and was sorry to lose her, but in the face of this evidence of her husband’s good faith, she felt she must begin to carry out her part of their bargain.
Apart from this, there were other considerations which made her welcome this new régime of curtailment and self-denial. She was not satisfied with the recent order of her life; her conscience troubled her; there had been certain evenings during the past summer, memories of which were not altogether pleasant.
Hardly a week had gone by without Doc and Edith French inviting her to go with them to a dance at the Cohasset Beach Yacht Club or on a jaunt to some road-house on Long Island, and Gerald Kenyon invariably had been along. He had made love to her, flattering love to her, and she had been diverted. She liked him; he danced well, he was rich and a prodigal host, he was agreeably attentive. She would have early sent him to the right-about had it not been he proved a convenient escort. Martin was rarely on hand to accompany her; Gerald was eager to go with her anywhere she wished. She suffered his attentions, reminding herself that it was only for a few weeks,—just until the end of the summer,—and it was her last flingat gaiety. She would rid herself of him by September and prepare her household and her life for the time of retrenchment. Nothing of serious significance had happened on any of these merry evenings; Martin could not have found fault with her; Gerald had never so much as kissed her cheek, but the atmosphere that had prevailed was disturbing to Jeannette. Gerald often imbibed too freely, but he was never offensive. He and the Frenches sometimes grew noisy and there was a good deal of loose talk. A drink or two had a marked effect on Edith, and Jeannette wondered sometimes at the things she said and did. Not that her words and actions were in themselves particularly shocking, but coming from a woman of her graciousness and refinement they sounded rough. Jeannette was ready, now, to be quit of these intimates. Their society was not healthy, and in her soul she was conscious she did not belong in it. Her innate sense of rectitude took offense at such behavior.
Thus it was that she turned to the period of self-denial with willingness, even zeal. She threw herself whole-heartedly into the program of her new existence. She wanted to clean her soul as well as her life.
She was happy in the changed order of her days; she liked doing her own work since it meant penance for her as well as saving; she liked to think she was preparing herself for her child. She figured out how long it would take them to be out of debt: less than a year if they saved only fifty dollars a month.
“Now, Martin,” she reminded her husband, “I’m not going through with this unless you stand back of me. You’ve got to save penny for penny with me, and you’ve got to show me you’re deadly in earnest.”
She said this because he did not seem as enthusiastic, now, as he had been when the plan was first discussed. The eagerness was missing, and he was rather sour about it. She knew he grieved over the sale of his boat, and it was bitter hard for him to give up his club. But this time she was determined. She had renounced her frivolous, expensive friends; he must renounce his; she proposed to get along without the luxury of a servant, he must deny himself, too.
“Well, damn it!” he growled at her implied reproach, “ain’t I doing everything you want? The boat’s gone, and I’ve sent my letter in to the club! What more do you want me to do?”
“Martin! that’s no way to speak to your wife! You’re not doing it forme!”
She sighed in discouragement. He had a long way to go.
His efforts to divert himself about the house on Saturday afternoons and Sundays were pathetic. He started vigorously to spade up a bit of ground which he declared would make an admirable vegetable bed in the spring. The spading lasted half a day and all winter Jeannette saw the snow-covered shovel sticking upright in the ground where he had left it. He was bored by inactivity. Books did not interest him; he scorned the solitaire she suggested and in which she herself could find amusement; likewise he grew impatient at walks in the woods now full of autumn tints. Jeannette tried her best to entertain him. Several times she asked the Drigos over for auction bridge but Mrs. Drigo and her husband quarrelled so much when the cards ran against them, that Martin declared he did not care to play with them. Jeannette tried“Rum” but that, too, bored him; there was no pleasure in the game, he told her, without stakes and one couldn’t gamble with one’s wife. At the end of her resources, she shrugged her shoulders and let him seek out his own amusements as best he could. His attitude nettled her. He ought to face the new life, she felt, with the same fortitude, conscientiousness and willingness that she displayed. She told him so with a good deal of rancor one day: he was acting like a spoiled boy; he wasn’t being a good sport about it. He only glowered at her in reply and stalked out of the house.
She had her own suspicions where he went, but she did not reproach him. In her heart she was sorry for him; his empty evenings and his week-ends hung heavy on his hands. She hoped he would get used to the idea and by and by be moved to follow her example.
But as the weeks and then the months began to go by, and she saw that it was only she who was making the sacrifices,—cleaning, cooking, washing dishes, denying herself clothes and even trips to the city to see her mother,—a dull anger kindled within her. This burst into flame when she learned by chance that Martin was still a member of the Yacht Club. ’Stel Teschemacher telephoned her one day to remind her to be sure and come to a bridge tournament the ladies of the club had arranged for the following Wednesday afternoon. Jeannette explained with some relish that she feared she was not eligible to participate since her husband was no longer a member of the club, but ’Stel Teschemacher assured her that such was not the case.
“Oh, no, you’re mistaken, Mrs. Devlin. He’s still a member and a very valued one. The Directors refusedabsolutely to accept your husband’s resignation; they just positively made him reconsider it.... Why, we couldn’t get along without Mr. Devlin! He’s just the life of the club!”
Jeannette said nothing to Martin. She was bitter, feeling he had tricked her, was not playing fair. She decided she would go to New York and pour out her grievance in a stormy recital to her mother. It would relieve her mind. On the train she met Edith French and when the city was reached, her friend triumphantly carried her off to lunch at the Waldorf.
Not very long after this, she learned that Martin had been playing poker, and had lost. He had had a bad streak of luck and was obliged to confess to her he did not have enough money to pay the rent without making a levy upon her share of his salary; she must count on only forty dollars when his next pay-day fell due.
At that her resentment burst forth. She had denied herself consistently since the first of September. With her own hands she had made the little Christmas presents she had sent Alice and the children, and even what she had given her mother, in order to save a few dollars, and here was Martin gambling away at the card table money that was hers!
“You’re no more fit to be a father than a husband,” she told him, her anger blazing. “You expect me to bear a child to a man like you! You’re no better than a common thief!”
“Aw, cut that out, Jan,” he answered, a dull crimson reddening his neck; “I’ll admit I’m in wrong andthat you’ve got every right to be sore at me, but what’s the use in accusing me of being dishonest?”
“Dishonest?—dishonest?” she repeated furiously, her hands clenched. “Half of every dollar you earn belongs to me,—and don’t you forget it! It’s mine by right of being your wife; it’s mine by right of your definite promise when I married you that we should share and share alike. I made a financial sacrifice then because I thought you and I were going to build a house and rear a family. I used to earn a hundred and forty dollars a month,—let me tell you,—and every cent of it I spent as I chose and for what I chose. I’ve never seen that much or anything like that much, since I married you. Don’t fool yourself yougiveme a penny! You work in your office and I work here and we both earn your salary. When you take my money and gamble with it and lose it, you’re doing exactly the same as if you put your hand in Herbert Gibbs’s cash drawer and helped yourself! It’s just plain thievery!”
Martin was on his feet, his face congested.
“If you were a man, I’d knock your damned head off.”
“If I were a man,” retorted his wife, “you’d be afraid to!”
It was in this mood of fury, with her grievance seething within her, that she gladly agreed to accompany Edith French on a day of shopping in the city. Edith telephoned she had been invited by a certain famous Fifth Avenue importer to witness, at a private showing, the opening of some sealed trunks just receivedfrom Paris containing the new spring models. She wanted Jeannette to go with her, and the two women arranged to leave for town on an early morning train.
It was a cold, glittering winter’s day when the crispness in the air set the blood tingling; snow was piled in the street and there was a general scraping of iron shovels on stone and cement. Edith and Jeannette feasted their eyes on the new styles as they eagerly discussed clothes and fashions. Edith, stimulated by her privileged glimpses, bought herself a new hat, which Jeannette declared to be the most beautiful thing she had ever seen in her life! Edith, it seemed to her companion, was free to purchase anything that took her fancy. If a garment or bauble attracted her, she got it without hesitation. Jeannette’s heart was sick with longing. She watched her companion enviously. In a reckless moment, urged by her friend to whom she had confided at luncheon the tale of Martin’s perfidy, and who had been gratifyingly sympathetic, she selected and charged a long woolly, loose tan coat that had a deep collar of skunk. The coat had been “on sale” and Edith had been so full of admiration for the way Jeannette looked in it, that she offered to buy it and give it to her as a present. To this Jeannette would not agree, but later, wrapped in its soft ampleness and with a glowing satisfaction that it was the most becoming garment she had ever owned, she did not press an objection when Edith proposed to telephone Gerald Kenyon and ask him to take them to tea. At five o’clock sitting against the crimson upholstered wall-seats of a glittering café, sipping her hot tea and nibbling her thin, buttered toast, listening to the music and the pleasant chatterof her companions, conscious of Gerald Kenyon’s admiring eyes, Jeannette decided that it was the first happy moment she had known in months, and that if Martin chose to go his way, she had ample justification to go hers.
A madness descended upon her. She was near to tears most of the time but went dry-eyed upon her way, shutting her ears to the voice of conscience, refusing to allow her better nature to assert itself. On and on she stumbled into the forest of imprudence, allowing herself to give no heed to the gathering shadows, taking no thought of how she should ever find her way out of the gloom when the hour came for her to turn back,—for, of course, she must some time turn back!
Little by little she was beguiled into doing the things she had foresworn. She allowed Edith to persuade her into going almost daily with her to the city; she spent here and there the dollars she had so hardly saved; she began heedlessly to charge again: shoes, silk stockings, a smart French veil, gloves. The two friends fell into the habit of lunching or taking tea with Gerald Kenyon and sometimes going to a matinée with him, and the day came—as he had carefully planned it should come,—when Jeannette lunched with him alone. And over the small table at which they sat so intimately, still in the grip of the insanity that fogged her sense of righteousness and values, she confided to his eager, understanding ears the story of her husband’s selfishness, and listened to his persuasive voice as he offered to help her out of her difficulties.
“Why, listen here, Jeannette,” he said, bending towardher earnestly across the littered luncheon cloth, “I can make five thousand dollars for you over night. There’s no sense in your troubling yourself about money matters. If you’re in debt, I can show you a way that will pull you out of the hole and give you all the spending money you need! The old man, you know, is in steel. He’s on the inside and there’s nothing that goes on down in Wall Street that he doesn’t know. He gave me a tip the other day: a sure-fire tip. Did you ever hear of Colusium Copper? Well, it’s one of the subsidiary companies of the United States Steel Corporation, and its stock’s going right up. The old man telephoned me to come down and see him, and he says to me: ‘Gerald, put what you can lay your hands on on Colusium Copper; it’s due to go to seventy-five and you want to get out about seventy-two or three.’ It was fifty-eight then; it’s about sixty-six to-day. Why, look here,—it went up a couple of points yesterday.” He showed her the figures convincingly in a newspaper he drew from his pocket. “Now you just let me buy a few of those shares for you this afternoon before the market closes, and I’ll hand you a check for five hundred to-morrow when you meet me for lunch. You don’t have to put up the money; I can fix that for you; I’ll just telephone my brokers you want to buy a few shares and that I’ll O.K. the deal. It’s a sure-fire proposition, Jeannette. You won’t be risking a cent.”
He was very earnest, very persuasive; his voice was gentle and so kindly. Five hundred dollars! thought the girl; it would wipe out all those little purchases here and there that she had had charged to her account about which Martin knew nothing!
Gerald was adear! He was really a most generous, warm-hearted friend! It was wonderful of him to take such an interest in her trifling financial problems.
And the next day he showed her the check: $515.60 beautifully made out,—W. G. Guthrie & Company, Stock Brokers,—and it was drawn in her name. Her fingers trembled a little as she took the stiff bank paper in her hands.
“You see what I told you!” Gerald said with a triumphant smile. “Why, say, I could have made it five thousand just as easy if you had only said the word. The old man knows when anything like this is coming off in the Street. You have to laugh at the way the public runs in and lets the big guns fleece them. The big fellows stick up the bait and the poor fools rush after it and then chop—chop go the axes! ... Any time, Jeannette, you want a bit of change just let me know and I can fix it for you. I’ll just give the old man a ring and ask him what’s good.... Now, for Heaven’s sake don’t get the idea that what I’m able to do for you on a little flier down in Wall Street is anything in the nature of a present or anything like that. I’m just slipping you a little piece of inside information,—savvy, dearie?”
The endearment was unfortunate. It suddenly reminded Jeannette of her mother and she remembered she had not been to see her in weeks. Besides, it was the first time Gerald had addressed her with any such familiarity.
“I don’t think I’d better take this,” she said abruptly, tossing the folded check at him. She leaned back in her chair and drew her hands close to her breast.
He picked it up, tapped his fingers gently with it and began to argue. He argued long and eloquently: the money did not belong to him, it was hers, it represented the profits of her own little deal, he hadn’t a right to a cent of it, it was impossible for him to touch it. But now no word from him could reach Jeannette. Fear was awake in her; she began to be very frightened; her panic grew. Suddenly she wanted to get up from the table and run into the street. She wanted to go to her mother; she wanted her mother badly. She felt she must get out of the restaurant, must get into the air, must get away from that table and this man at any price. She was like one who stands with her back to a precipice and, turning around, finds herself within a few inches of its edge, a chasm yawning at her feet. Fright made her giddy, her mouth was dry, her throat closed convulsively.
“If I can only stand it for ten minutes more,” she said to herself, gripping tight her folded hands beneath the table, “and keep my head and not let him suspect! ... I must go on and pretend.... Just ten minutes more.”
She managed it badly. The experienced eye of her companion guessed all that was passing in her mind, and he cursed himself for having been too precipitous. The wary hare that he had been at such pains to coax to his side for so many months had taken flight at the first lift of his finger. He would have to begin all over again, and this time proceed more leisurely. For the present, he knew his cue was to withdraw.
He let her make her escape without remonstrance.He asked if she would not allow him as a friend to mail her the check, and when with more vehemence than she meant to display, she refused, he tore the paper neatly into bits and let the fragments flutter from his finger-tips to the table.
“Well,—it’s too bad,” he said with a shrug that eloquently expressed his hurt. “Sorry. My only object was to try and help a bit.”
He left her at the door of the restaurant with a graceful lift of his hat, saying he hoped to see her soon again. It was lost upon the girl. She hurried to a telephone booth in a drug store at hand and tried to reach the apartment on Ninety-second Street, but there was no answer. She thought of Martin but there was the uncomfortable confession she would have to make to him of her recent extravagances. Her recklessness, she realized, had robbed her of the righteousness of her quarrel with him; reproach he could meet with reproach.
She longed then for her sister,—her quiet, brown-eyed sister,—who had never judged her harshly in her life, but Alice was in far-away California. There was nobody, nobody in the world to whom she could turn for comfort, for sympathy and counsel, and then coming toward her with a pleased and smiling recognition in his face she saw Mr. Corey. She fluttered to him with almost a sob, and put both her hands in his; as he greeted her affectionately she wanted desperately to lay her head against his shoulder and give way to the fury of tears that fought now to find escape. In that moment, everyone seemed to have failed her,—mother, sister, husband,—but this staunch, loyal, rock-solidfriend who believed in her, who knew only the best of her, whose faith in her was unbounded, who knew her as she really was.
He was talking but she listened not to his words but to her own heart that told her here was the haven for which she sought, here was the counsellor, the friend who would help her without cavil or reproach.
“Tell me about yourself,” he was saying. “You promised you’d come in to see me once in awhile,—and that brother-in-law of yours? I thought we were going to find a job for him? What happened?”
Jeannette attempted to explain: Roy was trying to become an author, his first story was appearing as a serial and he and his wife and babies were in California. As she spoke of Alice, her voice suddenly grew husky and when she tried to clear her throat, the hot prick of tears sprang to her eyes, and she was obliged to stop and press her lips together. Mr. Corey’s brows met sharply.
“What’s the matter? You’re in trouble?” He waited for her to speak but she could only shake her head helplessly and blink her swimming eyes.
“Come in here with me,” he said in the old authoritative voice she still loved to obey. They turned from the crowded street where they were being jostled, into the drug store she had just quitted. It was crowded in here, too, with a swarm of elbowing people before the soda fountain. Corey guided the girl to the rear and they stopped by a deserted counter.
“Now what is it? Tell me about it,” he said shortly. “Can I help you?”
She tried again to answer him but she was stilltoo shaken; at any effort to speak her tears threatened.
“Please,” she managed, gulping.
He left her, went to the soda counter and returned with a glass of water. She drank it gratefully; the cold drink steadied her.
“I’ve just been acting foolishly,” she said at last, dabbing her eyes with a corner of her handkerchief. “It’s all my fault, I guess.”
By degrees he pried her story from her: Martin had been treating her badly; he had been very unfair to her; their marriage was a hopeless failure; she couldn’t make it a success alone; she had struggled and struggled and she didn’t believe it was any use; he was fearfully extravagant and she had to do all the saving to keep them out of debt; she had done without a servant just so they could get a little ahead, but try as she would, they kept falling behind, and Martin didn’t care....
She had no intention of misrepresenting her case to Mr. Corey, but hungered for his sympathy, for his justification and approval, for his censure of her husband.
He heard her with furrowed brows, his keen eyes watching her face, and when she fell silent, he waited a long moment.
“Life’s hard on young people,” he said at length with a deep breath and a dubious shake of his head. “It’s hard enough for them to get adjusted to one another without having to worry over money matters. I’m sorry your marriage has not turned out well. I feel particularly badly because I urged you into it. Devlin seemed a likely fellow to me.”
They both considered the matter, studying the floor. Jeannette felt as she stood there her life was breaking to pieces.
“If you’re in debt,” said Mr. Corey at length, “and it’s merely a question of money to tide you over present difficulties; you must let me lend you what you need.”
“Oh, no, thank you,” she said quickly.
“Oh, yes, but you must,” he insisted.
With firmness she declined. She wasn’t begging; she just had had one man try to give her money; she couldn’t accept financial assistance from anyone. No, it was her own problem,—she could work it out herself without anyone’s help.
“Very well, then,” he suggested, “come back and work for me awhile. I’ve an abominable person as secretary now; I intended to fire her anyhow, and it will give me tremendous satisfaction to do so at once, for I never needed efficient help more desperately than now.”
The words of polite thanks on Jeannette’s lips died. She raised her eyes and fixed them on the face of the man before her, a light breaking slowly in them.
“You mean ...?” she began. Her face was like radiant dawn.
“I mean exactly what I say: come back for as long as you wish. Stay until you’ve earned what you need, and be free to go when you’re ready: three months, six months, whenever you like.... It will be good to see you back even for a short time at your old desk.”
Her intent gaze leaped from pupil to pupil of his smiling, earnest eyes. Her thoughts raced: there was Martin; he would say “No” of course; he wouldn’tconsider letting her do this; he’d be furious, but Martin would have to be won over, and if not ... well then ... there was her mother and her own old room waiting for her in the apartment on Ninety-second Street!