CHAPTER VI
IT was on the morning following the issuance of the second publication of theFree Pressunder Carmel’s editorship that she became uneasily aware of a marked scrutiny of herself by Evan Bartholomew Pell. There was nothing covert about his study of her; it was open and patent and unabashed. He stared at her. He watched her every movement, and his puckered eyes, wearing their most studious expression, followed her every movement. It was the first sign of direct interest he had manifested in her as a human being—as distinct from an employer—and she wondered at it even while it discomfited her. Even a young woman confident in no mean possession of comeliness may be discomfited by a persistent stare. It was not an admiring stare; rather it was a researchful stare, a sort of anatomical stare. Being a direct young person, Carmel was about to ask him what he meant by it, when he spared her the trouble.
“Er—as I was approaching the office this morning,” he said, in an especially dry and scholarly voice, “I chanced to overhear a young man make the following remark, namely: ‘Mary Jenkins is a pretty girl.’... Now it is possible I have encountered that expression on numerous occasions, but this is the firsttime I have become conscious of it, and curious concerning it.”
“Curious?”
“Precisely.... As to its significance and—er—its causes. I have been giving consideration to it. It is not without interest.”
“Pretty girls,” said Carmel, somewhat flippantly, “are always supposed to be of interest to men.”
“Um!... I have not found them so. That is not the point. What arrested my thought was this: What constitutes prettiness? Why is one girl pretty and another not pretty? You follow me?”
“I think so.”
“Prettiness, as I understand it, is a quality of the personal appearance which gives to the beholder a pleasurable sensation.”
“Something of the sort.”
“Ah.... Then, what causes it? It is intangible. Let us examine concrete examples. Let us stand side by side Mary Jenkins, who is said to possess this quality, and—shall we say?—Mrs. Bogardus, who is reputed not to possess it. Why is one pretty and the other quite the opposite of pretty?” He shook his head. “I confess I had never become consciously aware of this difference between women....”
“What?”
He opened his eyes in mild surprise at the force of her exclamation.
“As a matter of fact,” he said, patiently, “I do not recall taking special notice of any individualwoman.... As to this matter of prettiness—what constitutes it? What assembling of features and contours create a pleasant sensation in the beholder, and why?... Perhaps you noted how I have been scrutinizing you this morning?”
“I most certainly did.”
“Um!... It was for the purpose of determining if your appearance aroused pleasant sensations in myself.”
“And did it?”
He wrinked his eyes behind his glasses and pushed stiff fingers through his hair. “It is difficult to determine with accuracy, or to state in terms the degree of pleasure derived, but I am almost certain that I derive a mild satisfaction from regarding you.”
“I—I am overwhelmed,” said Carmel, and with abruptness she passed through the wicket and out into the composing room, where she sat down in Tubal’s rope-bottomed chair, breathless with laughter.
“Oh, Tubal,” she said, “what sort of creature is he anyhow?”
“The Prof.?”
She nodded weakly.
“H’m.... The Prof.’s a kind of cabbage that never headed up,” said Tubal, with finality. “He’s got all the roots and leaves, like that kind of a cabbage, and, sim’lar, he hain’t no idee how to fold ’em up, or why he’s a cabbage, nor that cabbages is the chief ingredient of sauerkraut.”
“Yes,” said Carmel, “that’s it.” And for a long time after that she continued to think of Evan Pellas a cabbage which had grown to maturity without fulfilling a cabbage’s chief object in life, which is to head. “Only,” she said, “he’s really just the opposite. He’s never done anythingbutcome to head. He’s comatose from his eyebrows to his toes.”
The second issue of theFree Presshad brought faint encouragement. There had been a slight increase in advertising, due to Carmel’s solicitations, but her pleasure in this growth was somewhat dimmed by a guilty feeling that it was not due to any merit of the paper, or of her solicitations, but to a sort of rudimentary gallantry on the part of a few merchants.... Perhaps half a dozen men had lounged in to subscribe, investing a dollar and a half in curiosity.... But, to put the worst face on it, she had held her own.
She really felt she had improved the paper. The columns of personals, which had been intrusted to Evan Pell, were full of items. He had shown an unusual aptitude for observing the minutiæ of the community. Having observed, he would have reported in the language of a treatise on sociology, but Carmel referred him to the files, and admonished him to study the style of the late Uncle Nupley. This he had done grimly, ironically, and the result was a parrotlike faithfulness.... He had also read and corrected all the proofs, to the end that the sensibilities of the community be not offended by grammaticalgaucheries.
He had been offended close to resignation whenCarmel insisted upon running, in inch-tall, wooden type—across the top of the first page—this query:
WHO IS THE HANDSOMEST MAN IN GIBEON
That was her great idea, born of her interview with Lancelot Bangs. “If papers run beauty contests for women,” she said, “why not run handsome contests for men?... Anyhow, it’ll be fun, and I’m entitled to a little pleasure. Men are vain. It will make talk, and talk is advertising, and advertising pays.”
Evan inveighed against the scheme as undignified, stultifying, and belittling to a dignified profession.
“If it brings in subscriptions—and dollars,” said Carmel, “we should worry!”
Evan closed his eyes in pain. “We should worry!... I beg of you.... That barbaric phrase! The basestargot. Our newspapers should be the palladium of the purity of the language. If such expressions are tolerated——” He stopped abruptly because his mind could not encompass the horrors which would result from their toleration.
“Anyhow, I’m going to do it—and you’ll see. A regular voting. Coupons and everything. We’ll have a six months’ subscription worth fifty votes, a year’s subscription worth a hundred votes.”
“But—er—who will they vote for?”
“Just wait,” she said.
Following which she proceeded with enthusiasm. First she printed the rules of the contest in theFree Press, and then she went to Tubal.
“I want to stick things up all over the township,” she said, “telling about it.”
“We got a mess of yaller stock,” he said. “You write it out and I’ll print it, and we’ll make the Prof. go and paste ’em up.”
So it was done, and on a day Gibeon awoke to find itself placarded with large yellow notices making it know that theFree Presswas in a fever to discover who was considered the handsomest man in town, and to read the paper for particulars. Carmel was right—it caused talk....
In other matters she was feeling her way, and the way was not plain to her. Of petty news there was aplenty, and this she printed. She also printed a trifling item about a traveling salesman who had been “making” the territory for years in a buggy, and who had been detected in the act of smuggling a few bottles of liquor over the border in his sample case, thus adding to a meager income.
“There’s your vast liquor traffic,” she said to Evan Pell, “a poor, fat little drummer with six bottles of whisky.”
“Um!... Who arrested him?”
“Deputy Jenney,” she said.
“There is,” said Evan, “a phrase which I have noted in the public prints. It is, ‘strangling competition.’”
“What do you mean?”
“Why—er—if you were engaged in a—profitable enterprise, and some individual—er—encroached,you would abate him, would you not? That is the ethics of business.”
“Do you infer this drummer was abated as a competitor?”
“Oh, not in the least—not in the least!” He spoke airily, as one who disposes of a troublesome child.
The incident, small as it was, troubled her. Evan Pell, by his cryptic utterances, set her thinking.... If her imagination had not tricked her wholly there was a reticence about Gibeon; there was something Gibeon hid away from her.... A thing was transpiring which Gibeon did not wish to be known—at least the powerful in Gibeon.... She had encountered whisperings and slynesses.... She laughed at herself. She would be seeing specters presently, she told herself.... But there was the disappearance of Sheriff Churchill. There was the warning note to herself. There were many petty incidents such as the one in Lancelot Bangs’s studio. But why connect them with illicit traffic in intoxicants?... It was absurd to imagine an entire town debauched by the gainfulness of whisky running.... It were a matter best left alone.
And so, pursuing her policy of feeling her way, the current issue of theFree Presswas quite innocuous—save for what is known technically as a “follow-up” on the subject of Sheriff Churchill, and an editorial in which was pointed out the lethargy of official Gibeon in assailing the mystery.
As she was leaving the hotel after luncheon that day, she encountered Abner Fownes making hisprogress down the street. It was a slow, majestic progress, and quite impressive. Mr. Fownes carried himself with an air. He realized his responsibilities as a personage, and proceeded with the air of a statesman riding in a victoria through a cheering crowd. He spoke affably and ostentatiously to everyone, but when he met Carmel face to face, he paused.
“Um!... A hum!... I have read the paper—read it all.”
“I hope it pleased you.”
“It did not,” said Mr. Fownes.
“Indeed! What fault did you find?”
“You didn’t consult with me.... Told you to consult with me.... Number of things shouldn’t have been mentioned. Editorial on Churchill—bad business.... Young woman, you can see past the end of your nose.”
“I hope so.”
“Didn’t I make myself plain?”
“You did.”
“Um!... Hem!... No time for nonsense. After this—want to see every line goes in that paper.”
“Before it is published?” Carmel was stirred to antagonism, but forced herself to speak without heat.
“Before it’s published.... I’ll tell you what to print and what not to print.”
“Oh,” she said, softly, “you will!”
“I own that paper—practically.... I let it live. You’re dependent on me.”
Carmel’s eyes snapped now; she was angry. “I fanciedIowned theFree Press,” she said.
“Just so long as I let you—and I’ll let you as long as you—edit it—er—conservatively.”
“Andconservativelymeans so long as I print what you want printed, and omit what you wish omitted?”
“Exactly,” he said. “You’ve kept that schoolteaching fellow after I told you not to.”
She paused a moment, and then she said, very quietly and slowly, “I think, Mr. Fownes, that you and I have got to come to an understanding.”
“Exactly what I’m getting at.”
“Very well, now please listen carefully, and I’m sure you’ll understand.... At this moment I own theFree Press. Until your chattel mortgage falls due—and that is two months away—I shall continue to own it.... During that time I shall edit it as I see fit. I think that is clear.... I shall ask no advice from you. I shall take no dictation from you. What I believe should be printed, I shall print.... Good afternoon, Mr. Fownes.”
She brushed past him and walked rapidly toward the office; Mr. Fownes stood for a moment frowning; then he turned his round head upon his shoulders—apparently there was no neck to assist in the process—and stared after her. It was not an angry stare, nor a threatening stare. Rather it was appraising. If Carmel could have studied his face, and especially his eyes, at that moment, she would have wondered if he were so fatuous as she supposed. She might even have asked herself if he were really, as certainpeople in Gibeon maintained, nothing but a bumptious figurehead, used by stronger men who worked in his shadow.... There was something in Abner Fownes’s eyes which was quite worthy of remark; but perhaps the matter most worthy of consideration was that he manifested no anger whatever—as a vain man, a little man, bearded as he had been by a mere girl, might have done....
He peered after her briefly, then, by a series of maneuvers, set his face again in the direction he had been traveling, and proceeded magnificently on his way.... Carmel would have been more disturbed, and differently disturbed, could she have seen into the man’s mind and read what was passing in its depths. His thoughts had not so much to do with Carmel as an editor as with Carmel as a woman.