She leaned one elbow heavily on the table. "Moreeconomies, I suppose!"
He had trapped her too easily! It was his turn to be cutting. "Don't worry!… I sha'n't ask you to do without any more than you've done without so far. If you can stand it as it is awhile longer, why …" He broke off with a shrug.
Her eyes swam in a sudden mist. "You're not fair!" she sniffed. "I'm thinking as much of you as I am of myself. Going into business isn't only a question of money. There are anxieties and worry … and … and …" She recovered herself swiftly and looked at him with clear, though reproachful, eyes. "I'm always willing to help … you know that!"
He melted at once. There was a moment of silence, and then he told her everything … about Brauer, and what they purposed.
"He's to keep on at Ford-Wetherbee's until things are running smoothly. Of course, I'd rather not have it that way, but he holds the purse strings, so I've got to make concessions. We can get an office for twenty-five a month. It will be the salary of the stenographer that will count up."
"When do you start?"
"To-morrow. And do you know who I'm going after first thing?… Hilmer. He told me last night to come around and talk over insuring that car of his… I don't know that I'll land that. But I might line him up for something else. He must have a lot of insurance to place one way or another."
She smiled dubiously. "Well, I wouldn't count too much upon Hilmer," she said, with a superior air.
"I'm not counting on anything or anybody," he returned, easily."Hilmer isn't the only fish in the sea."
It was noon before Helen Starratt finished her housework next morning—an unusually late hour for her, but she had been preoccupied, and her movements slow in consequence. A four-room apartment, with hardwood floors and a vacuum cleaner, was hardly a serious task for a full-grown woman, childless, and with a vigor that reacted perfectly to an ice-cold shower at 7 A.M. She used to look back occasionally at the contrast her mother's life had presented. Even with a servant, a three-storied, bay-windowed house had not given Mrs. Somers much leisure for women's clubs. The Ladies Aid Society and a Christmas festival in the church parlors were about as far along the road of alleged social service as the woman of the last generation had traveled. There was marketing to do, and sewing continually on hand, and house-cleaning at stated intervals. In Helen Somers's old home the daily routine had been as inflexible as its ancestor's original Calvinistic creed—Monday, washing; Tuesday, ironing; Wednesday, cleaning the silver; Thursday, at home to visitors; Friday, sweeping; Saturday, baking; and Sunday, the hardest day of all. For, withal, the Puritan sense of observance, that had not been utterly swamped by the blue and enticing skies of California, Sunday was a feast day, not in a lightsome sense, but in a dull, heavy, gastronomic way, unleavened by either wine or passable wit. On Sunday the men of the family returned home from church and gorged. If the day were fine, perhaps everybody save mother took a cable-car ride, or a walk, or something equally exciting. The sparkle of environment had won these people away from tombstone reading and family prayers as a Sabbath diversion, but even California could not be expected to make over a bluestocking in an eye's twinkling. Mother, of course, stayed home on Sunday to "pick up" and get ready for supper in the absence of the servant girl. A later generation had the grace to elevate these slatternly drudges to the title of maid, but a sterner ancestry found it expedient to be more practical and less pretentious in its terms. On these drab Sundays Helen Somers had passionately envied the children of foreign breed, who seemed less hedged about by sabbatical restrictions. Not that she wished her family tobeof the questionable sort that went to El Campo or Shell Mound Park for Sunday picnics and returned in quarrelsome state at a late hour smelling of bad whisky and worse gin. Nor did she aspire to have sprung from the Teutonic stock that perpetrated more respectable but equally noisy outings in the vicinity of Woodward's Gardens. But she had a furtive and sly desire to float oil-like upon the surface of this turbid sea, touching it at certain points, yet scarcely mixing with it. Indeed, this inclination to taste the core of life without committing herself the further indiscretion of swallowing it grew to such proportions that at the age of fifteen she almost succumbed to its allurement. Even at this late date she could recall every detail of a seemingly casual conversation which she had held with the stalwart butcher boy who came daily to the kitchen door to deliver meat. The first day she merely had broached the subject of Sunday picnics; the second she had intrigued him into giving her one or two fleeting details; the third day she held him captive a full ten minutes while he enlarged upon his subject. And so on, until one morning he said, quite directly:
"Would you like to go to one?… If you do, I'll take you."
She had drawn back at first from this frontal attack, but in the end she decided to chance the experience. She pretended to her mother that she was going to see a girl friend who was sick. She met her crude cavalier at the ferry. She even boarded the boat with him. At first he had been a bit constrained and shy, but soon she felt the warm, moist pressure of his thick-fingered hands against hers. And presently his arm encircled her waist. With curious intuition she realized the futility of struggling against him… She had to admit, in the end, that she found his physical nearness pleasurable… She often had wondered, looking back on that day, what might have happened if she had gone through with this truant indiscretion. But halfway on the journey her escort had deserted her momentarily to buy a cigar. Left alone upon the upper deck of a ferryboat, crowded with a strident and raucous company, she had felt herself suddenly grow cold, not with fear, but with a certain haughty and disdainful anger. These people were not her kind! She had risen swiftly from her seat and hidden discreetly in the ladies' washroom until after the boat had landed and was on its way back to the city. When she got home she found the house in confusion. Her father had been taken suddenly ill.
"I came very near sending to Nellie's for you," her mother had said.
The incident had taught her a lesson, but there were times when she regretted its termination—when she was stirred to a certain morbid and profitless speculation as to what might have been.
Shortly after this a reaction began to set in against the dullness which certain people found desirable in the observation of what they were pleased to call with questionable humility the Lord's Day, and by the time Helen had budded to womanhood this new tide was at its flood. People, even piously inclined, were taking houses across the bay, at Belvedere or Sausalito or Mill Valley, for the summer. Somehow, one didn't go to church during this holiday. Friends came over for Saturday and Sunday to visit, and the term "week-end" became intelligible and acquired significance. The Somerses took a cottage for three successive seasons in Belvedere—that is, they spoke of it as a cottage. In reality, it was the abandoned hulk of a ferryboat that had been converted into rather uncomfortable quarters and set up on the slimy beach. The effect of this unconventional habitation slowly undermined the pale ghost of the Somers' family tradition. They became bohemian. Instead of the lugubrious Sunday feast of thick joints and heavy puddings, they began to make the acquaintance of the can opener. And from can opener to corkscrew it was only a brief step… It was at this point that Helen met Fred Starratt. Quite naturally the inevitable happened. Moonlight rowing in the cove at Belvedere, set to the tune of mandolins, was always providing a job for the parson, and, if the truth were told, for the divorce courts as well. It all had been pleasant enough, and normal enough, and the expected thing. That's what young people always did if the proper setting were provided, especially when the moon kept on the job.
Helen Starratt had read about the thrills that the heroines of novels received from the mating fever, but she had to confess that she had not experienced anything as exciting as a thrill during the entire period of her husband's wooing. She had felt satisfaction, a mild triumph, a gratified vanity, if you will, but that was as far as her emotional experience had gone. After all, her career had been marriage, and she had taken the most likely situation that had been offered. She presumed it was the same when one graduated from business college. You were expected to land a job and you did. Sometimes it was a good one, and then again it wasn't. Looking back, she conceded that her choice had been fair. Fred Starratt didn't drink to excess, he didn't beat or swear at her, he didn't make sarcastic remarks about her relations, or do any of the things which anyone who reads the daily papers discovers so many men do under provocation or otherwise. But, on the other hand, he hadn't made a fortune or bought a car or given her any reason for feeling compensated for the lack of marital excitement. His friends called him a nice fellow—in some ways as damning a thing as one could say about anybody—and let it go at that. However, Helen Starratt's vocabulary was just as limited when it came to characterizing her conventional aims and ambitions. If, occasionally, her speculations stirred the muddy reaches of certain furtive desires, she took care that they did not become articulate. This term "nice" included every desirable virtue. One married nice men, and one lived in a nice neighborhood, and one made nice acquaintances. In her mother's day she had heard people say:
"I believe in having the young folks identified with church work—they meet such nice people."
And years later a friend, attempting to interest her in the activities of a local orphan asylum, had clinched every other argument by stating, blandly:
"You really ought to go in for it, Helen—you've no idea what nice people you meet."
When America's entry into the war brought up the question of Red Cross endeavor, her first thought had been:
"I really ought to do something, I suppose. And, besides, I'll meet lots of nice people."
Well, she had met a lot of nice people, but the only fruitful yield socially had been Mrs. Hilmer. And somehow it never occurred to Helen to apply such a discriminating term as nice to her latest acquisition. Mrs. Hilmer was wholesome and good hearted and a dear, and no doubt she was nice in a negative way, but one never thought about saying so. And Hilmer…? No, he was not what one would call a nice man, but he was tremendously interesting and in the hands of the right woman… You see, Mrs. Hilmer was a good soul, but, of course, she didn't quite … that is, she was a bit old fashioned and … well, she didn't know how, poor dear!
Thus it was that over her household tasks on this particular February morning Helen Starratt dawdled as her mind played with the fiction of what Hilmer might become under the proper influence. Now, ifshehad married him!…
It was all very well for Mrs. Hilmer to see that her lord and master was fed properly, but why did she waste hours over a custard when she had money enough to hire it done? That course didn't get either of them anywhere—Hilmer remained at a level of torpid content, and naturally he looked down on his wife as a sort of sublimated servant girl who wasn't always preparing to leave and demanding higher wages… No, most men fell too easily in the trap of their personal comforts. Even Fred had become self-satisfied. Beyond his dinner and paper and an occasional sober flight at the movies or bridge with old friends he didn't seem to have any stirring ambitions. That was where a wife came in. Hadn't she been casting around for bait that would make Fred rise to something new? Hadn't she invited the Hilmers to dinner in the hope that the two men would hit it off? The very first time she had met Hilmer she had thought, "There's a man that Fred ought to know."
She was perfectly willing to concede certain virtues to her husband, and she flattered herself that with the materials at her command she had managed to keep Fred pretty well up to the scratch. The only thing that had been lacking was plenty of money. If she had had one quarter of Hilmer's income she would have evolved a husband that any woman could have been proud of, instead of one that most women would have found merely satisfactory… This was the way she had argued before her absurd dinner party. She had to admit, after it was all over, that her husband had managed to make her thoroughly ashamed of him. It was better to have an outrageous husband than a ridiculous one. And she fancied that Hilmer could be outrageous if he chose… But she was sure of one thing … if Hilmer came home and announced that he had given up his position and had decided to plunge in boldly for himself, his wife would scarcely give the matter a second thought. Hilmer would carry the thing through …some way. A man who could brain an assailant and fight for a mouthful of bread would put things over by hook or crook. There wasn't much chance for failure there. But Fred Starratt … well, he was apt to have some ridiculous scruple or too keen a sense of business courtesy or a sensitiveness to rebuffs. Take his passage at arms with the drunken maid … if he had thrown her out promptly, or come in and frankly borrowed the money from Hilmer, it would have at least shown decision.
Of course she couldn't do anything, now that he was committed to this new business venture. It was all very well for him to snarl: "Don't worry… I sha'n't ask you to do without any more than you've done without so far."
That was the lofty way most men theorized when their vanity was wounded. But she knew enough to realize that if he failed she would have to share that failure. Of course, if Fred could interest Hilmer… Perhaps she could help things along in some way … with a chance remark to Mrs. Hilmer. Would it be better to cast the seed more directly?… If she could only manage to run across Hilmer—she wouldn't want to seem to be putting in her oar… Would it be very dreadful if she were to think up some excuse and go beard the lion in his den?
She was still interested in her orphan asylum. Why not go ask him for a subscription? She wondered if he would be very brusque; insulting, even. The possibilities fascinated her. She felt that she would like a passage at arms with him. He was a man worth worsting. Under such circumstances Fred Starratt would be either liberal beyond his means or profusely apologetic. Not by any chance would he give a prompt and emphatic refusal… The more she thought about it the more enticing the prospect became. She felt sure that if Hilmer didn't approve of her charity he would say so frankly, perhaps disagreeably. And if he didn't think much of her husband's venture he would be equally direct. She rather wanted to know what hedidthink about Fred Starratt. She ended by coming to an emphatic decision. She would not only go, but she would go that very afternoon. If there were any chance for her to prepare an easy road for Fred's advance it lay in speedy action.
When she finished dressing for the encounter and stood surveying herself in the long mirror set into the closet door of her bedroom she had to admit that she had missed none of her points. Most women at her age would have been sagging a bit, the cords of youth slackened by the weight of maternity or the continual pull against ill health and genteel poverty. Or they would have been smothered in the plump content of Mrs. Hilmer. Helen Starratt's slenderness had still a virginal quality and she knew every artifice that heightened this effect. To-day she was a trifle startled at quite the lengths she had gone to strike a note of sophisticated youth. She had long since ceased dressing consciously for her husband, and dressing for other women was more a matter of perfect detail than attempted beguilement. She was curious, she told herself, to see whether a man like Hilmer would be impressed by feminine artifice… Did a black silk gown, with spotless lace at wrist and throat, spell the acme of Hilmer's ideal of womanhood? Was woman to him something durable and utilitarian or did his fancy sometimes carry him to more decorative ideals?
She did not go directly to his office; instead, she dawdled a bit over the shop windows. Things were appallingly high, she noted with growing dismay, especially the evening gowns. On the shrugging, simpering French wax figures they were at once very scant and very vivid … strung with beads and shot through with gold thread or spangled with flashing sequins. She tried to imagine Mrs. Hilmer in one of these gaudy confections. Almost any of them would have looked well on Helen herself. But any woman who went in for dressing at all would need a trunkload, she concluded, if one were to decently last out a season. She found herself speculating on just what class of people would invest in these hectic flesh coverings. Certainly not the enormously rich … they didn't buy their provocative draperies from show windows. And even the comfortably off might pause, she thought, before throwing a couple of hundred dollars into a wisp of veiling that didn't reach much below the knees and would look like a weather-beaten cobweb after the second wearing. With all this talk about profiteering and economy and the high cost of living, even Helen Starratt had to admit that one could go without an evening gown at two hundred dollars. But, judging from the shoppers on the street, there didn't seem to be many who intended to do without them. She began to wonder what her chances were for at least a spring tailor-made. She supposed now, with Fred going into business, she would be expected to make her old one do. Well, she decided she wouldn't make it do if she had to beg on the street corner. She'd had it a year and a half, and during war times that was quite all right. The best people had played frumpish parts then. But now everybody was perking up. As for an evening gown … well, she simply couldn't conceive where even a hundred dollars would be available for one of these spangled harem veils that was passing muster as a full-grown dress… If she had possessed untold wealth, all this flimsiness, this stylistic froth, would have appealed to her; as it was, she was irritated by it. What were things coming to? she demanded. Just when you thought you were up to the minute, the styles changed overnight. It was the same with household furniture. Ten years ago, when she and Fred had set up housekeeping, everybody had exclaimed over her quaint bits of mahogany, her neutral window drapes, even at her wonderful porcelain gas range. Now, everything, from bed to dining-room table, was painted in dull colors pricked by gorgeous designs; the hangings at the windows screamed with color; electric stoves were coming in. The day of polished surfaces and shining brass was over—antiques were no longer the rage.
Her dissatisfaction finally drove her toward Hilmer's office. She stopped at one of the flower stands on Grant Avenue and bought a half dozen daffodils. She begrudged the price she had to give for them, but they did set off the dull raisin shade of her dress with a proper flare of color. She concluded she would play up the yellow note in her costuming oftener. Somehow it kindled her. She wondered for the first time in her life what gypsy strain had flooded her with such dark beauty. She stopped before a millinery shop and peered critically at her reflection in a window mirror. Yes, the yellow note was a good one, but she was still a trifle cold. If her lips had been a little fuller… Strange she had never thought about that before. Well, next time she would touch them ever so deftly into a suggestion of ripe opulence. She sauntered slowly down Post Street, turned into Montgomery. There were scarcely any women on the street and the men who passed were, for the most part, in preoccupied flight. Yet she saw more than one pair of eyes widen with brief appraisal as she went by. Hilmer's offices were in the Merchants' Exchange Building. Helen decided to slip in through the Montgomery Street entrance. She felt that there might be a chance of running into Fred on California Street and she didn't want to do that.
As she shot up toward the eleventh story in the elevator she rehearsed her opening scene with Hilmer. She decided to take her cue flippantly. She would banter him at first and gradually veer to more serious topics… But once she stood in his rather austere inner shrine of business, she decided against subterfuges. He had stepped into the main office, the boy who showed her in explained. Would she have a seat? She dropped into a chair, taking in her background with feminine swiftness. A barometer, a map, two stiffly painted pictures exhibiting as many sailing vessels in full flight, a calendar bearing the advertisement of a ship-chandlery firm—this was the extent of the wall decoration. The office furniture was golden oak, the rugs of indifferent neutrality. On his desk he had a picture of Mrs. Hilmer, taken in a bygone day, very plump and blond and youthful in a soft, tranquil way. And by its side, in a little ridiculously-blue glass vase, some spring wild flowers languished, pallidly white and withered by the heat of captivity. She checked an impulse to rise when he came in. For a moment his virility had overwhelmed her into a feeling of deference, but she recovered herself sufficiently to droop nonchalantly into her seat as he gave her his hand. He was not in the least put out of countenance by her unexpected presence, and she felt a fleeting sense of disappointment, almost of pique.
"I suppose you're wondering why I'm here," she began, tritely.
He swung his swivel chair toward her and sat down. "Yes, naturally," he returned, with disconcerting candor.
She touched the petals of her daffodils with a pensive finger. "Well, really, you know, I'd quite made up my mind to pretend at first… Women never like to come directly to the point. I thought up a silly excuse—begging for an orphan asylum, to be exact. But I can see that wouldn't go here… And I don't believe you're the least bit interested in orphans."
"Why should I be?" he asked, bluntly.
She had a dozen arguments that might have won the ordinary man, but she knew it would take more than stock phrases to convince him, so she ignored the challenge. "You see, my husband has decided to go into business … and … well, I thought perhaps if you had any insurance … a stray bit, don't you know, that isn't pledged or spoken for … it would all besoencouraging!"
He smoothed his cheek with an appraising gesture. Against the blond freshness of his skin his mangled thumb stood out vividly.
"Why doesn't your husband come to see me himself?"
She drew back a trifle, but her recovery was swift. "Oh, he intends to, naturally. I'm just preparing the way… Fred's a perfect dear and all that, but he is a little bit reserved about some things… It would be so much easier for him to ask a favor for some one else… Of course, he'd be perfectly furious if he knew that I had come here. But you understand, Mr. Hilmer, I want to do all I can… I'd makeanysacrifice for Fred."
She paused to give him a chance to put in a word, but he sat silent. It was plain that he didn't intend to help out her growing embarrassment.
"It's all come out of a clear sky," she went on, trailing the fringe of her beaded hand bag across her shoe tops. "He only told me last night… There isn't any use pretending … he hasn't any capital to work on. And until the premiums begin to come in there'll be office rent and a stenographer's salary piling up … and our living expenses in the bargain… A friend of his is putting up some money, but I can't imagine it's a whole lot… I'm a little bit upset about it, of course. I wish I could really do something to help him."
She knew from his look that he intended to hurl another disconcerting question at her.
"Well, if you want to help him, why don't you?" he quizzed.
"Why, I … why, I'm not fit for anything, really," she tried to throw back.
"My wife said you were pretty efficient at the Red Cross."
"Oh, but that was different!"
"Why?"
"Well, I can't just explain, but it's easy to do something you … you…"
"Feel you don't have to," he finished for her, ironically.
She shrugged petulantly. "What do you want me to do? Solicit insurance?"
He smiled. "That's what you're doing now, isn't it?"
"Mr.Hilmer!" She rose majestically in her seat.
He continued to sit, but she was conscious that his eyes were sweeping her from head to foot with frank appraisal.
"A pretty woman has a good chance to get by with almost anything she sets her mind on," he said, finally.
She drew in a barely perceptible breath. The blunt tip of his shoe was jammed squarely against her toe. She withdrew her foot, but she sat down again.
"I really ought to be angry with you, Mr. Hilmer," she purred at him, archly. "It's very nice of you to attempt to be so gallant, but, after all, talkispretty cheap, isn't it?… So far I don't seem to be making good as a solicitor. So what else is there left?"
"How about being your husband's stenographer?" he asked, without a trace of banter.
She forgot to be amazed. "I don't know anything about shorthand," she replied, simply.
"Well, you could soon learn to run a typewriter," he insisted. "I have a young woman in my office who takes my letters direct on the machine as I dictate them. She's as good as, if not better than, my chief stenographer. That would save your husband at least seventy-five dollars a month."
She had an impulse to rise and sweep haughtily out of the room. What right had this man to tell her what she could or could not do? The impudence of him! But she didn't want to appear absurd. She leaned back and looked at him through her half-closed eyelids as she said, with a slight drawl:
"Would my presence in the office be a bid for your support, Mr.Hilmer?"
"It might," he said, looking at her keenly.
She did not flinch, but his steady gaze cut her composure like a knife. She got to her feet again.
"What silly little flowers!" escaped her, as she took a step near his desk and pulled a faded blossom from the blue vase.
He left his seat and stood beside her. "I got them down by St. Francis Wood last Sunday," he admitted. "They reminded me of the early spring blossoms in the old country … the sort that shoot up almost at the melting snow bank's edge… The flowers here are very gorgeous, but somehow they never seem as sweet."
She looked at him curiously, almost with the expectation of finding that he was jesting. This flowering of sentiment was unexpected. It had come, as he had described his native spring blooms, almost at the snow bank's edge. She reached out, gathered up the faded blossoms ruthlessly, and dropped them into a convenient waste basket.
"Do you mind?" she asked, lifting her eyes heavily.
He did not answer.
Slowly she unpinned the flaming daffodils from her side and slipped them into the empty vase. She stepped back to survey their sunlit brilliance, resting a gloved hand upon the chair she had deserted. She was conscious that another hand was bearing down heavily upon her slender ringers. The weight crushed and pained her, yet she felt no desire to withdraw…
The office boy came in. She moved forward quickly.
"There's a gentleman named Starratt waiting to see you," he announced.
She threw back her head defensively.
"This way!" Hilmer said, as he opened a private exit for her.
She found herself in the marble-flanked hallway and presently she gained the sun-flooded street. The blood was pounding at her temples and its throb hurt.
She walked home rapidly, swept by half-formulated impulses that stirred her to almost adolescent self-revelations, yet when she reached her apartment she was quite calm, almost too calm, and outwardly cold.
That night over the black coffee Fred Starratt said to his wife, with an air of restrained triumph:
"Well, I landed the insurance on Hilmer's car to-day."
She flashed him, an enigmatical smile. "Oh, lovely!"…
He sipped his coffee with preening satisfaction.
"Everything is going beautifully," he continued. "I hired an office and began to connect up with two or three firms. That preliminary from Hilmer was a great boost… A man named Kendrick handles all his business, so I've sort of got the street guessing. They can't figure how I could even get a look in… Of course I'm convinced that Kendrick shares his commissions with Hilmer, which is against the rules of the Broker's Exchange. But he didn't ask for any shakedown… Brauer and I ordered some office furniture, and to-morrow I'll advertise for a girl."
"I've got one for you already," she said, deliberately.
"Who?"
She reached across the shallow length of the table and touched his arm significantly.
"I've decided to do it myself," she purred.
He patted her hand as an incredulous stare escaped him. "You!" he laughed.
She suffered his indulgent and mildly contemptuous caress. "Don't laugh, sonny," she drawled, almost disagreeably. "Your wife may prove a lot more clever than she seems."
After the first two weeks Fred Starratt's business venture went forward amazingly. His application for membership in the Insurance Broker's Exchange was rushed through by influential friends and he became, through this action, a full-fledged fire insurance broker. He did not need this formality, however, to qualify him as a solicitor in other insurance lines. There was a long list of free lances, where the only seal of approval was an ability to get the business. Automobile liability, personal accident, marine, life—underwriters representing such insurances shared commissions with any and all who had a reasonable claim to prospective success. Therefore, while he was waiting for his final confirmation from fire-insurance circles he took a flyer at these more liberal forms. There seemed no end to this miscellaneous business which, he came to the conclusion, could be had almost for the asking. And all the time he had fancied that the field was overworked! He mentioned this one day to a seasoned veteran in the brokerage world.
"Writing up policies is one thing," this friend had assured him, emphatically; "collecting the premiums is another matter… If your fire-insurance premiums aren't paid up inside of two months, the policies are canceled. But they let the others drag on until the cows come home. There's nothing so intangible in this world as insurance. And people hate to pay for intangibilities."
Starratt refused to be forewarned. The people he went after were personal friends or gilt-edged business men.Theywouldn't deny their obligations when the premiums fell due.
But the greatest rallying point for his business enthusiasm proved to be Hilmer. It seemed that scarcely a day went by that Hilmer did not drop a new piece of business Fred's way. Returning to the office at four o'clock on almost any afternoon, he grew to feel almost sure that he would find Hilmer there, bending over Helen's shoulder as he pointed out some vital point in the contract they were both examining. He was a trifle uneasy at first—dreading the day when Hilmer would approach him on the matter of sharing commissions. It was a generally assumed fact that Kendrick, the man who handled practically all of Hilmer's business, was a notorious rebater—that he divided commissions with his clients in the face of his sworn agreement with the Broker's Exchange not to indulge in such a practice. Obviously, then, Hilmer would not be a man to throw away chances to turn such an easy trick.
Starratt voiced these fears to Brauer.
"Sure he expects a rake-off," Starratt's silent partner had said. "Everybody gets it … if they've got business enough to make it worth while."
"Well, he won't get it from me," Fred returned, decisively. "I've signed my name to an agreement and that agreement will stick if I starve doing it!"
Brauer, disconcerted by his friend's vehemence, merely had shrugged, but at another time he said, craftily:
"If Hilmer wants to break even on the fire business he gives us, why can't we make it up some other way?… There's nothing against giving himallthe commissions on that automobile liability policy we placed the other day. We can do what we please withthatprofit."
Starratt flushed. "Can't you see, Brauer, that the principle is the same?"
"Principle! Oh, shoot!… We're out to make money, not to reform business methods."
Starratt made no further reply, but Brauer's attitude rankled. He began to wish that he hadn't allowed Brauer to go in on his venture. 'But it had taken money … more than he had imagined. They had to put a good deposit down on the office furniture, and the rent was, of course, payable in advance. Then came the fee for joining the Broker's Exchange, and he had to borrow money for his personal expenses in the face of his diminished salary check from Ford, Wetherbee & Co. He realized, too, that the difficulties would scarcely decrease, even in the face of brisk business. The office furnishings would one day have to be met in full, the typewriting machine paid for, the stationery and printing bills settled. During all this time he and Helen would have to live and keep up a decent, not to say prosperous, appearance. Yes, even with Helen saving the price of a stenographer, the problem would not be easy. A day would come finally when he would feel compelled to provide Helen with a fair salary. A man couldn't expect even his own wife to go on pounding a typewriting machine for nothing. What he really hoped was that when things began to run smoothly Helen would retire… He had heard her in the old days voice her scorn of the married woman who went out to earn a salary.
"I wouldn't marry a man who couldn't support me!" she used to blaze.
As a matter of fact, he had felt the same way about it—he felt that way still. It hurt him to think that Helen should be wearing the badge of his inefficiency. And then, deep down, he had a masculine distaste for sharing his workday world with a woman. He liked to preserve the mystery of those hours spent in the fight for existence, because he knew instinctively that battle grounds lost their glamour at close range. His Californian inheritance had fostered the mining-camp attitude toward females—they were one of two things: men's moral equals or men's moral superiors. It was well enough to meet an equal on common ground, but one felt in duty bound to enshrine a superior being in reasonable seclusion.
At first he had been doubtful of Helen's ability to adapt herself to such a radical change. Her performance soon set his mind at rest on that score, but he still could not recover quite from the surprise of her unexpected decision. Indifference, amazement, opposition—nothing seemed able to sway her from her purpose. In the end he had been too touched by her attitude to put his foot down firmly against the move… She got on well with Hilmer, too, he noticed. Usually at the end of one of these late afternoon conferences with their chief patron Fred and Hilmer ended up by shaking for an early evening cocktail at Collins & Wheeland's, just around the corner. Hilmer always saw to it that Fred returned to the office with something for Helen—a handful of ginger-snaps from the free-lunch counter, a ham sandwich, or a paper of ripe olives. Once he stopped in a candy shop on Leidesdorff Street and bought two ice-cream cornucopias. Fred used to shake a puzzled head as he deposited these gastronomic trifles upon Helen's desk as he said:
"I don't get this man Hilmer… One minute he insults you and the next minute he's as considerate as a canteen worker… What's he throwing business my way for?"
Helen, munching a gingersnap, would go on with her laborious typewriting, and return:
"Why look a gift horse in the mouth, Freddie?… Women aren't the only riddles in the world."
"I think he comes to see you," he used to throw out in obvious jest."That's the only way I can figure it."
"He's like every man … he wants an audience… I guess Mother Hilmer is tired of hearing him rave."
And so the banter would go on until Fred would pull up with a round turn, realizing quite suddenly that he was talking to his wife and not just to his stenographer.
"He'll be at me one of these days on that commission question, you mark my words," he would venture.
"And what are you going to do?"
"Why, refuse, of course, and lose the business."
"Well, don't cross the bridge till you come to it."
She puzzled him more and more. She seemed disturbed at nothing, and yet she glowed with a leashed restlessness that he could not define.
"It's the strain," he would conclude. "She's putting more into this venture of mine than she's willing to admit… After all, women are amazing… They pull and cling at you and drag you back … and then, all of a sudden, they take the bit in their teeth and you can't hold them in… Who would have thought that Helen…"
And here he would halt, overcome with the soft wonder of it.
Business began to pour in from Brauer and, frankly, Fred was disturbed. He wasn't sure of Brauer's business scruples.
"I wonder if he's promising these people rebates," he said to Helen one day, following an avalanche of new risks.
"Well, you'll know soon enough when he begins to collect the premiums," she replied, indifferently.
"But I don't want to wait until then… They tell me this man Kendrick is getting awfully sore at losing so much of Hilmer's business. He'd like nothing better than to hop on to some irregularity in my methods and get me fired from the Exchange… It takes a thief to catch one, you know."
"Oh, why worry?" Helen almost snapped at him. "If Brauer gets us into a mess we can always throw him out."
Starratt's eyes widened. Where did Helen get this ruthless philosophy? Had it always lain dormant in her, or was this business life already putting a ragged edge upon her finer perceptions? But he made no answer. He had never admitted to Helen that Brauer had insisted upon drawing up a hard-and-fast partnership agreement, and taking his note for half of the money advanced in the bargain. It was one of the business secrets which he decided he would not share with anybody—he had a childish wish to preserve some mystery in connection with his venture against the soft and dubious encroachments of his wife.
"Anyway," Helen went on, "as soon as we get running smoothly we can split. No doubthe'llwant to pull out when he sees that he can get along without us… Just now he isn't taking any chances. He's holding down his own job and letting us do all the work and the worrying… Oh, he's German, all right, from the ground up."
Fred had often shared this same hope, although he had never voiced it. When the time came, no doubt Brauer would eliminate himself—for a consideration—and set up his own office. But it amazed him to find how swiftly and completely Helen had figured all these things out. Had her mind always worked so coldly and logically under her rather indifferent surface? He still wondered, too, at her efficiency. Was this a product of her social service with the Red Cross during war times?… Being a man, he couldn't concede that a proper domestic training was a pretty good schooling in any direction. He didn't see any relationship between a perfectly baked apple pie and a neatly kept cash book. He had expected his wife to fall down on the mechanical aspects of typewriting, but he forgot that she had been running a sewing machine since she was fifteen years old. And even in his wife's early childhood people were still using lamps for soft effects and intensive reading. Any woman who knew the art of keeping a kerosene lamp in shape must of necessity find the oiling and cleaning of a typewriting machine mere child's play. He didn't realize the affinities of training. It would never have occurred to him to fancy that because he kept his office desk in perfect order he was qualified to do the same thing with a kitchen stove, or that the method he had acquired as office boy, copying letters in the letterpress, would have stood him in good stead if he suddenly had been called upon to make up his own bed. What he did realize was that the leveling process which goes hand in hand with the mingling of sexes in a workday world was setting in. And he resented it. He wanted to coddle illusion … he had no wish for a world practical to the point of bleakness.
One afternoon Hilmer came in at the usual time with a handful of memoranda. It was a violently rainy day—an early March day, to be exact—the sort that refused to be softened even by the beguilements of California. The rain wind, generally warm and humid, had been chilled in its flight over the snow-piled Sierras, and it had pelted down in a wintry flood, banking up piles of stinging hail between warmer showerings. Fred had decided to forgo his soliciting and stay indoors instead. Hilmer greeted him with biting raillery.
"Well, I should think this was a good day to bag a prospective customer," he flung out as he laid his umbrella aside. "Or is business swamping you?"
Fred tossed back a trite rejoinder. Helen went on pounding her machine … she did not even lift her eyes.
"I've got something for you to-day," Hilmer went on, as he unbound the bundle of papers and sat down beside Fred.
Starratt saw the edge of a blue print in Hilmer's hand. This spelled all manner of possibilities, but he checked a surge of illogical hope. "That's fine," he answered, heartily. "But why didn't you send for me? I could have come over. It's bad enough to take your business without letting you bring it in on a day like this…"
Hilmer made a contemptuous gesture. "Wind and weather never made any difference to me… I've traveled twenty miles in a blizzard to court a girl."
"Oh, when a woman's involved, that's different," Fred laughed back."There's nothing as alluring here."
"Well, Mrs. Starratt, what do you say?" Hilmer called out to her."Your husband doesn't seem to count you in at all."
Helen was erasing a misspelled word. "Married women are used to that," she retorted, flippantly. "Sometimes it's just as well that they overlook us. We get a chance to play our own hand once in a while."
Everybody laughed, including Fred, but the effort hurt him. There was a suggestion of unpleasant mockery in Helen's tone. She seemed to be hiding her contempt behind a thin veil of acrid humor. And somehow this revelation in the presence of Hilmer stung him.
"I'll bet you can't guess what I've got here," Hilmer began again, tapping the bundle of papers with his ringer.
Starratt shook his head and Hilmer tossed him the blue print.
"Not the insurance on your shipbuilding plant?" escaped Fred, incredulously.
Hilmer crossed his legs and settled back in his chair.
"You said it!" he announced. "And it's all going to you after we've settled one question… I've been bringing you in little odds and ends as I've had them … not enough to matter much one way or another … so I haven't bothered to really get down and talk business. This is a half-million-dollar line and a little bit different. It means about fifteen thousand dollars in premiums, to be exact. You can figure what your commission will be at fifteen per cent, to say nothing of how solid this will make you with the street… Later on there 'll be workmen's compensation, boiler insurance, public liability. It's a pretty nice little plum, if I do say so."
Helen stopped her typing. Fred could feel his lips drying with mingled anticipation and apprehension. He knew just what demand Hilmer intended making.
"The question is," Hilmer continued, "how much of the commission are you going to split up with me?"
Fred shrugged. "You know the rules of the Broker's Exchange as well asI do, Hilmer. I've pledged myself not to do any rebating."
Hilmer did not betray the slightest surprise at Starratt's reply.Evidently he had heard something of the same argument before.
"Everybody does it," was his calmly brief rejoinder.
"You mean Kendrick, to be exact… I'm sorry, but I don't see it that way."
"Do you mean that you would rather pass up a half-million-dollar line than share the spoils?"
"It isn't a question of choice, Hilmer. You must know I don't want to lose five cents' worth of business. But there are some things a gentleman doesn't do."
He was sorry once the last remark had escaped him, but Hilmer didn't seem disconcerted by the covert inference.
"Scruples are like laws," Hilmer returned, affably. "I never saw one yet that couldn't be gotten round legitimately."
"Oh yes, you can subscribe to any one of the Ten Commandments with your fingers crossed, if you like that kind of a game. But I don't."
Hilmer moved in his seat with an implication of leave-taking. "Well, every man to his own taste," he said, as he reached for the blue print and proceeded to fold it up.
Starratt leaned toward him. His attitude was strangely earnest.
"Do you really like to participate in a game you know to be unfair,Hilmer?—dishonest, in fact?"
"Participating? I haven't signed any Broker's Exchange agreement. I'm not breaking any pledge when I accept a share of insurance commission. That's up to the other fellow."
"Ah, but you know that he is breaking faith… And a man that will double cross his associates will double cross you if the opportunity presents itself… Would you put a man in charge of your cash drawer when you knew that he had looted some one else's safe?"
"That's not the same thing," Hilmer sneered. "That is, it's only the same in theory. Practically, an insurance broker couldn't double cross me if he wanted to… I wouldn't put a thief in charge of my cash drawer, but I might make him a night watchman. He'd know all the tricks of the trade."
"Including the secret entrances that those on the outside wouldn't know… A crook wouldn't stay all his life on the night-watchman's job, believe me."
He noticed that Helen was regarding him keenly and her glance registered indulgent surprise rather than disapproval. Hilmer, too, had grown a bit more tolerant. He felt a measure of pride in the realization that he could make his points so calmly and dispassionately, putting this rough-hewn man before him on the defensive. But Hilmer's wavering was only momentary; he was not a man to waste time in argument when he discovered that such a weapon was futile.
"Then I understand you don't want the business?"
"Not on those terms."
Hilmer shrugged.
Helen leaned forward and put out a hand. "Let's see!" she half commanded.
Hilmer gave her the blue print and the package of memoranda. She began to unfold one of the insurance forms, bending over it curiously. Fred was puzzled. He knew that Helen was too unacquainted with insurance matters to have any knowledge of the printed schedule she was studying, yet he had to concede that she was giving a splendid imitation of an experienced hand. Her acting annoyed him. He turned toward Hilmer with an indifferent comment on the weather and the talk veered to inconsequential subjects. Helen continued her scrutiny of the forms.
Finally Hilmer rose to go. Helen made no move to return the memoranda. Fred cleared his throat and even coughed significantly, but Helen was oblivious. Presently Starratt went up to his wife and said, deliberately:
"Hilmer is going … you better give him back his papers."
She turned a glance of startled innocence upon them both. "Oh!" she exclaimed, petulantly. "How disappointing…and just as I was becoming interested… Why don't you men go have your usual drink? I'll be through with them then."
Hilmer gave a silent assent and Fred followed him. There didn't seem to be anything else to do. On the way out they met Hilmer's office boy in the corridor. Hilmer was wanted on a matter of importance at the office. He waved a brief farewell to Fred and left.
Fred went back to his wife. She had abandoned the forms and was lolling in her chair, sucking at an orange.
"Hilmer's been called suddenly to his office on business," he said, brusquely. She turned and faced him. "You'd better put those papers in the safe. I'll take them back myself to-morrow. I can't see what possessed you to insist on looking them over, anyway."
She squeezed the orange in her hand. "Well, when we get ready to handle the business I want to know something about it."
He stared. "Handle the business? You heard what I said, didn't you?"
"Yes, I heard," she said, wearily, and she went on with her orange.
He did not say anything further, but the next morning a telephone message put to rout his resolve to return Hilmer's insurance forms in person.
"I've got to go up Market Street to see a man about some workmen's compensation," he explained to Helen. "You'd better put on your hat and take those things to Hilmer yourself."
She did not answer…
He returned at three o'clock. Helen was very busy pounding away at the typewriter.
"Well, what's all the rush?" he asked.
"I'm getting out the forms on Hilmer's shipping plant," she returned, nonchalantly.
"What do you mean?… Didn't you…"
"No … he's decided to let us handle the business."
"Why … on what grounds?"
She waved a bit of carbon paper in the air. "How should I know? I didn't ask him!"
Her contemptuous indifference irritated him. "You ought to have waited until I got back… You've probably got everything mixed up… It takes experience to map out a big schedule like that."
"Hilmer showed me what to do," she retorted, calmly.
"Then he's been over here?"
"Yes … all morning."
He narrowed his eyes. She went on with her typewriting.
"Well, I'll be damned!" escaped him.
His wife replied with a tripping laugh.
At that moment Brauer came in. "I hear you've got the Hilmer line," he broke out, excitedly. "They say Kendrick is wild… How much did you have to split?"
"Nothing," Starratt said, coldly.
"Nothing?" Brauer's gaze swept from Starratt to Helen and back again."How did you land it, then?"
Helen stood up, thrusting a pencil into her hair.
"I landed it, Mr. Brauer," she said, sweetly, tossing her husband a commiserating smile.
Brauer's thin lips parted unpleasantly. "I told you at the start,Starratt, that a good stenographer would work wonders."
Fred forced a sickly laugh. He wished that Helen Starratt had stayed at home where she belonged.
It had been a long time since the insurance world on California Street had been given such a chance for gossip as the shifting of the Hilmer insurance provided. Naturally, business changes took place every day, but it was unusual to have such a rank beginner at the brokerage game put over so neat a trick. Speculation was rife. Some said that Hilmer was backing the entire Starratt venture, that he, in fact, was Starratt & Co., with Fred merely a salaried man, allowing his name to be used. Others conceded a partnership arrangement. But Kendrick announced in a loud tone up and down the street:
"Partnership nothing! I know Hilmer. He's got too many irons in the fire now. He wouldn't be annoyed with the insurance game. This fellow Starratt is rebating—that's what he is!"
Of course the street laughed. Kendrick's indignation was quite too comic, considering his own reputation. To this argument, those who held to the proprietor and partnership theories replied:
"That may all be, but he wastes an awful lot of time in Starratt's office for a fellow who's so rushed with his other ventures."
It was at this point that a few people raised their eyebrows significantly as they said:
"Well, the old boy always did have a pretty keen eye for a skirt."
It was impossible for Fred Starratt to move anywhere without hearing fragments of all this gossip. During the noon hour particularly it filtered through the midday tattle of business, pleasure, and obscenity—at the Market, at Collins & Wheeland's, at Hjul's coffee house, at Grover's Lunchroom—everywhere that clerks forgathered to appease their hunger and indulge in idle speculations. Sometimes he got these things indirectly through chance slips in talks with his friends, again scraps of overheard conversation reached his ears. Quite frequently a frank or a coarse acquaintance, without embarrassment or reserve, would tell him what had been said. He soon got over protesting. If he convinced anybody that he was getting Hilmer's business without financial concessions, he had to take the nasty alternative which the smirks of his audience betrayed… It would not have been so bad if he could have explained the situation to himself, but any attempt to solve the riddle moved in a vicious circle. He used to long for a simplicity that would make him accept Hilmer's favors on their face value. Why couldn't one believe in friendship and disinterestedness? Perhaps it would have been easier if he had lacked any knowledge of Hilmer's philosophy of life. Starratt couldn't remember anything in the recital of Hilmer's past performance or his present attitude that dovetailed with benevolence… He retreated, baffled from these speculative tilts, to the refuge of a comforting conviction that fortunately no man was thoroughly consistent. Perhaps therein lay the secret of Hilmer's puzzling prodigality—because, boiled down to hard facts, it was apparent that Hilmer was making Starratt & Co. a present of several hundred dollars a year. Sometimes, in a wild flight of conjecture, he used to wonder how far his argument with Hilmer regarding the ethics of being a negative party to another man's dishonesty had been borne home? It seemed almost too fantastic to fancy that he could have put over his rather finely spun business morality in such a brief flash, if at all.
At first he had plunged in too speedily to his venture to formulate many ideals of business conduct, but as he had progressed he found his standards springing to life full grown.
He had been long enough in the insurance business to realize the estimate that average clients had of an insurance broker—they looked upon him as a struggling friend or a poor relation or an agreeable, persuasive grafter, whose only work consisted in talking them into indifferent acceptance of an insurance policy and then pestering them into a reluctant payment of the premium. Of course big business firms recognized a broker's expertness or lack of it, though, quite frequently, as in Hilmer's case, they were more snared by a share in the profits than by the claims of efficiency. But Starratt wanted to succeed merely on his merit. He wanted to teach people to say of him:
"I go to Fred Starratt because he's the keenest, the most reliable man in the field. And for no other reason."
In short, he wished to earn his commission, and not to share it. He wanted to prove to people that an insurance broker was neither a barbered mendicant nor a genial incompetent. Had he known that a conviction of his ability lay at the bottom of Hilmer's sudden change in business tactics he would have been content. As it was, in spite of the impetus this sudden push gave his career he had moments when he would have felt happier without such dubious patronage. As a matter of fact, Hilmer rather ignored him. He brought in his business usually during Fred's absence from the office, and Helen, under his guidance, had everything ready before her husband had time to suggest any line of action. Forms, apportionments, applications—there did not seem to be a detail that Hilmer had overlooked or Helen had failed to execute. Starratt tried not to appear irritated. He didn't like to admit even to himself that he could be small enough to resent his wife's curious efficiency. But he wished she weren't there. One day he said to her, as inconsequentially as he could:
"I really think, my dear, that I ought to be planning to get a woman here in your place… Now that Hilmer's business is reasonably assured, I can afford it… It's too much to ask of you—keeping up your house and doing this, too."
"Well," she shrugged, "we can board if it gets too much for me."
"You know I detest boarding."
"I can hire help, then. Mrs. Finn would come in by the day. But, as a matter of fact, this isn't any more strenuous than my year of the Red Cross work. I managed then; I guess I can manage now."
"But I thought you didn't like business life."
"I'm not crazy about it … but I want to get you started right.Suppose you got a girl in here who didn't know how to manage Hilmer?"
He checked the retort that rose to his lips… He couldn't help getting the nasty inferences that people on the street threw at him unconsciously or maliciously, but hecouldhelp voicing them or admitting them even to himself.
"Is … is Hilmer so hard to manage?" he found himself inquiring.
Helen looked up sharply. "No harder than most men," she answered, slipping easily from the traces of his cross-examination.
His rancor outran his reserve. "I guess I'm vain," he threw out bitterly, "but I'd like to feel that I could land one piece of business withoutanybody'shelp."
She laughed indulgently. "Why, Freddie, that isn't nice! You landed Hilmer at the start… Don't you remember that very first line? On his automobile?"
There was something insincere in her tone, in the lift of her eyes, in her cryptic smile. But he smothered such unworthy promptings. It was fresh proof of his own unreasonable conceit. He turned away from his wife in silence, but he was sure that his face betrayed his feelings.
Presently he felt her standing very close to him. He turned about sharply, almost in irritation. Her mouth was raised temptingly. He bent over and kissed her, but he withdrew as swiftly. Her lips left a bitter taste that he could not define.
March passed in a blur of wind and cold, penetrating rains. Except for the placing of the insurance on the Hilmer shipbuilding plant, business was dull. Fred began to make moves toward getting in money. But it was heartbreaking work. The people who had yielded up their consent so smilingly to Fred for personal accident policies, or automobile insurance, passed him furtively on the street or sent word out to him when he called at their offices that they were busy or broke or leaving town. He did not attempt to do much toward collecting the fire-insurance premiums. Most people with fire policies knew their rights and stood by them. The premiums on March business were not due until the end of May and it was useless to make the rounds much before the middle of that month.
The whisperings on the street continued, and a few surly growls from Kendrick reached Fred's ears. One day a close friend of Fred, who knew something of Insurance Exchange matters, said to him:
"There's something going on inside, but I can't quite get the dope… I hope you're not giving Kendrick the chance to have you called for rebating… He's an ugly customer when he gets in action."
Fred was annoyed. "I've told you again and again," he retorted, "thatI'm not yielding a cent on the Hilmer business."
"It isn't that," was the reply. "Kendrick knows better than to stir up a situation he's helped to befoul himself… No, it's another matter."
Fred shrugged and changed the subject, but his thoughts flew at once to Brauer. He decided not to say anything to his partner until he made a move toward investigating, himself.
The next morning he took a half dozen names of Brauer's customers at random from the ledger and he made out bills for their premiums. Practically all of Brauer's business was fire insurance, so Fred had typical cases for his test. The first man he called on produced a receipt from Brauer for the premium paid on the very day the policy was issued. The second man protested that he had paid Brauer only the day before. The third man stated brusquely that he had placed his business through Brauer and he was the man he intended to settle with. The fourth was noncommittal, but it was the fifth client who produced the straw that betrayed the direction of the wind.
"I want to see Brauer," the man said. "He promised to do something for me."
The sixth customer was even more direct.
"There's something to come off the premium," he said. "Brauer knows."
Fred did not wait for Brauer to come into the office—he went and took him to lunch instead, where he could prod him away from Helen's sight and hearing.
"I'm surprised at you, Brauer," Starratt broke out suddenly, once they were seated at Grover's and had given the girl their order.
"Over what?" Brauer's face clouded craftily.
"Why do you go about collecting premiums and holding them back from the office?… That isn't sound business tactics."
Brauer's sharp teeth glistened savagely in spite of his weak and bloodless mouth. "What have you been doing … botheringmypeople? I'll trouble you to let me attend to my own clients in future. Those premiums aren't due for a good six weeks yet. When they are I'll turn them in."
Fred cooled a little in the face of Brauer's vehemence. "Oh, come now, what's the use of talking like that? I'm not intending to bother your customers, but there are some things due me… My name is on every one of those policies. Therefore I ought to know when they are paid and anything else about the business that concerns me. You know as well as I do what is reasonable and just. Suppose you were taken ill. It doesn't look right for a firm to go about making attempts to collect premiums that have been paid."
"Well … you're pretty previous, Starratt, dogging folks in March for money that isn't due until May," Brauer grumbled back. "What's the idea, anyway?"
Starratt leaned forward. "Just this, Brauer. I heard some ugly gossip yesterday, and I wanted to find out if it had any justification. It seems Kendrick is after us. He's going to try and get us on a rebating charge. I saw six of your people … and I'm reasonably sure that two out of that six have been promised a rake-off… Do you call that fair to me?"
"That's a lie!" Brauer broke out, too emphatically.
"I doubt it!" Starratt replied, coldly. "But that's neither here nor there. What's done is done. But I don't want any more of it. I'm playing a square game. I was ready to throw Hilmer overboard rather than compromise, and I'll—"
"Do the same thing to me, I suppose!" Brauer challenged.
Fred looked at him steadily. "Precisely," he answered.
The waitress arrived with their orders and Starratt changed the subject… Brauer recovered his civility, but hardly his good temper. At the close of the meal they parted politely. Fred could see that Brauer was bursting with spite. For himself, he decided then and there to eliminate Brauer at the first opportunity.
A few days later Brauer came into the office with an order to place a workmen's compensation policy. It covered the entire force of a canning concern, and the premium was based upon a large pay roll.
"I've had to split the commission with them," Brauer announced, defiantly. "That's legitimate enough with this sort of business, isn't it?"
Starratt nodded. "It's done, but I'm not keen for it. However, there isn't any law against it."
The policy was made out and delivered to Brauer, and almost immediately he came back with a check for the premium. "They paid me at once," he exulted.
Starratt refused to express any enthusiasm. Brauer sat down at a desk and drew out his check book. "I guess I might as well settle up for the other premiums I've collected," he said, "while I'm about it."
He made out a long list of fire premiums and drew his check for their full amount, plus the workmen's compensation premium in his possession. But he took 5 per cent off the latter item.
Starratt made no comment. But he was willing to stake his life that the check from the canning company to Brauer was for a full premium without any 5-per-cent reduction, and that Brauer, himself, was withholding this alleged rebate and applying it to making up the deficits on the fire premiums he had discounted.
The next day Fred's friend said again: "Kendrick's doing some gum-shoe work, Starratt… You'd better go awful slow."
With the coming of May other anxieties claimed Starratt's attention. Bills that he had forgotten or neglected began to pour in. There was his tailor bill, long overdue, and two accounts with dry-goods stores that Helen had run up in the days when the certainty of a fixed salary income had seemed sure. A dentist bill for work done in December made its appearance and, of course, the usual household expenditures went merrily on. The rent of their apartment was raised. Collections were slow. In March the commissions on collected premiums had just about paid the office rent and the telephone… April showed up better, but May, of course, held great promise. At the end of May the Hilmer premiums would be due and the firm of Starratt & Co. on its feet, with over two thousand dollars in commissions actually in hand. On the strength of these prospects Helen began to order a new outfit. Fred Starratt did not have the heart to complain. Helen had earned every stitch of clothing that she was buying—there was no doubt about that; still, he would have liked to be less hasty in her expenditures. He had been too long in business to count much on prospects. He disliked borrowing more money from Brauer, but there was no alternative. Brauer fell to grumbling quite audibly over these advances, and he saw to it that Fred's notes for the amounts always were forthcoming. Hilmer did not come in quite so often to the office; a rush of shipbuilding construction took him over to his yards in Oakland nearly every day. But Mrs. Hilmer was in evidence a good deal. Helen was constantly calling her up and asking her to drop downtown for luncheon or for a bit of noonday shopping uptown or just for a talk.
"She's a dear!" Helen used to say to Fred. "And I just love her to death…"
Fred could not fathom Helen. A year ago he felt sure that Mrs. Hilmer was the last woman in the world that Helen would have found bearable, much less attractive… He concluded that Helen was enjoying the novelty of watching Mrs. Hilmer nibble at a discreet feminine frivolity to which she was unaccustomed. After a while he looked for outward changes in Mrs. Hilmer's make-up. He figured that the shopping tours with Helen might be reflected in a sprightlier bonnet or a narrower skirt or a higher heel on her shoe. But no such transformation took place. Indeed, her costuming seemed to grow more and more uncompromising—more Dutch, to use the time-worn phrase, made significant to Fred Starratt by his mother. But Helen always made a point to compliment her on her appearance.