“It’s li’ble to happen to any girl,” Harry answered. “When a girl goes out with a guy, how’s she to know whether he’s a crook ’r not? Besides, if Mabel was in on it she’d have been flashin’ a roll around here, and if she’s got one she’s sure been hidin’ it well, I’ll say.”
“Well, I do think she oughta be more careful ’bout who she goes with,” Mrs. Palmer said. “I swear, between Mabel and Blanche, I’m goin’ right to my grave, I am.”
“Aw, don’t take on so, Kate,” her husband answered. “Mabel’s not like Blanche anyway—she don’t put on the dog an’ tell her folks they don’t know nothin’. She jus’ wants to have a good time an’ land a good man f’r herself, and she’ll get over this mess all right. She made a mistake in the crowd she went with—they prob’bly told her they was rich business men.”
“I suppose I’ll have to get arrested before any of you’ll think I know something,” Blanche broke in, disgustedly. “I’m sorry Mabel got into this fix, but if you try to play men for their money, you’ve got to expect that they’ll turn the tables on you, the first chance they get.”
“G’wan, you’re jes’ jealous uh her,” Harry said. “You’d do the same thing ’f you had nerve enough.”
“Now, now, this is no time f’r scrappin’,” his father interposed. “We’ve got to hustle around to O’Brien an’ see what he c’n do f’r us.”
The two Palmers departed, and Blanche and Philip tried to soothe the mother, who had begun to weep and rock in her chair. Blanche felt a dab of malice toward her sister—Mabel was so dreamless, and never tried to understand Blanche’s hopes and desires, and was always scoffing and sneering—but it was swallowed up by a sense of enforced compassion. Perhaps Mabel was just a misguided girl whose head had been turned by the flatteries of men, and perhaps she would wake up now and begin to think, and question herself and her life, to a small degree at any rate. In addition, Blanche was relieved at this turn in events, since it might distract the attention of her family and make them drop for a time their insistence upon marriage, and their naggings about Campbell, and their jeers at the books that she read. She went to bed early that night, and reclined awake for a long time, spinning her hopes from the dark texture of the room. After all, why did she waste so much time in arguing with her family? They would never understand her in a millionyears, and they meant well in spite of all of their meanness, but she had simply passed beyond them. They wanted her to be like them, and share their ideas of happiness and propriety, and they used cruel methods and threats without knowing how cruel they were because they felt that the end could apologize for the means. It was all inevitable, and the best thing that she could do would be quietly to pack her belongings some day and move out to some rooming-house uptown before they knew what was happening. Then let them rave all they wanted—what could they do?
Besides, her leaving would convince them that she “meant business,” and most of their bullying was probably due to the fact that they still thought that they could force her to obey them. When she was finally living in a place of her own, she’d go to some art or dramatic school at night—maybe she could learn to draw after all, since she had been very clever with sketches when she was a child at school, and still poked around with a pencil now and then. Or again, why couldn’t she be able to act on the stage, if she were only taught how to handle her voice and her limbs. These famous actresses, they hadn’t been perfect and accomplished in their cradles, and if she studied English and learned how to speak more correctly, she might have as good a chance as they had had. Nothing ever came to you unless you had a desperate faith in yourself. She would have to work long and hard at these things, she knew that, but she worked hard every day as it was, without deriving any satisfaction from it.
An image of Rosenberg slipped back to her. Poor boy, wonder what he was doing now? She owed a great deal to him, and the only payment that she had given had been to jilt him. Was it always as one-sided as this between men and women—always a kind of slave-and-master affair, with one person taking everything and the other person hanging on because he couldn’t think of any one else and was grateful for the scraps that were thrown to him? She hadn’t meant to hurt this boy—he had wanted feelings that were impossible to her, and her body had often endured his hands out of pity, and her only reason for guilt was that she had kept on seeing him. But she had needed, oh, she had needed all of the spurrings-on, and answers, and thoughts, and beliefs in her, which he had poured out—yes, it had been selfishness on her part, but she was beginning to think that people could never avoid being selfish to each other in some respect, even though they hid it behind all kinds of other names and assertions. Theycouldmake it aboveboard, though, by confessing the unevenness of their relations, and by not demanding anything that each person was not compelled to give of his own accord. The ideal, of course, would be a man and a woman who selfishly craved all of each other, for deeply permanent reasons, in which case each one would become a happy plunderer—did such a thing ever quite come off?... Her thoughts trailed out into sleep.
On the next morning at the Beauty Parlor, Blanche was distracted, and a little uneasy about her sister—after all, the poor kid was just conceited and flighty,with no real harm in her—and when Philip came in at noon and told her that Mabel had been released, for lack of evidence, Blanche was glad that the matter had blown over. When Blanche returned from her work that night, Mabel was seated in the one armchair in the apartment, with the rest of the family grouped admiringly around her. Now that it was all over, they regarded her as something of a heroine—one who had tussled with their never-recognized but potent enemy, the law, and emerged scot-free—and although they qualified this attitude with warnings and chidings, it dominated them, nevertheless. The mother remained an exception—she hoped that her daughter would act more soberly now, and leave her nightly dissipations, and mingle with more honest men.
“Gee, I’m glad you’re out,” Blanche said, after kissing her sister. “Did they treat you rough after they arrested you?”
“They wasn’t so bad,” Mabel answered. “They put me through a coupla third degrees, first when they brought me in, and then another one ’bout nine in the ev’ning, tryin’ to trip me up, y’know. They said they knew I was a prostitute, jes’ to get my goat, and I started to cry and said it was a darn lie—I jes’ couldn’t help it.”
“They pull that off on ev’ry girl,” Harry said. “’F she is one, then she’ll own up cause she thinks they know all about it—that’s the game.”
“How’d you happen to get in with a crowd like that?” Blanche asked.
“I didn’t know what they was,” Mabel replied,aggrievedly. “Gee whiz, you can’t follow a fella around an’ see what he’s doin’, can you? This Bob Sullivan, now, he told me he was a book-maker at the races, an ev’rybody I knew seemed to think he was. Then he had a friend, Jack Misner, said he was a jockey—a little runt of a guy. Bob swore all the time he was gone on me. He’s a nice fella at that, he is, an’ I’m darn sorry they got him.”
“Well, you shouldn’t be,” her mother said. “When any one’s dishonest they oughta get punished for it, they ought. This world would be a fine world, it would, ’f ev’rybody went round and robbed ev’rybody else. An’ what’s more, I do hope you’ll stay home more now, Mabel dear, an’ keep outa trouble, I do.”
“Aw, pipe down, Kate,” her husband broke in. “She’s gotta size up her men better fr’m now on, sure, but you can’t expect her to sit around here all night. She c’n have all the fun she wants, I don’t mind, long as she looks them over more careful an’ don’t swallow all their gab.”
“It’s jes’ no use f’r me to say anythin’,” Mrs. Palmer answered, dolefully. “None uh you ever pays any attention to Kate Palmer till it’s too late, and then it’s ma do this f’r me, an’ ma do that.”
“I’ll watch out more, ma, I will,” Mabel said. “When I meet a fella with a big wad I’m gonna find out how he makes it ’fore I let him take me out. A girl’s gotta protect herself, that’s a fact.”
“It wouldn’t hurt you to go out with a few men that work for a living—just for a change,” Philip said.“Maybe they won’t take you to swell joints, maybe not, but they’ll get you into less trouble all right.”
“Don’t wish any uh Blanche’s kind on me,” Mabel retorted. “When I want to go to a sixty-cent movie-house, ’r sit down on a bench in the park, I’ll have my head tested to see ’f I’m all there.”
Her little, straight nose turned up, and her loosely small lips drew together to a tight complacency. Her plump face was more drawn, and hollows were under her eyes, and a trace of fright still lingered in the black eyes, but the expression on her face was one of rebuked but still ruling impudence. She told herself that she had been stung once by men—an incredible incident—and would henceforth set out to revenge herself upon them. It was all just a fight to see which side would get the best of the other, and she wouldn’t be caught napping twice. Her goal was to marry a man with money and good looks, and she wouldn’t allow anything to deter her. Beneath these determinations, sentimentalities and fears, aroused by the shock of her arrest, told her that she was flirting too closely with danger, and that it might be better to look for a stalwart youth with a laughable “line” and a movie-hero face—she was tired, after all, of letting homely, slow-tongued fellows kiss and hug her because they spent money to give her the gay nights that were due to every girl, and then again, she really ought to consider her poor ma, who was always fretting about her. Aw, well, shewouldslow down just a little and stay home once in a while, and select her escorts with more of an eye to their safety and their physical attraction,and with money alone no longer all-supreme, but she would never subside to a back-number—not she. Plenty of girls ended by catching rich young men with a dash to them, and she could do the same thing if she kept a level head.
As Blanche listened to her sister, a disapproving sadness welled up within her—same old Mabel, not a hairbreadth changed. People seemed to be born in one way and to stick to it for the rest of their lives. She herself had never been quite like Mabel, even when she, Blanche, had been much more stupid than she might be now. She had always hunted for something without knowing what it was, and had always been “easier,” and more unhappy, and more concerned with the “inside” of herself.
“Men and men, that’s all you’ve got on your mind,” she said to her sister, softly. “’F you were ever wrecked now on some island, like I read about once, with nothing but another girl to keep you company, I think you’d go mad. You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself.”
“I’d like to know who would,” Mabel answered. “Why, even you, smarty, you’ve got to step out with diff’rent fellas, I notice. I suppose I’ll have to excuse myself f’r being a woman, next thing I know.”
“That’s your only excuse,” Blanche said, as she turned away.
“Well, it’s a good enough one to suit me,” Mabel retorted, irascibly.
Blanche walked into her room without replying. What was the use of speaking to people when yourwords went into one of their ears and instantly flew out of the other? Her future course of action had been determined. If her family ceased to bother her, she would continue to live with them, and go to some school at least five nights out of each week and reserve the other two for sessions with men and for relaxation. She wouldn’t live like a nun, that was ridiculous, but she would make a serious effort to master some profession or form of expression that would be much higher and more inwardly satisfying than doing the same thing with her hands every day. And if her family continued to be meddlesome and dictating, she would move out some morning when the menfolk were away.
During the next two days her existence was undisturbed. The Palmers had been somewhat chastened by Mabel’s arrest, and they had to admit that, in spite of the disagreeable mystery that Blanche had become, shedidmanage to keep herself out of difficulties. Their confidence in Mabel was not as great as it had been, and it affected to a moderate degree their temporary reactions toward Blanche.
On the third afternoon, Campbell telephoned Blanche at the Beauty Parlor and arranged to meet her that night. She wanted to tell him that he would have to remain content with her friendship and that otherwise she could not see him again, and that her promise to “think over” his offer of an apartment and a shrouded alliance had been caused merely by her desperation in the face of barriers that withheld her from her desires. She intended to tell him frankly that she hadresolved to permit him no greater physical liberties than a kiss now and then, and that she had made up her mind to reserve herself for the advent of an actual love. If he still wanted to take her out under those conditions, she’d be willing to see him once a week at most—hewasa jolly sedative in his way—but he would have to show her that he had a serious mind and a sincere love for her before she would reconsider his pleas. After all, there was such a thing as slowly falling in love with a man, if he made you entirely reverse your previous image of him. Campbell would never closely approach her ideals, she knew that, but perhaps he might make a respectable progress toward it, in which case she might accept him as the best real prospect possible to her.
She dressed to meet him that night, with a division of cautious and sanguinely impertinent feelings seething within her. As they were walking down Ninth Avenue, he looked admiringly at her round white felt hat, trimmed with a zigzag dash of black velvet, and her plain yellow pongee dress that had an air of subdued sprightliness about it, and her long, black coat with squirrel fur at the bottom. These girls, working for twenty-five a week, or thirty at most, how on earth did they manage to doll up like Peggy Hopkins Joyce? Funny too, they never seemed to retain this penny-transforming ability after they were married!
“You look like a million bucks, to-night,” he said. “I’d give a week’s salary to know how you do it.”
“Well, listen to Mister Innocent—never heard aboutinstalment plans, and bargain hunting, and getting things cheap ’cause you know the head buyer.”
“Oh, even at that it’s the world’s eighth wonder to me,” he replied. “I’m afraid to take you any place to-night. Everybody I know’ll be trying to horn in on us.”
“Why, I thought competition was your middle name,” she said, brightly.
“No, it’s only an alias—too much of it’s as bad as too little,” he answered. “Anyway, don’t you get tired of scrimping and putting yourself out for clothes all the time?”
“What ’f I do?” she asked.
“Well, you know what I told you time before last,” he said. “I’ll pay all the bills and like it, any time you’re ready. You said you were going to think it over—remember?”
“Yes, I do,” she replied, soberly. “I’ll talk to you about it later on to-night. And don’t call a cab, Joe. Let’s walk a few blocks, for a change. You always act like you hated to use your legs.”
“I use ’em enough behind the lights to make up for all the riding I do,” he answered, amused.
They strolled over to Broadway, and were silent most of the time, save for commenting on some of the people striding past them. When they reached the corner of Broadway and one of the Forties, he said: “Say, Blanche, a friend of mine, Jack Donovan, ’s pulling a party to-night in his place. There’ll be two ’r three chorines from the Passing Gaieties show, and a couple of respectable crooks—um, I mean bootleggers—thatkind of thing. I said I’d be up about eleven-thirty but I won’t go if you don’t want to. We could drop in at The Golden Mill and kill time until then.”
“Sure I’ll come, ’f it’s not going to be too wild,” she replied. “I never was much on those parties where they try to pass you around like you was a dish of ice cream.”
“Strictly pairs at Jack’s place, and the same pair lasts through the night,” he said. “Stick to the woman you’re with ’r take the elevator down—that’s the rule.”
“’F there’s too much booze flowing, that elevator-boy sure must be kept busy,” she retorted, with a laugh.
“Oh, we run it ourselves—we’re accommodating,” he said, with a grin.
After they were seated at a table in The Golden Mill and had finished half of their highballs, she said: “Joe, I’m going to talk serious to you. I was just in a silly mood when I said last time I’d think about living with you. It wouldn’t work out—it never does unless two people really love each other. ’F I ever fall hard in love with you, Joe, I’ll do it in a minute. I’m not afraid, but I don’t love you now. Besides, it’s not just a question of some man, with me. I’ve made up my mind to try and be an artist or an actress—don’t laugh now—and I wonder whether you could help me any.”
He listened to her with chagrin and amusement—going after her was like wading for eels, and she certainly had this “higher aspiration” bug with a vengeance.These girls now, they were amenable enough when their only desires were a good time, fine clothes, and a man who wouldn’t give them the shivers, but the moment they started to get this “self-expression,” I-want-to-be-different craze, boy, what a tough proposition they became. Still, even that could be turned to your advantage if you “yessed” it along and insinuated that you alone could cause it to succeed. In addition, in spite of his cynical feelings, he could not quite down his respect for her determination to struggle out of her present life. She was no ordinary girl, that was certain, and in a way she was a marvel, in view of the family that she came from and the half-dirty, low-down flat in which she’d been raised. She probably had no acting ability—they hardly ever did—but you could never be sure abouther; she was little Miss Surprise herself. Well, if he could only land her first, he’d be willing to help her along—why not?
He looked at her eager face, that was not quite pretty but boldly attractive and well-spaced, and the almost full drop of her bosom rising and falling more quickly as she talked, and the restrained sturdiness of her lips. Beyond a doubt, he’d give his right hand to have her, and yet he couldn’t absolutely tell himself why.
“Well, well, Blanchie’s gone and got stage-struck,” he answered, lightly. “You know I’ll do anything for you, you know that, but I don’t want to see you wasting your time. This acting game’s a long, hard proposition—some get in overnight but they’re damn few in number. I know girls who’ve been in it for years, andall they’ve got is a diamond ring in pawn and a favorite chair at the booking agencies. A girl’s got to have more than ambition to make any one notice her on Broadway, nowadays. How d’you know you’re fit to be an actorine?”
“I don’t, but I want a try-out just the same,” she replied. “How’ll I ever know what I’m cut out for unless I go to it and see what I can do? ’F I turn out to be a frost as ’n actress, I’ll take up drawing ’r something else. There must be something I can do as good as other people, besides working like a nigger every day.”
“Sure there must,” he said, soothingly. “I’m with you all the time—I like to see a girl who can think of something else besides putting on the glad rags and lifting the glasses. You’ve got the stuff in you, and it’s never had a chance to come out, and I’m the one man you know who can help you in the acting line, don’t forget that. I’ll get you a try-out for some play—just a little part, y’know, where you walk across the stage ’n’ say ‘Madame, will you have the tea served now, or next Monday?’ I’ll make them take you, too.”
“Will you?” she asked, eagerly. “Say, you’re a brick, Joe!”
“Not my head, anyways,” he said, smiling. “D’you know, I’m really gone about you. It took two years to turn the trick—little Joe hates to be caught, he does—but ’f I’m not in love with you now, it’s so close, I can feel the breath on my neck. Why don’t you hook up with me and let me have you meet the right people and push you along? You’re not in love withme now, but you like me pretty well at that, don’t you?”
“I do,” she answered, “but I want to find out first whether you really mean all of this, and whether you’re really int’rested in the same things I am. You mustn’t be angry at this. It’s a serious thing to me, and I want to be sure. Besides, ’f you do care for me, why can’t you help me even ’f wearejust friends?”
“Of course I will,” he responded, with an easy heartiness. “It’s not like a business transaction to me.”
If she became more and more dependent upon his assistance, she couldn’t hold out forever.... They departed from the cabaret, after another highball, and went to the apartment of his friend, Jack Donovan. Donovan was a sturdy man of forty, whose five-feet-eleven were supported by flat feet and buttressed by the girth of a paunch. His head was one-quarter bald and his black hair was wetly combed down, and the oval of his face, rising from an almost double chin, was a morbid calculation, as though he were weary of his stage-laughs and smiles, and wondering what in the devil was so funny about life, anyway, except that people liked to pay money to be joshed into believing that it was. He did a monologue in vaudeville—one of those acts in which a portly “Senator Callahan,” in a frock coat and a high hat, cracks jokes about the events and foibles and personages of the day, with many a crudely ironical fling at grafting officials and high prices and prohibition, with lower puns and slapstick harangues against the prevailingimmodesty of feminine attire—“They’d wear ’em two feet above the knees if they weren’t afraid it would completely discourage a guy.” He greeted Joe with an off-hand amiability, and looked at Blanche, after the introduction, with a side-long intentness. Joe knew how to pick ’em, all right—she wasn’t a doll-baby but she had class to her.
The two front parlors of the apartment had an ebony baby-grand piano, and Louis Sixteenth furniture picked up at auctions and standing beside the squat, varnished products of Grand Rapids—an oak sideboard with large, glass knobs and an oak settee. Some bottles and other accessories were on the sideboard, and Donovan returned to his interrupted task of making a round of cocktails. The other guests had already arrived—the two chorus girls mentioned by Campbell, and another woman whose occupation might not have desired a public announcement, and two business men who dabbled in liquor-selling on the side.
One of the chorus girls, Flo Kennedy, looked like the wax clothes dummy that can be observed in shop-windows, and hardly showed much more animation, except that when she spoke, the figure became slightly more crude and less aloof. Her round face was inhumanly symmetrical below her dark-brown hair, and its expression was, well, a no-trespassing sign, over the composed expectation of masculine advances. She wore a short-skirted thing of terra-cotta silk and cream lace, and flesh-colored stockings rolled just below the knees, and black pumps. Her companion, Grace Henderson, was a short, slender, Jewish girl in a jauntilyplain black gown, with bobbed, blondined hair and a mincing, sensuous glisten on her face—pretty in spite of the tell-tale curve at the end of her nose. The third woman, Madge Gowan, was silent and dark, with a half-ugly, long face, whose shapely cheeks and chin partly diminished the opposite effect, and a fully curved, strong body.
One of the business men, Sol Kossler, a Jew in his early forties, was roly-poly and half bald, with a jowled, broad-nosed face on which smug and sentimental confidences were twined—one of those merchants who succeed more through luck than because of hard shrewdness—while the other, Al Simmonds, was robust but not stout and had a shock of wavy black hair, and the depressed face of a man who knew that he was hoodwinking himself, in his life and thoughts, but could not spy any other recourse. In their neatly pressed and creased gray suits, both of the men looked as though their objective were the immaculate erasure of individuality.
The conversation reverberated with continual laughter. The men expected each other to utter wise-cracks, and digs at each other’s weaknesses, and humorous tales, and each one was constantly egging the other on to self-surpassing retorts. The women were not expected to do much except listen, and laugh or smile at the right places, and join in the intervals of more placid gossip about theatrical people, and indicate a sexual responsiveness without becoming demonstrative (sex would have been boresome to all of them without the assumption of gayly parrying uncertainties, eventhough they knew in advance what the night’s outcome would be, pro or con).
To Blanche, they were an emptily hilarious lot, out for the usual things that men and women wanted from each other, and merely laughing and idling on the way to them—not at all interested in the big, serious things of which she had had a revealing glimpse—but theywerefunny at times, and itwaspleasant to be a young woman patently desired by men, and the chance to be amused and self-forgetful for one night was not to be sneezed at. She joined in the repartee between Kossler and Donovan.
“I hear you sold some shirts to Mayor Kelly the other day,” Donovan said. “One more vote shot to hell.”
“I voted for him last time when he bought them from Sax and Mulberry,” Kossler retorted. “Li’l’ Sol can’t be corrupted, ’less it’s some one of the other sex, and even then, corrupted wouldn’t be exactly the word, y’know.”
“Yes, interrupted would be better there,” Donovan replied, as the others laughed.
“Why d’you want to vote for a fellow like Kelly?” Blanche asked. “He’s just a wind-bag—always telling how much he’s going to do for the public, but that’s where he ends.”
Kossler lifted his eyebrows—women were not supposed to be interested in politics (middle-aged club-women, and professionals in both parties, and socialists excepted).
“Now, girlie, what d’you know about it?” he asked,indulgently. “They’ve all got to promise a lot—that’s in the game—but old Kelly’s better than the rest of them at that. He’s dead honest and he can’t be bought.”
“So’s ’n elephant,” Blanche retorted. “You can buy one cheap at the Bronx zoo and put him up at the next election.”
Donovan looked pityingly at her and said: “My Gawd, another socialist.”
“I’m not, but I come from the Hell’s-Kitchen district and I’m wise to politics, all right,” Blanche answered.
“Everything you say is right with me,” Simmonds interjected. “It’s a foxy-pass, anyway, to argue with a woman at a party—you’ll end up by singing: ‘Sitting in a co-orner, that’s all I do-o.’”
“Maybe it is,” said Blanche, while the others laughed.
Flo and Grace regarded her with a petulant suspicion—she was of the smart, snippy kind, and furthermore, she’d better not try to go aftertheirmen; they’d pull her hair out if she did.
“Now, you all stop razzing my Blanche,” Campbell broke in. “She’s just a little girl trying to make both ends connect in the big, wicked city.”
“Razzing her!—it’s just the other way,” Simmonds said. “D’you ever balance a hot coal on the tip of your nose?”
“It only looks that way—I was out on a party last night,” Campbell replied. “I heard a good one, though, the other day. Tom Jarvey was walking along thestreet, and he runs into Hammond, the village cut-up. ‘I hear you was seen walkin’ with your grandmother the other day—that’s a nice thing to do,’ said Hammond. Jarvey comes back: ‘She didn’t look that way when I married her—you know how it is.’”
The rest of them laughed, and Grace said: “That’s like the husband I ditched last year. He was a prize-package until I saw him putting his false toofies in a glass uh water one night. Hot snakes!”
“Let’s call it a draw and put the phonograph on, and fox-trot,” Flo said.
The party broke into dancing, with regular intervals in which rounds of cocktails circulated. The silently dark woman sat on a couch, with a fixed smile, and occasionally chatted with Donovan, and seemed to be outside of the party, as though she were viewing it with a satiated and good-natured patience. Blanche sat beside her for a short time.
“You don’t seem to be enjoying yourself,” Blanche said, “or maybe this is how you do it.”
“Oh, I’m a good listener, and I don’t dance if I can help it,” Madge Gowan replied. “I’m not down on the world, it’s not that, but I like to sit in the audience now ’n’ then. It’s fine for your nerves and you get a different slant at what’s going on around you.”
“I’m a little like that, myself,” Blanche answered, “but this is my night for mixing in, I guess.”
Campbell pulled her away for another dance, and she reflected on the dark woman, through the touch of haze forming in her own head. Was that the way youbecame around thirty-five, if you couldn’t stay blind to the world and the people in it?
The party became more boisterous, and the innuendoes grew warmer and less attired, and the chorus girls sat beside Kossler and Simmonds and exchanged kissing and impolite embraces that were not quite direct. Donovan had his head on Madge Gowan’s shoulder, while she caressed his hair. Blanche, who was standing beside the phonograph, with Campbell’s arm around her waist, felt confused, and merrily indifferent to everything except the unsteady exaltation in her body and the singing carelessness of her emotions. As she had done so many times before, she made an effort to pull herself together and resume some portion of her secret wariness, but the effort was a weak one, this time, and her “silly,” lightly unarmored feelings persisted and grew stronger.
“Let’s leave, Joe dear, I’m so-o-o diz-z-zy,” she said.
“Sit down a while, you’ll feel better,” he replied, leading her to the couch.
The two chorus girls departed with Kossler and Simmonds, after a loudly gaymêléeof words had flown back and forth, and Blanche, by this time, was too limp and dazed to bid them good-bye. When Donovan returned from the front door, Blanche had slumped back upon the couch, and Campbell said: “Darned if she hasn’t passed out, Jack.”
Donovan grinned at his friend.
“We’ll put her on the bed in the spare room and let her sleep it off. I’m going to turn in, now, with Madge.Don’t do anything your mother wouldn’t approve of, Joe.”
Madge Gowan rose and looked steadily at Campbell.
“How about leaving the poor kid alone, to-night?” she asked.
“Don’t be foolish, she’s ’n old flame uh mine,” Campbell answered. “We’ve been crazy about each other for more than two years now.”
“Well, let her sleep with me, anyway,” Madge persisted. “You can see her to-morrow morning.”
“Now Ma-adge, don’t butt in where it’s not needed,” said Donovan chidingly.
“Yes, cut out the guardian-angel stuff,” Campbell said, in a careless voice. “She’s ’n old sweetie uh mine, I’m telling you.”
Madge turned and looked down at Blanche, in a dully sad way.
“Oh, well, it’s no business of mine,” she said.
When Blanche woke up on the next morning, she looked at the strange room with an uncomprehending, ferocious ache in her head. Then, in a detached fashion, incidents of the past night began to bob up in her head, and she pieced them slowly together, in a stumbling, erratic way. She’d met Campbell and gone to a party with him, and then she had become drunk and everything had grown slowly darker. She remembered vaguely that she had begged him to take her home.... Then, an indefinable stirring within herheart told her what had happened.... So, he had sneaked off, afraid to face her now—the coward, the coward. But perhaps he was still in the place, and ... where was she, anyway? She opened the door and walked unsteadily down the hallway. Yes, this was the same parlor where the party had taken place—same piano and furniture. Perhaps Campbell was sleeping in another room in the apartment.
She returned to the room that she had left, and sat down. The pain in her head gave an added edge to the anger within her. The skulking meanness of it—oh, she’d love to break his head in two! Then another voice within her said: “You know perfectly well that’s what almost any man’ll do, ’specially ’f he’s drunk, as well as you are. Don’t act like a school-kid—you knew it all the time, but you kept on drinking last night, long past your limit ... fool.”
Her anger against Campbell subsided to a more practical disgust. If she had loved him, she would not have minded this finale, but as it was she felt like a swindled imbecile. Campbell would have to be put in his place once more, and treated with a cool aloofness. He had benefited by an accident wedded to her own weakness, and the only grim satisfaction left would be to ignore him from now on. She didn’t blame him, particularly—all men seemed to be cut out of the same stuff—but it would have to be impressed upon him that his victory had been an empty one, and that she was still her own mistress. After all, she still felt intact and undisturbed—it would take more than a dozen Campbells to break her spirit—and she wouldsever her relations with him merely as a matter-of-fact self-protection.
When she had washed, and dressed herself, she walked back to the parlor and pulled back the shades at the window, and looked down at the street far below. It was crowded with people and vehicles—the hour might be around noon. She glanced back at a clock on the top of the sideboard. Eleven-thirty—she would have to telephone the “Parlor” and give them the old illness-excuse.... Where had every one disappeared to—where was Donovan, who lived in the apartment? She heard the front door close, and she sat down, waiting, and shrinking a little ... she didn’t care to meet any one at this exact moment. Campbell walked into the parlor, and when he saw her, he greeted her with a solicitous joviality.
“We-ell, there she is—fresh as a daisy ’n’ everything,” he said. “I’ve bought some stuff and we’ll cook breakfast on Jack’s little electric stove. He’s still dead to the world, I guess.”
She rose from the chair, without answering, and walked to the hallway, where she removed her coat and hat from the rack and started to put them on. He followed her and dropped a hand on her shoulder.
“Now, what’s up?” he asked.
“We’re never going to see each other again,” she replied, “and I’m not very anxious to talk to you. I don’t blame you for anything, but you’re not the kind of a man I’m looking for. You’re just no better ’r worse than most people, that’s all. I’d feel just the same about it ’f you hadn’t acted like you did. I heldon to you because you could make me laugh and forget my troubles, but I knew it couldn’t last much longer.”
“Don’t act like desp’rate Tessie in a movie-film,” he said. “Come on, sit down and let’s talk it over. Nothing so terrible has happened.”
“I’m not worrying about what happened,” she answered. “’F I cared for you I wouldn’t give it a thought. I don’t, though, and there’d be no use in risking a second dose of the same fool stunt. We’ll call it quits now, and stop seeing each other.”
“Well, I’ve got something to tell you, and it won’t hurt you to sit down a minute and listen,” he urged.
“All right, just a few minutes, and then I’ll be going,” she said, wearily.
They sat on opposite chairs in the parlor, and as he looked at her, an irresistible impulse came to him. She certainly did have a marvelous spirit and independence—no girl of his acquaintance had ever acted with such a careless, untouched remoteness on the morning after, unless she was a plain hooker—not in a way that convinced you of its genuineness, at any rate—and, strangely enough, as he sat here now, she was still as desirable as she had ever been. Well, guess he would have to take the plunge—you couldn’t resist it forever. The old chain-and-jail wind-up.
“I want you to marry me, Blanche,” he said. “I’ll go down to the Municipal Building with you this afternoon, and we’ll get the license. I mean every word of it. You’re an ace-high full to me and I can’t give you up. I guess I’ve always been in love with you, but I didn’t want to admit it to myself. You’ll marry meto-day and we’ll live happy ever afterwards, just like they do in the books.”
He looked at her with a confident, admiring smile, as though her assent were predetermined. She arose and smiled pityingly at him, as she tucked her hair beneath her hat.
“Listen, Joe, I wouldn’t marry you on a bet,” she replied. “You prob’bly think I’ve been egging you on to ask me all the time, and there’s where you’ve made a big mistake, Joe Campbell. ’F I ever marry any man I’ll have to be wild about him, and ’f I am, I won’t even care so much whether he marries me ’r not. And, what’s more, I’ll have to have a pile of respect for his mind, and I’ll have to feel like listening to what he says, all the time.”
He stared at her, without answering.
“Well, it’s no use talking any more,” she said. “So long, Joe, I’m going now.”
He had expected that she would first doubt the sincerity of his proposal and then eagerly accept him. He still believed that she was merely leading him on, to revenge herself, and that all of her words had been said for their effect, and that she only wanted him to be persistently begging and humble. He followed her into the hallway, and caught her arm.
“I’m sorry for what happened last night,” he said. “I’ll make it up to you, Blan. I mean it, dear. I’m crazy about you, and I want to make you happy, and I’ll do anything you say. Why, I’ll even stop drinking, if you say the word. You’ve just got to marry me,you’ve got to, Blanche. You know you care for me, you know you do.”
“You’d better guess again, Joe,” she said, coolly, as she broke away from him. “I’m not going to see you again, and what’s more, don’t pester me with any ’phone-calls ’r letters, either. It won’t do you a bit of good.... Good-bye, and good luck, old boy.”
It gave her a surface thrill to slap his face in this dramatic and careless fashion. He thought that he was a precious catch, didn’t he? Well, he might lose some of his huge conceit after she had finished with him.
He caught her arm once more.
“Come on, you’ve razzed me enough now, haven’t you?” he asked. “I’ve been taking it like a man, but don’t smear it on so thick. Come on, be good to me, Blanche.”
She broke away again and walked swiftly down the hallway. He started after her and then halted, still and perplexed, as she reached the door. Then a rage quickly possessed him—imagine, this hussy turninghimdown after he had been really anxious to make amends.
“All right, then, you can go to hell for all I care,” he called after her, as she was passing through the doorway.
She made no reply as she slammed the door behind her—he could have said that immediately and spared himself the trouble of his other words. These men, they thought that all they had to do was to utter the magical words—ma-arry me—and a girl would be delightedat the rare, luring condescension and instantly fall into their arms. Well, perhaps he wouldn’t be quite so conceited from now on—the cheap sneak. When she married a man it would be soberly and of her own free will, because she longed to hear his words, and be physically near him, and because she looked up to his mental gifts, and good taste, and re-fine-ment. Oh, ye-es, in a way she was an idiot for not having acceptedCampbell’sproposal, since he could certainly have given the leisure and opportunities which she craved, but ... she’d be damned ifshewould ever marry a man just because she was ashamed to leave him on the day after a drunken party!
After she had telephoned the “Parlor” and told Madame Jaurette that she could not come down because of an intense toothache, she returned to her home. Her mother had gone to the butcher shop and Mabel was sitting alone in the living-room.
“Well, sma-artie, where’ve you been all night?” Mabel asked. “Ma was in a awful stew about you—she was gonna call up the p’lice, but I stopped her. An’pa, he’s gonna ask yousomequestions when he gets back, believe me.”
“What’s all the fuss about?” Blanche asked, wearily. “I went to a wild party and passed out, and they had to let me sleep there overnight.”
“An’ Joe Campbell, he got lost in the crush, ’r else he went back to his place to sleep, I s’pose,” Mabel answered, sarcastically. “You c’n tell it to ma but not to me. I never thought you’d give in to him that easy, Blan. He hasn’t asked you to marry him, has he?”
“Yes, but I turned him down,” Blanche replied.
“Turned him down—well, of all the fool things,” Mabel cried. “I’ll bet you’re jes’ sayin’ you did ’cause you don’t want to admit what a simp you’ve been.”
“No, it’s true ... he wanted to marry me right this afternoon.”
Mabel was silent for a moment, as she regarded her sister with an irritated surprise, and then she said: “You’ve got me guessing. Here’s a fine fella, not so bad-lookin’ either, an’ you’ve been goin’ with him, off and on, f’r over two years, an’ he’s got loads of money, an’ ... you won’t marry him. There’s darn few fellas that’ll ask a girl right after they’ve slipped one over on her. What’re you waitin’ for, anyway?”
“Not for anything you could understand,” Blanche responded. “When I marry a man I’m going to love him first—that’s what you can’t get into your head—and it’ll have to be real love, too, and not just because he has a handsome face and knows how to kid now and then.”
“Then why’d you stay with Joe last night?” Mabel asked. “’F you’re so darn up’n the air about it, you didn’t have to peel your clothes off f’r a fella you don’t care about.”
“I passed out of the picture, and the next thing I knew it was morning,” Blanche said, trying to be patient with this querulous, unseeing sister of hers, but feeling a rising strain.
It was bad enough that it had happened—why did she have to paw over the details?
“Well, he played a dirty, rotten trick on you then,”Mabel answered, indignantly, “an’ ’f it was me, I’d sure get back at him some way. ’F I didn’t wanna marry him, then I’d scare him outa his wits an’ make him come across with plenty uh money, I would. ’R else I’d see he was sent to the hospital f’r a nice, long stretch.”
“It was my fault just’s much as his,” Blanche replied, dully. “No man’s ’n angel, and a girl shouldn’t get drunk with him ’f she doesn’t want to go the limit. I can usually take care of myself, but I took too many cocktails last night. I was feeling blue and forgot when to stop. ’F you want to do me a favor, then you’ll talk about something else. I’ll never see him again, and he doesn’t matter to me.”
“Try an’ talk to you,” Mabel responded, disgustedly. “The last person you ever look out f’r is yourself. You ought to be sent to the booby-hatch!”
Blanche went into her room without answering ... what was the use? Mabel meant well enough, but she couldn’t see that money and gay times and “getting back” at people were not the only things in the world.
When her mother returned, Blanche pretended to be asleep, and she remained upon her bed until evening, with all her thoughts darting about and then hopelessly evaporating, and with occasional intervals of semi-drowsiness. When she came to the supper-table, where the remainder of her family were seated, the firing started.
“Well, give an account uh yourself,” her father said. “Where was you till twelve this morning?”
“I stayed with some friends,” Blanche answered—shewasn’tafraidto tell them the truth, of course not, but she wanted to avoid the senseless wrangling, and the loud accusations, and the outraged advice that would ensue if she did. “I drank a little too much and I had to sleep it off, that’s all.”
“An’ how about Campbell—was he with you?” her father asked, gruffly.
“He was gone when I woke up this morning,” Blanche answered, seeking only to brush aside her father’s words.
“Well, it sounds damn fishy to me,” her father replied. “’F he did anything wrong to you I’ll have it out with him, and he’ll have to marry you then, ’f he knows what’s good f’r him.”
“That’s what I say,” Harry broke in. “I like Joe all right, but he’d better go slow with any sister uh mine, I don’t care ’f he was the Gov’ner himself!”
“You’re getting terribly concerned about me all at once, aren’t you?” Blanche asked, speaking to Harry. “You’d better not jump at conclusions—you don’t know a thing about it.”
“I’ll make it my business to find out,” Harry answered, looking steadily at her.
“Well, I’m gonna stick up f’r Blanie this time,” Mabel said. “You’re both makin’ a big fuss about nothin’, an’ what’s more, you’ve got no right to be sayin’ she’s a bad girl. You oughta be ashamed uh yourselves. All she did was stay overnight with some people she knew ’cause she wasn’t in no condition to come home. I’ve done it myself, once ’r twice, an’ you never waded into me. Blanche may be a nut in someways but she’s not fool enough to let Joe Campbell put it over on her, an’ you oughta believe her.”
Blanche gave her sister a grateful, surprised look—Mabel did have a good streak in her, in spite of her blind reproaches.
“I’m not accusin’ her of anythin’,” the father said, impressed by this defense from his favorite daughter. “I only wanted to find out what happened, like any father would. ’S a matter uh fact, you’d both better cut out all this booze you’re swillin’. ’F you don’t, you’ll wake up some fine mornin’ an’ find yourselves in f’r it.”
“An’ they oughta stay home more, too,” the mother said, breaking in with her endless complaint, not because she hoped to effect anything, but merely to maintain her position. “I was worried to death, I was, when I got up this mornin’ an’ Blanie wasn’t here. You never can tell what’ll happen to a girl, you never. Don’t I read all kindsa things in the paper ev’ry day—murders ’n’ rapes ’n’ what not!”
“I’ll see that they stay home—they’re runnin’ too loose to suit me, these days,” the father replied.
He knew that he would do nothing of the kind, but the words soothed his sense of authority.
When the supper was finished, Blanche put on her hat and coat, and said: “I’m going out for a walk. I’ll be back early, I guess.”
“You’d better,” her father responded. “I won’t swallow another stayin’ over with friends story, this time.”
Blanche turned away without replying—words,words, and what did they all amount to? Threats, and promises, and “reasons” ... and people scarcely ever meant them.
After she had left the apartment she strolled aimlessly up one street and down another, craving the motion that could add a fillip to the dullness of her thoughts. Would she ever meet people who could help her, and who would understand her longings and prod her with worthwhile criticisms and encouragements—people, for instance, as superior to Rosenberg as Rosenberg had been to the rest of the men whom she knew? How could she run across them?... As she walked along, different men stopped beside her for a moment, with their “Nice evening, isn’t it?” and “You look sorta lonesome, how about it?” and “Pardon me, but haven’t I met you somewhere before?” and “D’you mind if I talk to you a while?” Sometimes they called to her from automobiles, but they were merely irritating reminders of a real and grossly intruding world, and she ignored them—it never paid to take a chance, for they always turned out to be common and cheap. It stood to reason—why would an enticing man be so “hard up” that he would have to solicit women on the street?
She didn’t know where she was going, but she wanted to imagine that she was searching for some destination that would greet her unexpectedly—a vague, half-laughed-at hope—and she kept on strolling down the hard, flatly dirty, noisy streets.