The visit to the Spillini family had, indeed, led to strange complications and far-reaching results. No one who had known young Seldon Avery and his social life would ever have suspected him, or any member of his set, of a desire to take part in what, by their club friends or favorite reviews, was usually alluded to as the "dirty pool of politics." For the past decade political advancement, at least in New York, had grown to be looked upon by many as a mere matter of purchase and sale, and as quite beneath the dignity of the more refined and cultured men. It had been heralded as a vast joke, therefore, when young Selden Avery, the representative of one of the most cultured families and the honored son of an honored ancestry, had suddenly announced himself as a candidate for the Assembly. His club friends guyed him unmercifully. "We never did believe that you were half as good as you pretended to be, Avery," said one of them, the first time he appeared at the club after his nomination, "but I don't believe a man of us ever suspected you of the depths of depravity that this implies. What ever did put such a ridiculous idea into such a level and self-respecting head? Out with it!"
Banter of this nature met him on every hand. He realized more fully than ever how changed the point of view had grown to be from the historical days of Washington or even of Lincoln. He recalled the time when in his own boyhood his honored father had served in the Legislature of his native state, and had not felt it other than a crowning distinction. Nor had it been so looked upon then by his associates.
Nevertheless the constant jokes and gibes, which held something of a real sting, had become so frequent that, young Avery felt like resenting his friends' humorous thrusts.
"I can't see that I need be ashamed to follow in the footsteps of my father," he said, a little hotly. "Some of the noblest of men—those upon whom the history of this country depends for lustre—held seats in the Assembly, and helped shape the laws of their states. I don't see why I need apologize for a desire to do the same."
"It used to be an association of gentlemen up at the state capital, my boy. Today it is—Lord! you know what it is, I guess. But if you don't, just peruse this sacred volume," laughed his friend, sarcastically, producing a small pamphlet.
"Looks to me as if you'd be rather out of your element with your colleagues. 'M-m-m! Yes, here is the list. Hunted this up after I heard you were going to stand for your district."
The English form of expression was no affectation, for the speaker was far more familiar with political nomenclature abroad than at home. He would have felt it an honor to a man to be called upon to "stand" for his constituency in London, but to "run" for it in New York was far less dignified. Standing gave an idea of repose; running was vulgar. Then, too, the State Legislature did not bear the proportionate relationship to Congress that the Commons did to Parliament, and it was always in connection with that latter body that he had associated the term.
"Let me see. One, two, three, four, 'teen 'steen—yes, I thought I was right! Just exactly nineteen of your nearest colleagues are saloon keepers. One used to keep that disorderly house on Prince Street, four are butchers, one was returned because he had won fame as a base-ballist and—but why go further? Here, Martin, I'm trying to convince Avery that it will be a trifle trying on his nerves to hobnob with the new set he's making for. Don't you think it is rather an anti-climax from the Union to the lower house at Albany? Ye gods!" and he laughed, half in scorn and half in real amusement.
John Martin had extended his hand for the small pamphlet of statistics. He ran his eye over the list, and then turned an amused face upon Avery.
"Think you'll like it?" he asked, dryly. "Or are you taking it as my French friend here says his countrymen take heaven?"
"How's that?" queried Avery, smiling. "In broken doses—or not at all?"
The French gentleman stood with that poise which belongs to the successful man. He glanced from one to the other and spread his hands to either side.
"All Frenchmen desire to go to ze heaven, zhentlemen. Why? Ah, zere air two at-traczions which to effrey French zhentle-man air irresisteble. Ze angels—zey air women—and I suppose zat ze God weal also be an attraction. Ees eet not so?"
Every one in the group laughed and he went on gravely on.
"I zink zat eet ees true—ees eet not?—zat loafly woman will always be vara much ob-searved even in ze heaven eef we zhentlemen are zere. Eef?" He cast up the comers of his eyes, and made another elaborate movement of his hands.
The others all laughed again.
"Yes, zhentlemen, ze true Frenchman cares for two zings: a new sensation—someings zey haf not before experienced,—and zat ees God; and for zat which zey haf obsearved, but of which zey can naavear obsearve enough—loafly woman!"
The explosion of laughter that greeted this sally brought about them a number of other gentlemen, and the talk drifted into different channels. Presently young Avery glanced at his watch and started, with rather a sore heart toward the door. He remembered that he had promised the managers of his campaign that he would be seen that evening at a certain open-air garden frequented by the humbler portion of his constituency. He concluded to go alone the first time that he might the better observe without attracting too much attention. This plan was thought wise to enable him to meet the exigencies of the coming campaign when he should be called upon to speak to this element of this supporters.
Once outside the club house, he took a card from his pocket and glanced at the directions he had jotted upon it.
"I'll walk across to the elevated," he thought, "and make my connection for Grady's place that way. It will save time and look more democratic."
The infinite pathos of life was never better illustrated, perhaps, than in the merrymaking that night at Grady's Pavilion. The easy camaradarie between conscious and unconscious vice; the so-evident struggle the young girls had made to be beautiful and stylish, and the ghastly result of their cheap and incongruous finery; their ignorant acceptance of leers that meant to them honest admiration or affection, and to others meant far different things; their jolly, thoughtless, eager effort to get something joyful out of their narrow lives; the brilliant tints in which they saw the future, and the ghastly light in which it stood revealed to older and more experienced eyes, would have combined to depress a heart less tender and a vision less clear than could have been attributed to Selden Avery. Not that Grady's Pavilion was a bad place.
Many of the girls present would not have been there had it been known as anything short of quite respectable; but it was a free and easy place, where vice meets ignorance without having first made an appointment, where opportunity shakes the ungloved hand of youth and leaves a stain upon the tender palm too deep and dark for future tears to wash away.
"I wonder if I am growing morbid," mused Avery, as he sighed for the third time while looking at the face of a girl not over eighteen years old, but already marked by lines that told of a vaguely dawning comprehension of what the future held for her. Her round-eyed companion, a girl with a childish mind and face, sat beside her, but all the world was bright to her. Life held a prince, a fortune and a career which would be hers one day. She had only to wait, look pretty, and be ready when the apple of fortune fell. Her part was to hold out a pretty apron to break its descent.
"Oh, the infinite pathos of youth!" muttered Avery, feeling himself very old with his thirty years of wider experience as his eyes turned from one girl to the other. "It is hard to tell which is the sadder sight; the disillusioned one or the one who will be even more roughly awakened to-morrow."
His heart ached whenever he studied the face of a young girl. "There is nothing so sad in all the wretched world," he sometimes said, "as the birth of a girl in this grade of life. I am not sure that the nations we look upon as barbarous because they strangle the little things before they are able to think—I am not at all sure that they are not more civilized than we after all. We only maim them with ignorance and utter dependence, and then turn them out into a life where either of these alone is an incalculable curse, and the combination is as fatal as fire in a field of ripened grain."
The younger girl was looking at him. Her wide expectant eyes rested on his face with a frankness and interest that touched his mood anew.
"Poor little thing," he said, half aloud; "if I were to see her bound hand and foot and cast into a den of wolves, I might hope to rescue her; but from this, for such as she there is absolutely no escape. How dare people bring into the world those who must suffer?"
"Huh?" said a voice beside him. He had spoken in a semi-audible tone, and his neighbor had responded after his habitual fashion, to what he looked upon as an overture to conversation.
"I did not intend to speak aloud," said Avery, turning to glance at the man beside him; "but I was just wondering how people dared to have children—girls particularly."
The man beside him turned his full face upon him and examined him critically from head to foot. Then he laughed. It was the first time he had ever heard it hinted that it was not a wholly commendable thing to bring as many children into the world as nature would permit. His first thought had been that Avery was insane, but after looking at him he decided that he was only a grim joker.
"I reckon they don't spend no great deal of time prayin' over the subject," he said, laughing again. Then he crossed his legs and added, "an' I don't suppose they get any telegrams tellin' them they're goin' tobegirls, neither. If they did, a good many men would lick the boy that brought the despatch, for God knows most of us would a dam sight ruther have boys."
The laugh had died out of his voice, and there was a ring of disappointment and aggrieved trouble in it. Selden Avery shifted his position.
"I was not looking at it from the point of view of the parents of unwelcome girls," he said, presently, "but from the outlook of the girls of unwelcome parents. The reckoning from that side looks to me a good deal longer than the other." His voice was pleasant, but his eyes looked perplexed and determined. His neighbor began to readjust his opinion of Avery's sanity, and moved his chair a little farther away before he spoke.
"Got any children of your own?" he inquired, succinctly. Avery shook his head. The man drew down the comers of his mouth in a contemptuous grimace. "I thought not. If you had, you'd take it a dam sight easier. Children are an ungrateful lot. They're never satisfied—or next to never. They think you're made for their comfort instead of their bein' for yours. I've got nine, and I know what I'm talkin' about. If you've got any sympathy to throw away don't waste it on children. Parents, in these days of degenerate youngsters, are passin' around the hat for sympathy. In my day it was just the other way. If one of the young ones went wrong, people pitied the father and blamed the child. Now-a-days they blame the father and weep over the young one that makes the mischief. It makes me mad."
He shut his teeth with a suddenness that suggested a snap, and flashed a defiant look about the room.
Avery glanced at his heavy, stubborn face, and decided not to reply. He was in no mood for controversy. And what good could it do, he said to himself, to argue with a mere lump of selfish egotism?
"That is an unusually pretty girl over by the piano," he said, in a tone of mild indifference which he hoped would serve as a period to the conversation.
"She's Tom Berton's girl," was the quick reply. "Berton's up to Albany most o' the time, with me. I represent our district. She's a nice little thing. She'll do anything you ask her to. I never see her equal for that. It's easier for her to do your way than it is to do her own. She likes to; so everybody likes her. I wish I had one like her; but my girls are as stubborn as mules. They won't drive, and they won't lead, and they'd ruther kick than eat. I don't know where they got it. Their mother wasn't half so bad that way, and the Lord knows it ain't inmyfamily. The girl she's with is one o' mine. She looks like she could eat tenpenny nails. She might be just as pretty an' just as much liked as Ettie Berton, but she ain't. She's always growlin' about somethin'. I'll bet a dollar she'll growl about this when we get home. Ettie will think it was splendid. She'd have a good time at a funeral; but that girl of mine 'll get me to spend a dollar to come here and then she'll go home dissatisfied. It won't be up to what she expected.
"Things never are. She's always lookin' to find things some other way. Now, what would you do with a girl like that?" he asked suddenly. Then without waiting for a reply, he added, "I give her a good tongue lashin', an' as she always knows it's comin', she's got so she don't kickquiteso much as she used to, but she just sets an' looks sullen like that. It makes me so mad I could—"
He did not finish his remark, but got up and strolled away without the formality of an adieu.
Avery watched his possible future colleague until he was lost in the crowd, and then he walked deliberately over to where the two girls stood.
"I have been talking with your father," he said, smiling and bowing to the older girl, "and although he did not say that I might come and talk to you, he told me who you were, and I think he would not object."
"Oh, no; he wouldn't object," said the younger girl, eagerly. "Would he, Fan? Everybody talks here. He told me so before we came. It's the first time we've been; but he's been before. I think it's splendid, don't you?"
The older girl had not spoken. She was looking at Selden Avery with half suppressed interest and embryonic suspicion. She still knew too little of life to have formed even a clearly defined doubt as to him or his intentions in speaking to them. She was less happy than she had expected to be when she dressed to come with her ever-dawning hope for a real pleasure. She thought there must be something wrong with her because things never seemed to come up to her expectations. She supposed this must be "society," and that when she got used to it, she would enjoy it more. But somehow she had wanted to resent it the first time a man spoke to her, and then, afterward, she was glad she did not, for he had danced with Ettie twice, and Ettie had said it was a lovely dance. She had made up her mind to accept the next offer she had, but when it came, the eyes of the man were so beady-black, and the odor of bay rum radiated so insistently from him that she declined. She hated bay rum because the worst scolding her father ever gave her was when she had emptied his cherished bottle upon her own head. The odor always brought back the heart-ache and resentment of that day, and so she did not think she cared to dance just then.
Selden Avery looked at Ettie. He did not want to tell her what he did think and he had not the heart to dampen her ardor, so he simply smiled, and said:
"It is my first visit here, too; and I don't know a soul. I noticed you two young ladies a while ago, and spoke of you to the gentleman next to me and it chanced to be your father"—he turned to the older girl again—"so that was what gave me courage to come over here. If I had thought of it before he left me, I'd have asked him to introduce me, but I'm rather slow to think. My name is Selden Avery."
"Did father tell you mine?" she asked, looking at him steadily, with eyes that held floating ends of thoughts that were never formed in full.
"No, he didn't," replied Avery, laughing a little. "He told me yours, though," turning to the merry child at his side. "Ettie Berton, Tom Berton's daughter."
Ettie laughed, and clapped her hands together twice.
"Got it right the first time! But what did he give me away for and not her? She is Francis King. That is, her father's name's King, but she is so awfully particular about things and so hard to suit she ought to be named Queen, I tell her, so I call her Queen Fan mostly." There was a little laugh all around, and Avery said:—
"Very good, very good, indeed;" but Francis looked uncomfortable and so he changed the subject. Presently she looked at him and asked:—
"Do you think things are ever like they are in books? Do you think this is? She waved her hand toward the music and the lights. In the books I have read—and the story papers—it all seems nicer than this and—and different. It is because I say that, that they all make fun of me and call me Queen Fan, and father says—" she paused, and a cold light gathered in her eyes. "He don't like it, so I don't say it much, now. He says it's all put on; but it ain't Everything does seem to turn out so different from what you expected—from the way you read about. I've not felt like I thoughtmaybeI should to-night because—because—" she stopped again.
"Because why?" asked Avery, laughing a little. "Because I'm not a bit like the usual story-book prince you ought to have met and—?"
She smiled, and Ettie made a droll little grimace.
"No, it wasn't that at all. I've been thinking most all evening that it wasn't worth—that—"
"Oh, she's worried," put in Ettie, "because she got her father to spend a dollar to bring her. She's afraid he'll throw it up to her afterward, and she thinks it won't pay for that, so it spoils the whole thing before he does it—just being afraid he will. But I tell her he won't, this time. I—" Francis' eyes had filled with tears of mortification, and Avery pretended not to have heard. He affected a deep interest in the music.
"Do you know what it is they are playing now?" he asked, with his eyes fixed upon the musicians. "I thought at first that it was going to be—No, it is—Ton my word I can't recall it, and I ought to know what it is, too. The first time I ever heard it, I remember—"
He turned toward where Francis had stood, but she was gone. "Why, what has become of Miss King?" he asked of the other girl. Ettie looked all about, laughed and wondered and chattered as gaily as a bird.
"I expect she's gone home. She's the queerest you ever saw. I guess she didn't want me to say that about her pa. But it'll make him madder than anything if she has gone that way. He won't like it at all—an' I can't blame him. What's the use to be so different from other folks?" she inquired, sagely, and then she added, laughing: "I don't know as she is so different, either. We all hate things, but we pretend we don't. Don't you think it's better to pretend to like things, whether you do or not?"
"No," replied Avery, beginning to look with surprise upon this small philosopher who had no conception of the worldly wisdom of her own philosophy.
"I do," she said, laughing again. "It goes down better. Everybody likes you better. I've found that out already, and so I pretend to like everything. Of course I do like some of 'em, and some I don't, but it's just as easy to say you like 'em all." She laughed again, and kept time with her toe on the floor.
"Just what don't you like?" asked Avery, smiling. "Won't you tell me, truly? I won't tell any one, and I'd like to be sure of one thing you object to—on principle."
"Well, tob—Do you smoke?" she asked.
He shook his head, and pursed up his lips negatively.
"I thought not," she said, gaily. "You look like you didn't. Well, I hate—hate—hate—hate smoke. When I go on a ferry-boat, and the air is so nice and cool and different from at home, and seems so clean, I just love it, and then—"
"Some one sits near you and smokes," put in Avery, consolingly.
"Yes, they do; and I just most pray that he'll fall over and get drownded—but he never does; and if he asks me if I object to smoke, I say, 'Oh! not at all!' and then he thinks I'm such a nice, sensible girl. Fan tells 'em right out that she don't like it. It makes her deadly sick, and the boys all hate her for it. Her father says it's da—— I was going to say his cuss word, but I guess I won't. Anyhow, he says it's all nonsense and put on. I guess I better go. There is her father looking for us. Poor Fan'll catch it when we get home! Good-night. I've had a lovely time, haven't you?" She waved her hand. Then she retraced the step she had taken. "Don't tell that I don't like tobacco," she said, and started away laughing. He followed her a few steps.
"How is any fellow to know what you really do like?" he asked, smiling, "if you do that way?"
"Fan says nobody wants to know," she said, slyly. "She says they want to know that I like what they want me to like, and think what they think I think." She laughed again. "And of course I do," she added, and bowed in mock submission. "Now, Fan don't. That's where she misses it; and if she don't—reform," she said, lowering her voice, as she neared that young lady's father, "she is going to see trouble that is trouble. I'll bet a cent on it. Don't you?" she asked, as she bestowed a bright smile upon Mr. King.
"Yes," said Avery, and lifting his hat, turned on his heel and was lost in the crowd.
"Where's Fan?" inquired that young lady's father in a tone which indicated that, as a matter of course, she was up to some devilment again.
"She got a headache and went home quite a while ago," said that young lady's loyal little friend. "She enjoyed it quite a lot till she did get a headache." As they neared the street where both lived, Ettie said: "That man talked to her, and I think she liked him."
"Humph!" said Mr. King. "I wouldn't be surprised. She'd be likely to take to a lunatic. I thought he was about the damnedest fool I ever saw; didn't you?"
"Yes," said Ettie, laughing, "and I liked him for it."
Mr. King burst into a roar of laughter. "Of course you did! You'd like the devil. You're that easy to please. I wish to the Lord Fan was," and with a hearty "goodnight," he left her at her father's door, and crossed the street.
Once outside the garden, Avery drew from his pocket the little pamphlet which his club friend had given him, and ran his finger down the list.
"King, member the—ah, ha! one end of his ward joins mine! 'M-m-m; yes, I see. He is one of the butchers. I suspected as much. Let me see; yes, he votes my ticket, too. If I'm elected we'll be comrades-in-arms, so to speak I suppose I ought to have told him who I was; but if I'm elected he'll find out soon enough, and if I'm beaten—well, I can't say that I'm anxious to extend the acquaintance." He replaced the book in his pocket as the guard called out, 'Thirty-Fourth Street! 'strain for Arlem!' and left the train, musing as he strolled along. "Yes, Gertrude was quite right—quite. We fortunate ones have no right to allow all this sort of thing to go on. We have no right to leave it entirely to such men as that to make the laws. I don't care if the fellows up at the club do guy me. Gertrude—" He drew from his breast-pocket a little note, and read it for the tenth time.
"I am so gratified to hear that you have accepted the nomination," it said. "You have the time, and mental and moral equipment to give to the work Were I a man, I should not sleep o' nights until some way was devised to prevent all the terrible poverty and ignorance and brutishness we were talking about the other day. I went to see that Spillini family again. I was afraid to go alone, so I took with me two girls who are in a sewing class, which is, just now a fad at our Church Guild. I thought their experience with poverty would enable them to think of a way to get at this case; but it did not. They appeared to think it was all right It seems to me that ignorance and poverty leave no room for thought, or even for much feeling. It hurt me like a knife to have those girls laugh over it after we came out; at least, one of them laughed, and the other seemed scornful, It is not fair to expect more of them, I know, for we expect so little of ourselves. It is thinking of all this that makes me write to tell you how glad I am that you are to represent your district in Albany. Such men are needed, for I know you will work for the poor with the skill of a trained intellect and a sympathetic heart. I am so glad. Sincerely your friend, Gertrude Foster."
Mr. Avery replaced the note in his pocket, and smiled contentedly. "I don't care a great deal what the fellows at the club say," he repeated. "I'm satisfied, if Gertrude—" He had spoken the last few words almost audibly, and the name startled him. He realized for the first time that he had fallen into the habit of thinking of her as Gertrude, and it suddenly flashed upon him that Miss Foster might be a good deal surprised by that fact if she knew it. He fell to wondering if she would also be annoyed. There was a tinge of anxiety in the speculation. Then it occurred to him that the sewing class of the Guild might give an outlet and a chance for a bit of pleasure to that strange girl he had seen at Grady's Pavilion, and he made a little memorandum, and decided to call upon Gertrude and suggest it to her. He fell asleep that night and dreamed of Gertrude Foster, holding out a helping hand to a strange, tall girl, with dissatisfied eyes, and that Ettie Berton was laughing gaily and making everybody comfortable, by asserting that she liked everything exactly as she found it.
The next evening Avery called upon Gertrude to thank her for her letter, and, incidentally, to tell her of the experience at Grady's Pavilion, and bespeak the good office of the Guild for those two human pawns, who had, somehow, weighed upon his heart.
Avery was not a Churchman himself, but he felt very sure that any Guild which would throw Gertrude Foster's influence about less fortunate girls, would be good, so he gave very little thought to the phase of it which was not wholly related to the personality of the young woman in whose eyes he had grown to feel he must appear well and worthy, if he retained his self-respect. This bar of judgment had come, by unconscious degrees, to be the one before which he tried his own cases for and against himself.
"Would Gertrude like it if she should know? Would I dislike to have her know that I did this or felt that?" was now so constantly a part of his mental processes, that he had become quite familiar with her verdicts, which were most often passed—from his point of view, and in his own mind—without the knowledge of the girl herself.
He had never talked of love to her, except in the general and impersonal fashion of young creatures who are wont to eagerly discuss the profound perplexities of life without having come face to face with one of them. One day they had talked of love in a cottage. The conversation had been started by the discussion of a new novel they had just read, and Avery told her of a strange fellow whom he knew, who had married against the wishes of his father, and had been disinherited.
"He lost his grip, somehow," said Avery, "and went from one disaster into another. First he lost his place, and the little salary they had to live on was stopped. It was no fault of his. It had been in due course of a business change in the firm he worked for. He got another, but not so good a situation, but the little debts that had run up while he was idle were a constant drag on him. He never seemed able to catch up. Then his wife's health failed. She needed a change of climate, rare and delicate food, a quiet mind relieved of anxiety, but he could not give her these. His own nerves gave way under the strain, and at last sickness overtook him, and he had to appeal to me for a loan."
It was the letter which his friend had written when in that desperate frame of mind, which Avery read to Gertrude the day they had discussed the novel together. It was a strange, desperate letter, and it had greatly stirred Gertrude. One passage in it had rather shocked her. It was this: "When a fellow is young, and knows little enough of life to accept the fictions of fiction as guides, he talks or thinks about it as 'love in a cottage.' After he has tried it a while, and suffered in heart and soulbecauseof his love of those whom he must see day after day handicapped in mind and wrecked in body for the need of larger means, he begins to speak of it mournfully as 'poverty with love' But when that awful day comes, when sickness or misfortune develops before his helpless gaze all the horrors of dependence and agony of mind that the future outlook shows him, then it is that the fitting description comes, and he feels like painting above the door he dreads to enter—'hell at home.' Without the love there would be no home; without the poverty no hell. Neither lightens the burdens of the other. Each multiplies all that is terrible in both."
Gertrude had listened to the letter with a sad heart. When she did not speak, Avery felt that he should modify some of its terms if he would be fair to his absent acquaintance.
"Of course he would have worded it a little differently if he had known that any one else would read it. He was desperate. He had gone through such a succession of disasters. If anything was going to fall it seemed as if he was sure to be under it, so I don't much wonder at his language after—"
"I don't wonder at it at all," said Gertrude, looking steadily into the fire. "What seems wonderful, is the facts which his words portray. I can see that they are facts; but what I cannot see is—is—"
"How he could express them so raspingly—so—?" began Avery, but she turned to him quite frankly surprised.
"Oh, no! Not that. But how can it be right that it should be so? And if it is not right, why do not you men who have the power, do something to straighten things out? Is this sort of suffering absolutelynecessaryin the world?"
It was this talk and its suggestions which had led Avery to first take seriously into consideration the proposition that he run for a seat in the Assembly. It seemed to him that men like himself, who had both leisure and convictions, might do some good work there, and he began to realize that the law-making of the state was left, for the most part, in very dangerous hands, and that a law once passed must inevitably help to crystallize public opinion in such a way as to retard freer or better action.
"To think of allowing that class of men to set the standards about which public opinion forms and rallies!" he thought, as the professional politician arose before him, and his mind was made up. He would be a candidate. So the night after his experience at Grady's Pavilion he had another puzzle to lay before Gertrude. When he entered the hallway he was sorry to hear voices in the drawing-room. He had hoped to find Gertrude and her mother alone. His first impulse was to leave his card and call at another time, but the servant recognizing his hesitation, ventured a bit of information.
"Excuse me, Mr. Avery, but I don't think they will be here long. It's a couple of—They—"
"Thank you, James. Are they not friends of Miss Gertrude?"
James smiled in a manner which displayed a large capacity for pity.
"Well, sir, I shouldn't say they was exactly friends. No, sir, ner yet callers, sir. They're some of them Guilders."
Avery could not guess what Gertrude would have gilders in the drawing-room for at that hour, but decided to enter. "Mr. Avery;" said James, in his most formal and perfunctory fashion, as he drew back the portière and announced the new arrival No one would have dreamed from the stolid front presented by the liveried functionary, that he had just exchanged confidences with the guest.
"Let me introduce my friends to you, Mr. Avery," began Gertrude, and two figures arose, and from one came a gay little laugh, a mock courtesy, and "Law me! It's him! Well, if this don't beat the Dutch!"
She extended her hand to him and laughed again. "We didn't shake hands last night, but now's we're regul'rly interduced I guess we will," she added.
Avery took her hand, and then offered his to her companion, and bowed and smiled again.
"Really, I shall begin to grow superstitious," he said, in an explanatory tone to Gertrude. "I came here to-night to see if I could arrange to have you three young ladies meet; to learn if there was a chance at the Guild to—"
"Oh," smiled Gertrude, beginning to grasp the situation. "How very nice! But these two are my star girls at the Guild now. We were just arranging some work for next week, but—"
"Yas, she wants to go down to that Spillini hole agin," broke in Ettie Berton, and Francis King glanced suspiciously from Gertrude to Avery. She wondered just what these two were thinking. She felt very uncomfortable and wished that he had not come in. She had not spoken since Avery entered, and he realized her discomfort.
"You treated us pretty shabbily last night, Miss King," he said, smiling, and then he turned to Gertrude. "She left me in the middle of a remark. We met at Grady's Pavilion, and if I'm elected, I learn that the fathers of both of these young ladies will be my companions-in-arms in the Assembly. They—!" In spite of herself, Gertrude's face showed her surprise, but Ettie Berton broke in with a gay laugh.
"Are you in politics? Law me! I'd never a believed it. I don't see how you're agoin' to get on unless you get a—"
She realized that her remark was going to indicate a belief in certain incapacity in him, and she took another cue.
"My pa says nobody hardly can't get on in politics by himself. You see my pa is a sort of a starter for Fan's pa in politics, 're else he'd never got on in the world. Fan's pa backs him, and he starts things that her pa wants started."
Francis moved uneasily, and Gertrude said: "That is natural enough since they were friends here, and, I think you told me, were in business together, didn't you?"
Ettie laughed, and clapped her hands gaily. "That's good! In business together! Oh, Lord, I'll tell pa that. He'll roar. Why, pa is a prerofessional starter. He ain't in business with no particular one only jest while the startin's done."
The girl appeared to think that Avery and Gertrude were quite familiar with professional starters, and she rattled on gaily.
"I thought I'd die the time he started them butcher shops for Fan's pa, though. He hadn't never learnt the difference between a rib roast 'n a soup bone, 'n he had to keep a printed paper hung up inside o' the ice chest so's he'd know which kind of a piece he got out to sell; but he talked so nice an' smooth all the time hewasa gettin' it out, an' tole each customer that the piece they asked fer was the 'choicest part of the animal,' but that mighty few folks had sense enough to know it—oh, it was funny! I used to get where I could hear him, and jest die a laughin'. He'd sell the best in the shop for ten cents a pound, an' he'd cut it which ever way they ast him to, an' make heavy weight. His price list was a holy show, but he jest scooped in all the trade around there in no time, an' the other shops had to move. Then you ought t' a seen Fan's pa come in there an' brace things up! Whew!" She laughed delightedly, and Francis's face flushed.
"He braced prices up so stiff that some o' the customers left, but most of 'em stayed rather'n hunt up a new place to start books in. Pa, he'd started credit books withallof 'em.
"Pa, he was in the back room the first day Fan's pa and the new clerk took the shop, after pa got it good'n started. Him an' me most died laughin' at the kickin' o' the people. Every last one of 'em ast fer pa to wait on 'em, but Fan's pa he told 'em that he'd bankrupted hisself and had t' sell out to him. Pa said he wisht he had somethin' to bankrupt on. But, law, he'll never make no money. He ain't built that way. He's a tip top perfessional starter tho', ain't he, Fan?" she concluded with a gleeful reminiscent grimace at her friend. Francis shifted her position awkwardly, and tried to feel that everything was quite as it should be in good society, and Gertrude made a little attempt to divert the conversation to affairs of the Guild, but Ettie Berton, who appeared to look upon her father as a huge joke, and to feel herself most at home in discussing him, broke in again:—
"But the time he started the 'Stable fer Business Horses,' was the funniest yet," and she laughed until her eyes filled with tears, and she dried them with the lower part of the palms of her hands, rubbing them red.
"The boss told him not to take anythingbutbusiness horses. What he meant was, to be sure not to let in any fancy high-steppers, fer fear they'd get hurt or sick, an' he'd have trouble about 'em Well, pa didn't understand at first, an' he wouldn't take no mules, an' most all the business horses around therewasmules, an' when drivers'd ask him why he wouldn't feed 'em 'er take 'em in, he jest had t' fix up the funniest stories y' ever heard. He tole one man that he hadn't laid in the kind o' feed mules eat, n' the man told him he was the biggest fool to talk he ever see. The mule-man he—"
Francis King had arisen, and started awkwardly toward Gertrude, with her hand extended.
"I think we ought to go," she said, uneasily, her large eyes burning with mortification, and an oppressed sense of being at a disadvantage.
"So soon?" said Gertrude, smiling as she took her hand, and laid her other arm about the shoulders of Ettie, who had hastened to place herself in the group. "I was so entertained that I did not realize that perhaps you ought to go before it grows late—oh," glancing at a tiny watch in her bracelet, "it is late—too late for you to go way down there alone. I will send James, or—"
"Allow me the pleasure, will you not?" asked Avery, bowing first to Gertrude, and then toward Francis, and Gertrude said:—
"Oh, thank you, if—" but Ettie clapped her hands in glee.
"Well, that's too rich! Just as if we didn't go around by ourselves all the time, and—Lord! pa says if anybody carries me off he'd only go as far as the lamp-post, and drop me as soon as the light struck me! Now Fan's pretty, but—" she laughed, and made clawing movements in the air. "Nobody'll get away with Queen Fan's long's she's got finger-nails 'n teeth." She snapped her pretty little white teeth together with mock viciousness, and laughed again. "I'd just pity the fellow that tried any tomfoolery with Queen Fan. He'd wish he'd died young!"
They all laughed a bit at this sally, and Avery said he did not want Miss King to be forced to extremities in self-protection while he was able to relieve her of the necessity.
When James closed the door behind the laughing group, he glanced at Miss Gertrude to see what she thought of it, but he remarked to Susan later on, that "Miss Gertrude looked as if she was born 'n brought up that way herself. She didn't show no amusement ner no sarcasm in her face. An' as fer Mr. Avery, it was nothing short of astonishing, to see him offer his arms to those two Guilders as they started down the avenue."
And Susan ventured it as her present belief, that if Gertrude's father once caught any of her Guilders around, he'd "make short work of the whole business. She ought't be ashamed o' herself, so she ought. Ketchme,if I was in her shoes, a consortin' with—"
"Anybody but me, Susie," put in the devoted James; but alas, for him, the stiff, unyielding hooked joint of his injured finger came first in contact with the wrist of the fair Susan as he essayed to clasp her hand, and she evaded the grasp and flung out of the room with a shiver. "Keep that old twisted base-ball bat off o' me! I—"
"Oh, Susie!" said James, dolefully, to himself, as he slowly surrounded the offending member with the folds of his handkerchief, which gave it the appearance of being in hospital. "Oh, Susie! how kin you?"
When John Martin, on his way, intending to drop in for the last act of the opera, passed Gertrude's door just in time to see Avery and the two girls come down the steps, his lip curled a bit, and his heart performed that strange feat which loving hearts have achieved in all the ages past, in spite of reason and of natural impulses of kindness. It took on a distinctly hard feeling towards Avery, and this feeling was not unmixed with resentment. "How dare he take girls like that to her house? I was a fool to take her to the Spillinis, but I'd never be idiot enough to take that type of girl toherhouse. Avery's political freak has dulled his sense of propriety."
Mr. Martin wondered vaguely if he ought not to say something to Gertrude's father, and then he thought it might possibly be better to touch lightly upon it himself in talking to her.
He had heard some gossip at the opera and in the club, which indicated that society did not approve altogether of some of the things Gertrude had recently said and done; but that it smiled approvingly at what it believed to be as good as an engagement between the young lady and Selden Avery. Martin ground his teeth now as he thought of it, and glanced again at the retreating forms of Avery and the two girls.
"It was that visit to the Spillinis, and the revelation of life which it gave her, that is to blame for it all," he groaned. "I was an accursed fool—an accursed fool!"
That night Gertrude lay thinking how charmingly Selden Avery had met the situation, and how well he had helped carry it off with Ettie and Francis. "He seemed to look at it all just as I do," she thought. I felt that I knew just what he was thinking, and he certainly guessed that I wanted him to see them home, exactly as if they had been girls of our own set. "Poor little Ettie! I wonder what we can do with, or for, such as she? She is so hopelessly—happy and ignorant." Then she fell asleep, and dreamed of rescuing Ettie from the fangs a maddened dog, and Francis stood by and looked scornfully at Gertrude's lacerated hands, and then pointed to her little friend's mangled body and the smile upon her dead lips.
"She never knew what hurt her, and she teased the dog to begin with," she said. "You are maimed for life, and may go mad, just trying to help her—and she never knew and she never cared." Gertrude's dreamed had strayed and wandered into vagaries without form or outline, and in the morning nothing of it was left but an unreasonably heavy heart, and a restless desire to do—she knew not what.
When Avery took his seat in the Assembly he learned that Ettie Berton's father had been true to his calling. He still might be described as a professional starter. Any bill which was in need of some one to either introduce or offer a speech in its favor, found in John Berton an ever-ready champion.
Not that he either understood or believed in all the bills he presented or advocated. Belief and understanding were not for sale; nor, indeed, were they always very much within his own grasp. He was in the Legislature to promote, or start, such measures as stood in need of his peculiar abilities. This was very soon understood, and many a bill which other men feared or hesitated to present found its way to him and through him to a reading. For a while Avery watched this process with amusement. He wrote to Gertrude, from time to time, some very humorous letters about it; but finally, one day a letter came which so bitterly denounced both King and Berton, that Gertrude wondered what could have wrought the sudden change.
"He has introduced a bill which is now before my committee," he wrote, "that passes all belief. It is infamous beyond words to express, and, to my dismay, it finds many advocates beside King and Berton. That a conscienceless embruted inmate of an opium dive in Mott Street might acknowledge to himself in the dark, and when he was alone, that he could advocate such a measure, seems to me possible; but men who are in one sense reputable, who—many of them—look upon themselves as respectable; men who are fathers of girls and brothers of women, could even consider such a bill, I would not have believed possible, and yet, I am ashamed to say that I learn now for the first time, that our state is not the only one where similar measures have not only found advocates, but where there were enough moral lepers with voting power to establish such legislation. It makes me heartsick and desperate. I am ashamed of the human race. I am doubly ashamed that it is to my sex such infamous laws are due.
"You were right, my dear Miss Gertrude; you were right. It is outrageous that we allow mere conscienceless politicians to legislate for respectable people, and yet my position here is neither pleasant, nor will it, I fear, be half so profitable as you hope—as I hoped, before I came and learned all I now know. But, believe me, I shall vote on every bill and make every speech, with your face before me, and as if I were making that particular law to apply particularly to you."
Gertrude smiled as she re-read that part of his letter.
She wondered what awful bill Ettie's father had presented. She had never before thought that a legislator might strive to enact worse laws than he already found in the statute books. She had thought most of the trouble was that they did not take the time and energy to repeal old, bad laws that had come to us from an ignorant or brutal past.
It struck her as a good idea, that a man should never vote on a measure that he did not feel he was making a rule of action to apply to the woman for whom he cared most; she knew now that she was that woman for Selden Avery. He had told her that the night he came to bring the news that he was elected. It had been told in a strangely simple way.
Her father and mother had laughingly congratulated him upon his election, and Mr. Poster had added, banteringly: "If one may congratulate a man upon taking a descent like that."
Gertrude had held one of her father's hands in her own, and tried by gentle pressure to check him. Her father laughed, and added: "The little woman here is trying to head me off. She appears to think—"
"Papa," said Gertrude, extending her other hand to Avery, "I do think that Mr. Avery is to be congratulated that he has the splendid courage to try to do something distinctly useful for other people, than simply for the few of us who are outside or above most of the horrors of life. I do—" Avery suddenly lifted her hand to his lips, and his eyes told the rest. "Mr. Foster," he said, still holding the girl's hand, and blushing painfully, "there can never be but one horror in the world too awful for me to face, and that would be to lose the full respect and confidence of your daughter. I know I have those now, and for the rest —" He glanced again at Gertrude. She was pale, and she was looking with an appeal in her eyes to her mother.
Mrs. Foster moved a step nearer, and put her arm about the girl. "For the rest, Mr. Avery, for the rest—later on, later on," she said, kindly. "Gertrude has traveled very fast these past few months, but she is her mother's girl yet." Then she smiled kindly, and added: "Gertrude has set a terrible standard for the man she will care for. I tremble for him and I tremble for her."
"Tut, tut," said her father, "there are no standards in love—none whatever. Love has its own way, and standards crumble—"
"In the past, perhaps. But in the future—" began his wife.
"In the future," said Gertrude, as she drew nearer to her mother, "in the future they may not need to crumble, because,—because—" Her eyes met Avery's, and fell. She saw that his muscles were tense, and his face was unhappy.
"Because men will be great enough and true enough to rise to the ideals, and not need to crumble the ideals to bring them to their level."
Avery bent forward and grasped her hand that was within her mother's.
"Thank you," he said, tremulously. "Thank you, oh, darling! and the rest can wait," he said, to Mrs. Poster, and dropping both hands, he left the room and the house.
Gertrude ran up-stairs and locked her door.
Mr. Foster turned to his wife with a half amused, half vexed face. "Well, this is a pretty kettle of fish. What's to become of Martin, I'd like to know?"
"John Martin has never had a ghost of a chance at any time—never," said his wife, slowly trailing her gown over the rug, and dragging with it a small stand that had caught its carved claw in the lace. It toppled and fell with a crash. The beautiful vase it had held was in fragments. "Oh, Katharine!" exclaimed her husband, springing forward to disengage her lace. "Oh, it is too bad, isn't it?"
And Katherine Foster burst into tears, and with her arms suddenly thrown about her husband's neck she sobbed: "Oh, yes, it is too bad! It is too bad!" But it did not seem possible to her husband that the broken vase could have so affected her, and surely no better match could be asked for Gertrude. It could not be that. He was deeply perplexed, and Katherine Foster, with a searching look in her face, kissed him sadly as one might kiss the dead, and went to her daughter's room.
She tapped lightly and then said, "It is I, daughter."
The girl opened the door and as quickly closed and locked it. Instantly their arms were around each other and both were close to tears.
"Don't try to talk, darling," whispered Mrs. Foster, as they sat down upon the couch. "Don't try to talk. I understand better than you do yet, and oh, Gertrude, your mother loves you!"
"Yes, mamma," said the girl, hoarsely. "Dear little mamma—poor little mamma, we all love you;" and Mrs. Foster sighed.