CHAPTER EIGHTINo sooner were they back in their Lorillard tenement, than Robert Lloyd came in."Well, Cato, where did you drop from?" said Cornelia, who was lazily tidying up the rooms while Janet was doing the breakfast dishes."From the Harlem Gorilla in the flat next door.""Really! And what didhehave to say?""Not much. He isn't a talker like me. He's a doer. He tried to explain a few tricks in gymnastics to me. But every second sentence or so the word 'Cornelia' crept into the explanation. It was decidedly confusing.""Pray what has the word 'Cornelia' to do with the subject of gymnastics?" asked the owner of the name."Ah, what! I asked the Gorilla that question myself. But he simply repeated the name adoringly and looked all sorts of unutterable things. Beware, Cornelia. He thinks the sun rises in one of your eyes and sets in the other. I believe he is planning to carry you off by main force to his cave, his gymnasium cave.""A lot he is! He couldn't carry off a buttercup against its wishes. Really, Araminta, he's the gentlest and shyest 'wild man' you ever laid eyes on. How he ever came to take Gorilla for a nickname, I can't imagine.""Nor I," said Robert. "But don't forget that he has learnt the art of concentrating his enormous strength on one or two crucial points. Certainly he treated Hutchins Burley to a good exhibition of his mastery, didn't he? For all that, he's a very singularly gentle sort of Hercules. If I had to provide one for you, Cornelia, I'd get a much more ferocious specimen, if only to pay you out for kiting away with Janet, after promising me you'd both stay in. I've been waiting for you since noon.""Poor Cato, I'm terribly sorry. In the excitement of having Janet here, I clean forgot you were coming. Waiting since noon, were you, poor boy! There's devotion for you, Araminta. Never mind, Rob. Here she is, now. And all's well that ends well, I hope.""I thought you'd like company on your way home, Janet," said Robert to her directly."Thanks very much," said Janet, not wishing to lose Robert and yet not caring to say that Claude had promised to call for her, if he could possibly get away from business. Before she could say more, Cornelia interposed. She had not expected Robert to wait and had not quite swallowed her chagrin over this surprise."How do you happen to be off duty, Rob?" she asked. "Does theEvening Chroniclestop work for you on Saturdays?""No. I've stopped work for theEvening Chronicleon Saturdays and all other days.""What! Don't tell me Hutchins has discharged you!"Cornelia gave up the last pretense of working, and sank aghast into an armchair."I didn't give him a chance. I discharged myself.""If he had—" she began, setting her teeth vindictively."Exactly. In his sober moments, Cornelia, you are apparently the only mortal soul he stands in some fear of. It was only because of a sneaking affection he has for you that he hesitated to fire me.""Well, why throw a good bargain away?""A nice position it would have left me in. That of an understrapper for Burley to play cat and mouse with. Not if I know it! Burley likes to torture the people in his power as much as you do, the only difference being that his weapon is coarse brutality while yours is insidious charm.""Your comparisons, Cato, have the merit of being as unambiguous as they are rude. I trust you gave Hutchins Burley the benefit of a few of them.""Oh, no, I always forgive my enemies. Nothing enrages them more. I left Hutchins stunned. But I've no doubt he recovered in time to appoint the successor that I sent him.""That you sent him?""Yes. You don't know him, but Janet does. Janet, do you remember the tall, thin, aristocratic chap who was always mysteriously turning up and who stopped Burley at the tent?""Of course I do. He wore a quaint stand-up collar with two points sticking into his neck. It was he who warned Claude about the raid.""Oh, did he? Well, when I was on my way up the stairs here at noon, he suddenly appeared, like a ghost stepping out of the stone wall. It gave me quite a start. I asked him where he was bound for. 'Nowhere in particular,' was his answer."Robert had got to talking with the mysterious one, who confessed that he had just rented a flat in the model tenements. On Robert's alluding to the severance of his connection with theEvening Chronicle, his new acquaintance had asked permission to apply for the vacant place. He claimed to have an ear for news and remarked casually that information was always drifting his way."As if I had any permission to give!" continued Robert. "I warned him what he'd be up against in the person of Hutchins Burley, and bade him Godspeed.""He's either a detective or the Prince of Zenda in disguise," said Janet. "Which do you think, Robert?""From the speed and completeness with which he obliterates himself, I should favor the detective theory. On the other hand, there's his get-up! That melancholy, drooping mustache, that semi-clerical collar, and that comical tip-tilted chin! The fellow's simply unforgettable. He must be a prince incognito.""Yes, we'll have him a prince!" exclaimed Janet, who, at twenty-four, had a normal craving for romantic illusion. "But I should like him in any part.""A prince! Nonsense, children!" interjected Cornelia, in her most languid cadences. "He's probably a burglar.""A burglar!""Certainly not a detective. Detectives don't obliterate themselves. They don't know how to. And they never look like princes in disguise. They're not clever enough. All the detectives I ever saw looked like butchers on a strike. The only man, rich, skillful and bold enough to take his fellow man at a right royal disadvantage is a first-class burglar. A Raffles, for instance, might be a prince 'incognito.'"Cornelia's wits could work brilliantly under the stimulus of a new friend like Janet.The door had opened while she was speaking."Here's a prince, Araminta!" she continued, in the same musical vein. "Not incognito, either, to judge by his handsome motor coat."Claude Fontaine came in, and the sheer sweep of his personal attractiveness made Cornelia's slightly ironic phrasing sound quite empty. Janet thought that many a titular prince might be glad to exchange his coat of arms for Claude's conquering air.IIHer heart beat faster for more reasons than this. How was she to let Robert down gracefully and without hurting his feelings, after having more than half accepted his offer to accompany her home?As if in total ignorance of her dilemma, Cornelia, who had begun sketching a design for a new dress, intoned:"Admirers never come singly. Choose your escort, my dear. Which is it to be? Cato and the subway or Lothario and a limousine?"They all dissembled very poorly.Claude, who had not expected rivalry, looked displeased; Robert, though he had already made up his mind to withdraw, felt uneasy; and Janet stood up between the two young men, embarrassed and confused.Cornelia alone seemed wholly unmoved. She went on sketching imperturbably. But Robert was quite certain that she was not unconscious of the tableau. Janet broke the painful silence."Let's all three go together," she said, with one of her quick graceful gestures, half conciliatory, half pleading in its effect."Certainly, if Robert would like to come," said Claude, politely, but without enthusiasm.Robert declined promptly. He explained that he had really been free only for the morning, and that, as long as Claude was to see Janet home, he had better utilize the late afternoon to hunt up another position. There were newspaper offices at which he ought to call. Before supper, he had a speech to rehearse. Perhaps Cornelia would be good enough to let him say it over to her."What kind of a speech am I letting myself in for?" asked Cornelia, half flattered, half nettled."Wait till you hear it.""A sermon, I'll be bound," chanted this languid lady.Yet, not at all languidly, she put her sketch aside and rose, adding:"A sermon from Cato is as sweet as abillet-douxfrom any other man. Come, Araminta, let's show these men how quickly we can get ready."They went into Cornelia's bedroom, leaving the two men alone. Claude said:"What's this about hunting up a new position?"Robert recounted his farewell interview with Hutchins Burley."You're well rid of him," said Claude. "What do you think the swine called me at the ball? A diamond smuggler. In front of everybody, mind you!"He paced the room indignantly."I tell you, Rob, if these were the good old days of duelling, I'd have run his fat carcass through with a rapier half a dozen times before this. And done it with relish, too. Nowadays, worse luck, it isn't even good form to give him a thrashing, though Heaven knows he's the sort of brute that understands no argument but a blow.""Blows would only sharpen his wits against you, Claude. Curs bite, as bees sting, by force of nature. The only thing to do is to get out of their way.""I'm not in the habit of getting out of any man's way," said Claude, haughtily. "However, don't let's talk about the beast. I'm extremely sorry you're out of a job. Tell you what, Rob. Come up to my office on Monday, and we'll talk the situation over and see what can be done. You'll find me in the galleries on the top floor.""Thanks, Claude, but Monday is impossible," said Robert, glad of the excuse, for he scented patronage in his friend's manner. "I'm giving a talk on 'Unemployment under the National Guild System' before the Guild Study Club. When I arranged to speak on Unemployment I had no idea I should do so as an experienced hand."Possibly Claude was dimly conscious of his friend's sensitiveness. At all events, he said:"Well, come on your first free day. I'm always there afternoons. Youmustcome, if only to see my two new Cezannes. I've just induced father to buy them. By the way, old chap, what on earth are National Guilds?"The return of the ladies cut off a reply. Janet's natural grace redeemed the hang of a not too well-tailored suit. Cornelia was all aglow over a mandarin coat she had put on. It was a wonderful dark green silk with dull gold embroidery. Her clothes had a remarkable effect of clinging to her contours. "Look at me," her body seemed to call out through its vestments, "did you ever see anything so ravishing?"Janet walked over to Robert's side and sought forgiveness without asking for it. And he forgave her without saying so. Her soft, flexible, thrilling voice disturbed him sorely, and he wondered whether its sustained riches were as illusory as he judged the mysterious depths of her gray eyes to be.Meanwhile, Claude was telling Cornelia in all sincerity that she had never looked more enchanting."Flatterer!" she said. "To how many girls have you said that today?""Facts don't flatter, Cornelia. They simply cry out the truth.""Lothario, it's all a matter of the science of pinning and the art of dressing. Or rather, ofnotdressing."For the hundredth time, she assured Claude and Robert that she never wore corsets or underwear, and didn't believe in these accoutrements."What, nothing?" exclaimed Claude, perhaps to see Janet blush."We are an art-hating people with ugly ideas," continued Cornelia, unheeding his interruption, "and so we grow ugly, unsightly bodies. That is why modern fashionable dressmaking has but one aim: to conceal deformities. But dresses that conceal women's bad points are sure to conceal their good points, too. A tragic loss! Janet is young and charming; she can stand this loss. I'm on the wrong side of thirty; I can't.""Are you poking fun at my Brooklyn clothes again?" asked Janet. "If you go on like this, I shall have to ferret out all the secrets of your art, in pure self defence.""We must all take a hand in educating you," said Cornelia, grandly. "My part will be to make you see life as a world of beautiful lines, rhythms, and colors.""What will mine be?" asked Claude."Yours? To make her see life as a vale of Cashmere—all roses and wine.""And Rob's?""Rob will make her see it as a vale of tears—all sermons and social problems. He'll be a necessary corrective to you.""And to you, too," said Robert, quickly, amidst a general laugh.Janet was now ready to go. As she and Claude left, Cornelia kissed her tenderly and said:"Remember, if anything serious happens at home,Iwant you, Araminta."IIIClaude instructed his chauffeur to drive across Manhattan Bridge through Prospect Park and along the Coney Island Road until the signal should be given to turn back to Janet's home in the Park Slope section. Then he took his seat in the closed car beside his companion.It was a warm spring day, and an agreeable wind from the bay blew upon them through the open windows as they crossed the East River. The breeze, the river, and the motion joined to chase from Janet's mind the shadow of the scene that awaited her at home.Besides, there was the god at her side. Nearness did not rob him of his divinity, it did not make him grow commonplace. And although some of the glamor of his strangeness wore away, she liked him all the better for being a human god and for having human weaknesses that caused his diviner side to seem all the more real. Janet never gushed, and even her most fervent adorations were shot through with a cool streak of matter-of-fact perception.Claude was very happy, too. Philandering had few new sweets to offer him. Yet Janet was a novelty in every way. What was unique in her was her disinterestedness, a quality he did not consciously credit her with, however, since he did not believe that any woman possessed it. All the young ladies he had ever known had either struck attitudes at his social position or groveled more or less openly before his wealth. According to his view of women, their one aim in life was to get money out of him; by marriage if possible, by fouler means if not.But Janet was different.She might have fawned upon him, or thrown herself unblushingly at his head, or used a frigid hauteur to emphasize the point that her station in life was better than appearances indicated. The girls he knew invariably pursued one of these courses. But Janet didn't. Her whole bearing permeated the atmosphere with a suggestion that Claude was a very wonderful being, dashing, handsome, divine. A most agreeable suggestion! But, since it takes a goddess to detect a god, it was clear that she was quite a wonderful being, too. And what is a matter of divinity among the gods on Olympus. It is like a title among peers of the realm.It was her simple, natural, unaffected behavior, in short, that kept his fancy intrigued. Without knowing it, his suspicion of women was almost completely disarmed.Cornelia's parting words to Janet had given him some concern."You're not thinking of going to live with Cornelia?" he said."I may soon be glad of the chance.""Why?""Because my mother threatens to put me out of her house.""But what for?" he said, looking at her in amazement."I don't look like an incorrigible, do I?" she said smiling. "But my mother thinks me one for associating with people like you.""With people like me?""Well, like you and the other model tenementers.""But I'mnotlike them," he said, half amused, half annoyed."No? Do you know what I've noticed? All the people in the model tenements say they are 'not like them.' Cornelia says so, Robert says so, and now you say so. Each one thinksheis different, unique.""Well, I'm sure thatyouare," he said, rather seriously. He added, lightly. "That's why it would be fatal if you went to live there. Do try to patch it up with your mother, Janet, and give up this plan of Cornelia's.""Patching it up with my mother means complete submission. Her motto is, 'bend or break.' And I've bent long enough."She tried briefly to give him an idea of her mother's domestic tyranny and of her own rebellion against it."You don't know what it is to live in my mother's house," she said."I've heard what it is to live in Cornelia's house," he retorted. "She casts a spell over young girls before they know her well. But she is selfish and moody. Her friendships always end in violent quarrels. She is now on the verge of a break with Mazie Ross.""She may have very good grounds for the break.""Oh, she's never at a loss for grounds. That isn't the point.""Whatisthe point?""The atmosphere of the Lorillard tenements. It isn't made for you to breathe in. Have you any idea what the people there are like? Gangsters, anarchists and fake artists or writers, with a very small sprinkling of well-meaning idealists, most of whom are cracked on social questions. The men are all out of business, the women all out of marriage. On the loose, every one of them, either in their actions, or in their beliefs.""You mean they don't believe in marriage? Well, after all I've seen of family life, I don't believe in marriage either."This was a confession which, by way of bait, many another girl had made to him."That's the sort of thing for a girl like Mazie to say," he said coldly, "but not for a girl like you."Concern for himself had rapidly taken the place of concern for her."Mazie's way doesn't impress me any more than the way of all wives," she said, with a delightful gesture of candor. "I think she is more of a slave to men than most married women are. I want to be mistress of myself."His doubts were allayed again. The spring sunshine and Janet's subtle charm were too strong a team for suspicion to hold out against. As the car sped on through Prospect Park, a delicious breeze, laden with the perfume of flowers and the rising sap of trees, cooled their faces, and fanned their senses warm."You are a dear little theorizer," he said in a tender vibrating tone. "But theories have no interest for me now. I'm too happy to think about them. I want to think only about you.""Impossible. You don't know enough about me. We've only just met.""Absurd," he said, taking hold of her hands. "We met when the wood nymphs first danced to the pipes of Pan, when the starlight first threw its enchantment on youth, when lovers first threaded their way over wild hills and woodlands by the rays of the crescent moon. We have known each other for ages.""As long as that? Dear me! What an experienced person I must be."Had her acknowledged objection to marriage affected him, after all?"All experiences are nothing to this experience," he said, putting his arms around her and trying to kiss her.She resisted him with a quick, firm movement. All he could do was to seize her hands and give them the rapturous embraces intended for her lips."Claude!" she called out, more in shyness than reproach."But I love you!" he cried, retaining her hands by main force."Since yesterday?""Yesterday! A million years ago. The moment in which I felt I loved you, Janet, was a world-without-end moment. That is love's way.""Don't profane the word love," she said, her voice rich and thrilling. "You can't love a girl you don't know.""Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?" he said, quoting the line reproachfully, and releasing her hands as he did so."Do you believe that love always happens at first sight? What about the feeling that takes hold of us as we slowly learn to know another's splendid character? The feeling of tenderness and adoration. Isn't that love, too?""No, a thousand times, no! Call it friendship, comradeship, esteem, if you like. Call it glorified toleration. But don't call it love. Love doesn't come like that. It comes like the swift lightning that embraces a cloud.""How I should love to love like that!" she exclaimed, with a mischievous imitation of rhapsody."Then you don't love me?" he demanded.She refused to admit that she did. He pressed her for an answer."Don't, Claude," she said at last, disturbed. "I must keep my wits about me today, or I shall be as putty in my mother's hands."He was bitterly disappointed. Her use of his name was some solace, however; for, as her soft, flexible tones prolonged it, the sound was music to his ears."Is that why you won't let me kiss you?" he pursued hopefully."No. I'm not used to it yet," she said, quite simply."Not used to it! You mean you haven't been kissed by men before?""Nothing so silly. I haven't been kissed by you before.""Ah, I might have known the reason wasn't inexperience," he said, with incipient jealousy. "Then why balk at me?" he went on, seizing her hands again."As I said," she replied, calmly matter-of-fact. "I haven't had time to think of it. At least, not much nor for long," she added impishly. "I must first see whether I can get used to the idea.""Indeed! But getting used to the idea won't get you used to the thing itself. Only practice makes perfect.""A rehearsal in dumb show is not to be despised," was her response.And so they bantered on and made pretty speeches, while Claude's car bucked the wind until they turned into President Street and stopped at the corner of her own block.As Janet got out, she was hard put to it to conceal her sense of loss.At parting, all her matter-of-factness deserted her; for a few seconds she felt like a prisoner half awakened from an idyllic dream.The car drove away with Claude less triumphant yet more satisfied than he had ever felt towards a charming girl before. He was profoundly stirred by the magic of Janet's genuineness, and her rich, clarinet tones lingered disturbingly in his mind.CHAPTER NINEIThoughts of home had flitted intermittently through Janet's mind during the afternoon's ride. But her faculty for living securely in the present had been strong enough to send the omens flying as fast as they came. A domestic crisis now confronted her, however, and she knew it could not be evaded. As she crossed the threshold, there was a sudden bristling of her nerves, a parching and aching of her throat, and a sense of utter misery.From Laura, the maid, she learned that her mother had been ill all day, and had kept to her bed. As this was Mrs. Barr's invariable practice when any member of the family displeased her, Janet was not surprised. She crept quietly upstairs to her room at the top of the house. On the second floor she passed her sister's room. Through the open door Janet could look into a mirror which reflected an image of Emily, dressing for the evening. She called to her sister with an assumed cheeriness. Emily answered stiffly and without stirring an inch.Janet, catching the unfriendly glance from the mirror, continued on her way, hot indignation kindling her blood. She could invent excuses for her mother's hostility, unreasonable as she considered it, but Emily's censorious manner was altogether intolerable.In her own room she changed her costume to a simple black skirt and a plain white blouse. Claude and Kips Bay receded to another world while she nerved herself for the coming ordeal.In about half an hour, the maid came up with a message that Mr. Barr wished to see Janet in the back parlor. She promptly went downstairs and discovered her father pacing the floor in agitation. It was hard to believe that this tall, imposing man was a moral weakling or that his eagle's bearing concealed a pigeon's heart."Jenny," he said, on the thinnest fringe of reproach, "thank Heaven you're back!"The mere sight of his favorite daughter cooled his phantom anger. All he wanted now was to see his wife placated at any price. For he, poor man, always became the scapegoat, no matter who the criminal was."How could you give us such a fright, Jenny?" he continued, referring to her absence."Really, father, I can't send you hourly bulletins of my whereabouts, can I? It's not my fault that I've outgrown childhood. It's a law of nature.""You don't consider your mother," he said, plaintively. "You know how it upsets her to be disobeyed.""I'm sorry, father. But mother will have to get reconciled to the facts of biology. When the young of animals grow up, instinct makes them follow their own bent, even at the cost of disobliging their parents."Janet felt rather proud and a little surprised at hearing herself talk in this bold, scientific style. She wished she could repeat it to her mother, but secretly doubted her ability."That may be," said Mr. Barr, on whom her biological views were completely thrown away. "But remember that she has been sick all day, sick with worry over your escapade!""Nonsense," replied Janet, unmoved. "My escapade had nothing to do with it. Her bad temper has made her ill. It always does, and nobody knows better than she how useful the weapon is. When everything else fails, she gets sick with rage, and takes to her bed until she gets her own way to the last dot. We cringe and cower before her sham illnesses—""Janet! You mustn't speak of your mother like that. Sheisill. She lay awake the whole night and didn't touch a morsel of food all day.""No doubt she enjoyed tormenting herself and blaming the result on me. But I don't believe that my absence was really a source of worry to anyone.""Janet, I stayed up until three o'clock for you. And that was after leaving the bank late and stopping at the Montague Library to get the books you wanted.""Of course, you did, you foolish old dear," said Janet, in an access of remorse.She put her arms affectionately round his neck. It was not easy to get over her childhood idolatry of him."Kindness is a bad habit of yours, papa," she said. "You take to good deeds as some men take to gambling or to drink."He smiled and patted her cheek tenderly. Her remark was not far from the truth. His morbid (and never wholly gratified) passion for approval made him intemperately anxious to please, and caused his good nature to be freely exploited by unscrupulous people, who repaid him with nothing but their contempt."That's like my own little Jenny. Now go up to Emily's room and make your peace with mother.""Is that in my power?" said Janet, flaring up again and disengaging her arms from him.Mr. Barr was torn between fear of his wife and affection for his daughter."Simply keep quiet and don't answer her back when she speaks to you," he urged pacifically. "After all, she's your mother, she has a right to criticize you.""I refuse to acknowledge the right.""Now, don't be obstinate, girlie. She can't help lecturing people. It's a habit she acquired in her missionary society. Doesn't she lecture me? If I submit, surely you can.""I'm neither a heathen nor a husband.""There now," he said, pleading with her. "Don't spoil everything by standing on your pride. What will you gain by defying her? Nothing! Then why do so? I tell you, Jenny, your mother may be a little hasty, but she's a very clever, strong-minded woman. In the long run, she is always in the right.""How can you cringe to her even when her back is turned," cried Janet, revolted. "You know the truth as well as I do. She has terrorized all of us as cruelly as ever her Puritan ancestors terrorized Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson.""Now, that shows how unfair you are," said Mr. Barr, eagerly, in a vibrant voice, as rich as Janet's own. "Only two nights ago, your mother was reading to me from John Fiske's colonial history. She came across this very case you mention, the case of Anne Hutchinson. And I distinctly recall that she condemned the persecution severely."Disdaining to reply, Janet walked away from his side. In that moment, she hated him. It was incredible that he could be such a willing, subservient dupe.She looked hostilely at his magnificent exterior. He had also inherited a lively wit and considerable mental dexterity. Had he possessed any force of character he might have been a great financier or statesman instead of a petty manager of a small branch bank. And Mrs. Barr's temper might have been kept within bounds, and the Barrs might have enjoyed a happy home, instead of becoming a phantom replica of a bigoted Boston family in the high and palmy days of Cotton Mather.He misinterpreted her silence."You need merely say that you are sorry," he urged, "and that you'll never stay out again without her approval. That will patch up everything.""Father," she cried, exploding. "I can't say that. Because I simply don't mean it. From now on, I'm going to have my own way about some things, even if I have to leave the family. Mother may grind you to the very dust. Marriage seems to give her that right, and you seem to enjoy the process. But she shan't do so to me.""Good Lord, what will happen next?" exclaimed the unhappy man, appalled at the collapse of his plan of conciliation. "The house has been like a funeral all day. Would to HeavenIwere the corpse."But his daughter did not hear this pathetic wish, for she was already on her way upstairs.IIIn Emily's bedroom above the parlor, Mrs. Barr was reclining in an invalid's chair. Illness had not softened the rigidity of that too, too solid flesh. She was pale, but her pallor merely accentuated the iron lines of her face.Emily, more matronly than ever, hovered about her mother in unctuous solicitude, while Laura, the maid, busied herself setting chairs and knick-knacks wrong, in order to set them right again. Mrs. Barr disliked to have anyone about her unoccupied.When Janet entered, her mother greeted her coldly, and then dismissed Laura with studied sweetness. She was actually much kinder to her domestics than to members of the family. Servants were hard to get and harder to keep."I'm sorry you have been ill," said the impenitent, politely."Sit down, my child. I'm getting better now, thanks in part to Doctor Hervey.""What did the doctor say?""That it was to be expected under the circumstances," interposed Emily. "He thought it better for mother not to go to the missionary society tonight."This was ominous news. Janet recollected that her mother had not missed a missionary meeting in two years.The pause was filled with a battery of silent criticism. Usually Janet dispersed these terrible silences with a torrent of impromptu apologies. Today, however, she held her peace. Though every muscle in her body was taut, she felt care-free.Yes, at this supreme inquisitorial moment, she felt surprisingly care-free. Except that, in response to Emily's allusion to missionaries, an old jingle ricochetted weirdly through her mind. It ran:Oh, to be a cassowary,On the plains of Timbuctoo,Chewing up a missionary—Skin and bone, and hymn book, too.Outwardly, she was as impassive as a Chinese joss."Well, Janet?" said Mrs. Barr, outfought with one of her own weapons."Yes, mother?" replied Janet, demurely interrogative. She folded her hands innocently in her lap, and looked with a show of impersonal interest at Emily's new pumps."Have you nothing to tell me?""Not unless you wish to learn about the ball I went to yesterday. Are you interested in that?"Emily gave a scornful laugh."I'm not interested in the ball," said Mrs. Barr, "and no one knows it better than you. What I am interested in is your attending the ball against my express wishes.""Mother, in the twentieth century—""Are the ways of God less valid in the twentieth century than in the tenth?"In disputes with her children, Mrs. Barr always invoked God first. This failing, she took stronger measures."Why do you always make poor God responsible for your severity, mother," said Janet. "It is not His way you want me to follow, but your own. Indeed, whenever you accuse me of disobeying the will of God, it is because I have really disobeyed your will, which you identify with God's. I wonder whether He likes it?""I don't propose to discuss the Deity with you. You have studied your Bible so little that you are apparently unable to give any opinion on the subject which is not blasphemous.""As far as I know, the Bible does not prohibit dancing," said Janet, shifting the defensive attack so as to bring matters to a head."The Bibledoessay, however, that a child must obey its parents. I don't wish to be harsh, Janet. I believe that you have no just ground for accusing me of severity. I say now, as I have said before, that if you must dance, you may go to the affairs that are given at the church.""Thank you!" cried Janet, ironically. "But I don't like a Sunday School atmosphere or a Sunday School man.""I thought as much!" said Mrs. Barr, her eyes like points of steel. "You prefer to associate with unprincipled men who, having no religion, lead lives of pleasure and dance the lascivious dances of the time."Mother, I don't dance anything but thoroughly ancient and respectable dances. I've never had a chance to learn the modern steps. I dance very rarely, anyhow.""Emilyneverdances," said her mother, cuttingly."No, she is rather heavy and men are so lazy nowadays, and so tender about their toes."Some demon had made Janet spring up and stop reflectively in front of Emily. The latter's podgy bulk became a size larger by contrast with Janet's mobile slenderness."Oblige me by not arguing," said Mrs. Barr, coming to her elder daughter's rescue. "I tell you I won't tolerate anyone in my house that openly flouts her mother, spends whole nights with a woman of evil reputation, and deliberately wastes the Lord's time."In her agitation she rose halfway from her chair. But rage and lack of food had so weakened her that she sank back limply. Emily, looking unutterable things at Janet, implored her mother to be calm in tones that invited her to be just the contrary.Mrs. Barr hardly needed this spur. She sincerely believed that she was fighting the evil one for the possession of Janet's soul. Revived by this conviction she bravely returned to her task."See the condition to which you've brought me," she said, the angry tears welling up in her eyes. "What with watching and waiting and praying for you all night, and fretting about your safety—"She instinctively followed a religious appeal with a sentimental one. But her speech had so much anger mixed with the pathos, that it left Janet cold."I hope you won't get upset about me again, mother," she said, unemotionally. "I'm quite old enough to take care of myself—""You'd better go to your room, Janet!" exclaimed Emily, "before you kill mother with your cruel selfishness.""I'm not aware that I'm under orders to you, Emily, or that you've the right to play the Pharisee because you're content to lead a stagnant, hole-in-the-corner life. If you wanted anything you'd disobey mother fast enough. Only you happen tohaveno wants. And you make a virtue of your necessity. I have plenty of wants. And you persuade mother that my necessity is a vice.""Be as theatrical as possible, Janet!" said Emily. "Why don't you add that I poisoned mother's mind against you?""You didn't have to carry coals to Newcastle, Emily. You merely had to fan the flame in your own sweet, sisterly way."Mrs. Barr checked them both with an autocratic wave of her hand."You need not abuse Emily, or me either," she decreed, black-browed. "There is absolutely nothing more to be said. Either you respect my wishes about your comings and goings, or you leave my house.""Mother, do you really propose to put me out for refusing to submit to an arbitrary wish?""I should think I had fallen far short of my duty, if I did not guard my children against sensual folly—""By showing them the door?""If you leave your home, it will be by your own choice and not by your mother's command," said Mrs. Barr, emphatically. "This is your home. It will remain yours so long as you keep Christian precepts. But a mother must hold the family hearth inviolate against evil doing. I cannot condone a wicked waste of the Lord's time simply because you describe the practice as a wish to be free. If you don't value a good home, you are certainly quite free to choose another.""Why must I adopt the habits that suit your tastes and Emily's, but that are hateful to mine?""My child, you are flesh of my flesh—""All the laws and all the prophets can't justify the narrow, friendless, joyless, medieval life that you wish me to lead," cried Janet, in a passion of insurgency. "When you were young you led no such life yourself. Aunt Mary, your own sister, told me that you were the flightiest girl in the family. Your girlhood was a perpetual round of balls, theatres, parties and flirtations. Do I ask for a life of pleasure like that? No. I simply want to choose my own friends, trust to my own instincts, and follow my own bent."This reference to her mother's youth was not a happy one. Mrs. Barr looked back on her younger days as a period of godless frivolity for which she had largely atoned by enduring with a contrite heart the double affliction of a weak husband and a wilful daughter. Her duty, as she saw it, was to keep Emily and Janet out of the primrose paths which she herself had trodden with such levity and with such disastrous results. Accordingly, Janet's presumptuous allusion merely stirred her fanaticism to its iciest depths."You either obey me or go," she said, with pitiless brevity."Oh, very well," said Janet, affecting a blitheness she was far from feeling, "I'll go."Without another word, Mrs. Barr, weak as she was, rose and walked with a firm step to her own room. Emily, not altogether pleased with this climax, followed her immediately, giving a flabby imitation of her mother's really magnificent exit.Janet stood nonplussed for a few seconds. Then she went upstairs to the inward refrain of:"Chewing up a missionarySkin and bones and hymn book, too."Her inveterate evenness of spirit amounted almost to a failing; but now, for the first time, she became conscious of latent impulses of a vindictive and murderous kind.Back in her own room, she hastily packed a suit-case with her most necessary belongings.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I
No sooner were they back in their Lorillard tenement, than Robert Lloyd came in.
"Well, Cato, where did you drop from?" said Cornelia, who was lazily tidying up the rooms while Janet was doing the breakfast dishes.
"From the Harlem Gorilla in the flat next door."
"Really! And what didhehave to say?"
"Not much. He isn't a talker like me. He's a doer. He tried to explain a few tricks in gymnastics to me. But every second sentence or so the word 'Cornelia' crept into the explanation. It was decidedly confusing."
"Pray what has the word 'Cornelia' to do with the subject of gymnastics?" asked the owner of the name.
"Ah, what! I asked the Gorilla that question myself. But he simply repeated the name adoringly and looked all sorts of unutterable things. Beware, Cornelia. He thinks the sun rises in one of your eyes and sets in the other. I believe he is planning to carry you off by main force to his cave, his gymnasium cave."
"A lot he is! He couldn't carry off a buttercup against its wishes. Really, Araminta, he's the gentlest and shyest 'wild man' you ever laid eyes on. How he ever came to take Gorilla for a nickname, I can't imagine."
"Nor I," said Robert. "But don't forget that he has learnt the art of concentrating his enormous strength on one or two crucial points. Certainly he treated Hutchins Burley to a good exhibition of his mastery, didn't he? For all that, he's a very singularly gentle sort of Hercules. If I had to provide one for you, Cornelia, I'd get a much more ferocious specimen, if only to pay you out for kiting away with Janet, after promising me you'd both stay in. I've been waiting for you since noon."
"Poor Cato, I'm terribly sorry. In the excitement of having Janet here, I clean forgot you were coming. Waiting since noon, were you, poor boy! There's devotion for you, Araminta. Never mind, Rob. Here she is, now. And all's well that ends well, I hope."
"I thought you'd like company on your way home, Janet," said Robert to her directly.
"Thanks very much," said Janet, not wishing to lose Robert and yet not caring to say that Claude had promised to call for her, if he could possibly get away from business. Before she could say more, Cornelia interposed. She had not expected Robert to wait and had not quite swallowed her chagrin over this surprise.
"How do you happen to be off duty, Rob?" she asked. "Does theEvening Chroniclestop work for you on Saturdays?"
"No. I've stopped work for theEvening Chronicleon Saturdays and all other days."
"What! Don't tell me Hutchins has discharged you!"
Cornelia gave up the last pretense of working, and sank aghast into an armchair.
"I didn't give him a chance. I discharged myself."
"If he had—" she began, setting her teeth vindictively.
"Exactly. In his sober moments, Cornelia, you are apparently the only mortal soul he stands in some fear of. It was only because of a sneaking affection he has for you that he hesitated to fire me."
"Well, why throw a good bargain away?"
"A nice position it would have left me in. That of an understrapper for Burley to play cat and mouse with. Not if I know it! Burley likes to torture the people in his power as much as you do, the only difference being that his weapon is coarse brutality while yours is insidious charm."
"Your comparisons, Cato, have the merit of being as unambiguous as they are rude. I trust you gave Hutchins Burley the benefit of a few of them."
"Oh, no, I always forgive my enemies. Nothing enrages them more. I left Hutchins stunned. But I've no doubt he recovered in time to appoint the successor that I sent him."
"That you sent him?"
"Yes. You don't know him, but Janet does. Janet, do you remember the tall, thin, aristocratic chap who was always mysteriously turning up and who stopped Burley at the tent?"
"Of course I do. He wore a quaint stand-up collar with two points sticking into his neck. It was he who warned Claude about the raid."
"Oh, did he? Well, when I was on my way up the stairs here at noon, he suddenly appeared, like a ghost stepping out of the stone wall. It gave me quite a start. I asked him where he was bound for. 'Nowhere in particular,' was his answer."
Robert had got to talking with the mysterious one, who confessed that he had just rented a flat in the model tenements. On Robert's alluding to the severance of his connection with theEvening Chronicle, his new acquaintance had asked permission to apply for the vacant place. He claimed to have an ear for news and remarked casually that information was always drifting his way.
"As if I had any permission to give!" continued Robert. "I warned him what he'd be up against in the person of Hutchins Burley, and bade him Godspeed."
"He's either a detective or the Prince of Zenda in disguise," said Janet. "Which do you think, Robert?"
"From the speed and completeness with which he obliterates himself, I should favor the detective theory. On the other hand, there's his get-up! That melancholy, drooping mustache, that semi-clerical collar, and that comical tip-tilted chin! The fellow's simply unforgettable. He must be a prince incognito."
"Yes, we'll have him a prince!" exclaimed Janet, who, at twenty-four, had a normal craving for romantic illusion. "But I should like him in any part."
"A prince! Nonsense, children!" interjected Cornelia, in her most languid cadences. "He's probably a burglar."
"A burglar!"
"Certainly not a detective. Detectives don't obliterate themselves. They don't know how to. And they never look like princes in disguise. They're not clever enough. All the detectives I ever saw looked like butchers on a strike. The only man, rich, skillful and bold enough to take his fellow man at a right royal disadvantage is a first-class burglar. A Raffles, for instance, might be a prince 'incognito.'"
Cornelia's wits could work brilliantly under the stimulus of a new friend like Janet.
The door had opened while she was speaking.
"Here's a prince, Araminta!" she continued, in the same musical vein. "Not incognito, either, to judge by his handsome motor coat."
Claude Fontaine came in, and the sheer sweep of his personal attractiveness made Cornelia's slightly ironic phrasing sound quite empty. Janet thought that many a titular prince might be glad to exchange his coat of arms for Claude's conquering air.
II
Her heart beat faster for more reasons than this. How was she to let Robert down gracefully and without hurting his feelings, after having more than half accepted his offer to accompany her home?
As if in total ignorance of her dilemma, Cornelia, who had begun sketching a design for a new dress, intoned:
"Admirers never come singly. Choose your escort, my dear. Which is it to be? Cato and the subway or Lothario and a limousine?"
They all dissembled very poorly.
Claude, who had not expected rivalry, looked displeased; Robert, though he had already made up his mind to withdraw, felt uneasy; and Janet stood up between the two young men, embarrassed and confused.
Cornelia alone seemed wholly unmoved. She went on sketching imperturbably. But Robert was quite certain that she was not unconscious of the tableau. Janet broke the painful silence.
"Let's all three go together," she said, with one of her quick graceful gestures, half conciliatory, half pleading in its effect.
"Certainly, if Robert would like to come," said Claude, politely, but without enthusiasm.
Robert declined promptly. He explained that he had really been free only for the morning, and that, as long as Claude was to see Janet home, he had better utilize the late afternoon to hunt up another position. There were newspaper offices at which he ought to call. Before supper, he had a speech to rehearse. Perhaps Cornelia would be good enough to let him say it over to her.
"What kind of a speech am I letting myself in for?" asked Cornelia, half flattered, half nettled.
"Wait till you hear it."
"A sermon, I'll be bound," chanted this languid lady.
Yet, not at all languidly, she put her sketch aside and rose, adding:
"A sermon from Cato is as sweet as abillet-douxfrom any other man. Come, Araminta, let's show these men how quickly we can get ready."
They went into Cornelia's bedroom, leaving the two men alone. Claude said:
"What's this about hunting up a new position?"
Robert recounted his farewell interview with Hutchins Burley.
"You're well rid of him," said Claude. "What do you think the swine called me at the ball? A diamond smuggler. In front of everybody, mind you!"
He paced the room indignantly.
"I tell you, Rob, if these were the good old days of duelling, I'd have run his fat carcass through with a rapier half a dozen times before this. And done it with relish, too. Nowadays, worse luck, it isn't even good form to give him a thrashing, though Heaven knows he's the sort of brute that understands no argument but a blow."
"Blows would only sharpen his wits against you, Claude. Curs bite, as bees sting, by force of nature. The only thing to do is to get out of their way."
"I'm not in the habit of getting out of any man's way," said Claude, haughtily. "However, don't let's talk about the beast. I'm extremely sorry you're out of a job. Tell you what, Rob. Come up to my office on Monday, and we'll talk the situation over and see what can be done. You'll find me in the galleries on the top floor."
"Thanks, Claude, but Monday is impossible," said Robert, glad of the excuse, for he scented patronage in his friend's manner. "I'm giving a talk on 'Unemployment under the National Guild System' before the Guild Study Club. When I arranged to speak on Unemployment I had no idea I should do so as an experienced hand."
Possibly Claude was dimly conscious of his friend's sensitiveness. At all events, he said:
"Well, come on your first free day. I'm always there afternoons. Youmustcome, if only to see my two new Cezannes. I've just induced father to buy them. By the way, old chap, what on earth are National Guilds?"
The return of the ladies cut off a reply. Janet's natural grace redeemed the hang of a not too well-tailored suit. Cornelia was all aglow over a mandarin coat she had put on. It was a wonderful dark green silk with dull gold embroidery. Her clothes had a remarkable effect of clinging to her contours. "Look at me," her body seemed to call out through its vestments, "did you ever see anything so ravishing?"
Janet walked over to Robert's side and sought forgiveness without asking for it. And he forgave her without saying so. Her soft, flexible, thrilling voice disturbed him sorely, and he wondered whether its sustained riches were as illusory as he judged the mysterious depths of her gray eyes to be.
Meanwhile, Claude was telling Cornelia in all sincerity that she had never looked more enchanting.
"Flatterer!" she said. "To how many girls have you said that today?"
"Facts don't flatter, Cornelia. They simply cry out the truth."
"Lothario, it's all a matter of the science of pinning and the art of dressing. Or rather, ofnotdressing."
For the hundredth time, she assured Claude and Robert that she never wore corsets or underwear, and didn't believe in these accoutrements.
"What, nothing?" exclaimed Claude, perhaps to see Janet blush.
"We are an art-hating people with ugly ideas," continued Cornelia, unheeding his interruption, "and so we grow ugly, unsightly bodies. That is why modern fashionable dressmaking has but one aim: to conceal deformities. But dresses that conceal women's bad points are sure to conceal their good points, too. A tragic loss! Janet is young and charming; she can stand this loss. I'm on the wrong side of thirty; I can't."
"Are you poking fun at my Brooklyn clothes again?" asked Janet. "If you go on like this, I shall have to ferret out all the secrets of your art, in pure self defence."
"We must all take a hand in educating you," said Cornelia, grandly. "My part will be to make you see life as a world of beautiful lines, rhythms, and colors."
"What will mine be?" asked Claude.
"Yours? To make her see life as a vale of Cashmere—all roses and wine."
"And Rob's?"
"Rob will make her see it as a vale of tears—all sermons and social problems. He'll be a necessary corrective to you."
"And to you, too," said Robert, quickly, amidst a general laugh.
Janet was now ready to go. As she and Claude left, Cornelia kissed her tenderly and said:
"Remember, if anything serious happens at home,Iwant you, Araminta."
III
Claude instructed his chauffeur to drive across Manhattan Bridge through Prospect Park and along the Coney Island Road until the signal should be given to turn back to Janet's home in the Park Slope section. Then he took his seat in the closed car beside his companion.
It was a warm spring day, and an agreeable wind from the bay blew upon them through the open windows as they crossed the East River. The breeze, the river, and the motion joined to chase from Janet's mind the shadow of the scene that awaited her at home.
Besides, there was the god at her side. Nearness did not rob him of his divinity, it did not make him grow commonplace. And although some of the glamor of his strangeness wore away, she liked him all the better for being a human god and for having human weaknesses that caused his diviner side to seem all the more real. Janet never gushed, and even her most fervent adorations were shot through with a cool streak of matter-of-fact perception.
Claude was very happy, too. Philandering had few new sweets to offer him. Yet Janet was a novelty in every way. What was unique in her was her disinterestedness, a quality he did not consciously credit her with, however, since he did not believe that any woman possessed it. All the young ladies he had ever known had either struck attitudes at his social position or groveled more or less openly before his wealth. According to his view of women, their one aim in life was to get money out of him; by marriage if possible, by fouler means if not.
But Janet was different.
She might have fawned upon him, or thrown herself unblushingly at his head, or used a frigid hauteur to emphasize the point that her station in life was better than appearances indicated. The girls he knew invariably pursued one of these courses. But Janet didn't. Her whole bearing permeated the atmosphere with a suggestion that Claude was a very wonderful being, dashing, handsome, divine. A most agreeable suggestion! But, since it takes a goddess to detect a god, it was clear that she was quite a wonderful being, too. And what is a matter of divinity among the gods on Olympus. It is like a title among peers of the realm.
It was her simple, natural, unaffected behavior, in short, that kept his fancy intrigued. Without knowing it, his suspicion of women was almost completely disarmed.
Cornelia's parting words to Janet had given him some concern.
"You're not thinking of going to live with Cornelia?" he said.
"I may soon be glad of the chance."
"Why?"
"Because my mother threatens to put me out of her house."
"But what for?" he said, looking at her in amazement.
"I don't look like an incorrigible, do I?" she said smiling. "But my mother thinks me one for associating with people like you."
"With people like me?"
"Well, like you and the other model tenementers."
"But I'mnotlike them," he said, half amused, half annoyed.
"No? Do you know what I've noticed? All the people in the model tenements say they are 'not like them.' Cornelia says so, Robert says so, and now you say so. Each one thinksheis different, unique."
"Well, I'm sure thatyouare," he said, rather seriously. He added, lightly. "That's why it would be fatal if you went to live there. Do try to patch it up with your mother, Janet, and give up this plan of Cornelia's."
"Patching it up with my mother means complete submission. Her motto is, 'bend or break.' And I've bent long enough."
She tried briefly to give him an idea of her mother's domestic tyranny and of her own rebellion against it.
"You don't know what it is to live in my mother's house," she said.
"I've heard what it is to live in Cornelia's house," he retorted. "She casts a spell over young girls before they know her well. But she is selfish and moody. Her friendships always end in violent quarrels. She is now on the verge of a break with Mazie Ross."
"She may have very good grounds for the break."
"Oh, she's never at a loss for grounds. That isn't the point."
"Whatisthe point?"
"The atmosphere of the Lorillard tenements. It isn't made for you to breathe in. Have you any idea what the people there are like? Gangsters, anarchists and fake artists or writers, with a very small sprinkling of well-meaning idealists, most of whom are cracked on social questions. The men are all out of business, the women all out of marriage. On the loose, every one of them, either in their actions, or in their beliefs."
"You mean they don't believe in marriage? Well, after all I've seen of family life, I don't believe in marriage either."
This was a confession which, by way of bait, many another girl had made to him.
"That's the sort of thing for a girl like Mazie to say," he said coldly, "but not for a girl like you."
Concern for himself had rapidly taken the place of concern for her.
"Mazie's way doesn't impress me any more than the way of all wives," she said, with a delightful gesture of candor. "I think she is more of a slave to men than most married women are. I want to be mistress of myself."
His doubts were allayed again. The spring sunshine and Janet's subtle charm were too strong a team for suspicion to hold out against. As the car sped on through Prospect Park, a delicious breeze, laden with the perfume of flowers and the rising sap of trees, cooled their faces, and fanned their senses warm.
"You are a dear little theorizer," he said in a tender vibrating tone. "But theories have no interest for me now. I'm too happy to think about them. I want to think only about you."
"Impossible. You don't know enough about me. We've only just met."
"Absurd," he said, taking hold of her hands. "We met when the wood nymphs first danced to the pipes of Pan, when the starlight first threw its enchantment on youth, when lovers first threaded their way over wild hills and woodlands by the rays of the crescent moon. We have known each other for ages."
"As long as that? Dear me! What an experienced person I must be."
Had her acknowledged objection to marriage affected him, after all?
"All experiences are nothing to this experience," he said, putting his arms around her and trying to kiss her.
She resisted him with a quick, firm movement. All he could do was to seize her hands and give them the rapturous embraces intended for her lips.
"Claude!" she called out, more in shyness than reproach.
"But I love you!" he cried, retaining her hands by main force.
"Since yesterday?"
"Yesterday! A million years ago. The moment in which I felt I loved you, Janet, was a world-without-end moment. That is love's way."
"Don't profane the word love," she said, her voice rich and thrilling. "You can't love a girl you don't know."
"Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?" he said, quoting the line reproachfully, and releasing her hands as he did so.
"Do you believe that love always happens at first sight? What about the feeling that takes hold of us as we slowly learn to know another's splendid character? The feeling of tenderness and adoration. Isn't that love, too?"
"No, a thousand times, no! Call it friendship, comradeship, esteem, if you like. Call it glorified toleration. But don't call it love. Love doesn't come like that. It comes like the swift lightning that embraces a cloud."
"How I should love to love like that!" she exclaimed, with a mischievous imitation of rhapsody.
"Then you don't love me?" he demanded.
She refused to admit that she did. He pressed her for an answer.
"Don't, Claude," she said at last, disturbed. "I must keep my wits about me today, or I shall be as putty in my mother's hands."
He was bitterly disappointed. Her use of his name was some solace, however; for, as her soft, flexible tones prolonged it, the sound was music to his ears.
"Is that why you won't let me kiss you?" he pursued hopefully.
"No. I'm not used to it yet," she said, quite simply.
"Not used to it! You mean you haven't been kissed by men before?"
"Nothing so silly. I haven't been kissed by you before."
"Ah, I might have known the reason wasn't inexperience," he said, with incipient jealousy. "Then why balk at me?" he went on, seizing her hands again.
"As I said," she replied, calmly matter-of-fact. "I haven't had time to think of it. At least, not much nor for long," she added impishly. "I must first see whether I can get used to the idea."
"Indeed! But getting used to the idea won't get you used to the thing itself. Only practice makes perfect."
"A rehearsal in dumb show is not to be despised," was her response.
And so they bantered on and made pretty speeches, while Claude's car bucked the wind until they turned into President Street and stopped at the corner of her own block.
As Janet got out, she was hard put to it to conceal her sense of loss.
At parting, all her matter-of-factness deserted her; for a few seconds she felt like a prisoner half awakened from an idyllic dream.
The car drove away with Claude less triumphant yet more satisfied than he had ever felt towards a charming girl before. He was profoundly stirred by the magic of Janet's genuineness, and her rich, clarinet tones lingered disturbingly in his mind.
CHAPTER NINE
I
Thoughts of home had flitted intermittently through Janet's mind during the afternoon's ride. But her faculty for living securely in the present had been strong enough to send the omens flying as fast as they came. A domestic crisis now confronted her, however, and she knew it could not be evaded. As she crossed the threshold, there was a sudden bristling of her nerves, a parching and aching of her throat, and a sense of utter misery.
From Laura, the maid, she learned that her mother had been ill all day, and had kept to her bed. As this was Mrs. Barr's invariable practice when any member of the family displeased her, Janet was not surprised. She crept quietly upstairs to her room at the top of the house. On the second floor she passed her sister's room. Through the open door Janet could look into a mirror which reflected an image of Emily, dressing for the evening. She called to her sister with an assumed cheeriness. Emily answered stiffly and without stirring an inch.
Janet, catching the unfriendly glance from the mirror, continued on her way, hot indignation kindling her blood. She could invent excuses for her mother's hostility, unreasonable as she considered it, but Emily's censorious manner was altogether intolerable.
In her own room she changed her costume to a simple black skirt and a plain white blouse. Claude and Kips Bay receded to another world while she nerved herself for the coming ordeal.
In about half an hour, the maid came up with a message that Mr. Barr wished to see Janet in the back parlor. She promptly went downstairs and discovered her father pacing the floor in agitation. It was hard to believe that this tall, imposing man was a moral weakling or that his eagle's bearing concealed a pigeon's heart.
"Jenny," he said, on the thinnest fringe of reproach, "thank Heaven you're back!"
The mere sight of his favorite daughter cooled his phantom anger. All he wanted now was to see his wife placated at any price. For he, poor man, always became the scapegoat, no matter who the criminal was.
"How could you give us such a fright, Jenny?" he continued, referring to her absence.
"Really, father, I can't send you hourly bulletins of my whereabouts, can I? It's not my fault that I've outgrown childhood. It's a law of nature."
"You don't consider your mother," he said, plaintively. "You know how it upsets her to be disobeyed."
"I'm sorry, father. But mother will have to get reconciled to the facts of biology. When the young of animals grow up, instinct makes them follow their own bent, even at the cost of disobliging their parents."
Janet felt rather proud and a little surprised at hearing herself talk in this bold, scientific style. She wished she could repeat it to her mother, but secretly doubted her ability.
"That may be," said Mr. Barr, on whom her biological views were completely thrown away. "But remember that she has been sick all day, sick with worry over your escapade!"
"Nonsense," replied Janet, unmoved. "My escapade had nothing to do with it. Her bad temper has made her ill. It always does, and nobody knows better than she how useful the weapon is. When everything else fails, she gets sick with rage, and takes to her bed until she gets her own way to the last dot. We cringe and cower before her sham illnesses—"
"Janet! You mustn't speak of your mother like that. Sheisill. She lay awake the whole night and didn't touch a morsel of food all day."
"No doubt she enjoyed tormenting herself and blaming the result on me. But I don't believe that my absence was really a source of worry to anyone."
"Janet, I stayed up until three o'clock for you. And that was after leaving the bank late and stopping at the Montague Library to get the books you wanted."
"Of course, you did, you foolish old dear," said Janet, in an access of remorse.
She put her arms affectionately round his neck. It was not easy to get over her childhood idolatry of him.
"Kindness is a bad habit of yours, papa," she said. "You take to good deeds as some men take to gambling or to drink."
He smiled and patted her cheek tenderly. Her remark was not far from the truth. His morbid (and never wholly gratified) passion for approval made him intemperately anxious to please, and caused his good nature to be freely exploited by unscrupulous people, who repaid him with nothing but their contempt.
"That's like my own little Jenny. Now go up to Emily's room and make your peace with mother."
"Is that in my power?" said Janet, flaring up again and disengaging her arms from him.
Mr. Barr was torn between fear of his wife and affection for his daughter.
"Simply keep quiet and don't answer her back when she speaks to you," he urged pacifically. "After all, she's your mother, she has a right to criticize you."
"I refuse to acknowledge the right."
"Now, don't be obstinate, girlie. She can't help lecturing people. It's a habit she acquired in her missionary society. Doesn't she lecture me? If I submit, surely you can."
"I'm neither a heathen nor a husband."
"There now," he said, pleading with her. "Don't spoil everything by standing on your pride. What will you gain by defying her? Nothing! Then why do so? I tell you, Jenny, your mother may be a little hasty, but she's a very clever, strong-minded woman. In the long run, she is always in the right."
"How can you cringe to her even when her back is turned," cried Janet, revolted. "You know the truth as well as I do. She has terrorized all of us as cruelly as ever her Puritan ancestors terrorized Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson."
"Now, that shows how unfair you are," said Mr. Barr, eagerly, in a vibrant voice, as rich as Janet's own. "Only two nights ago, your mother was reading to me from John Fiske's colonial history. She came across this very case you mention, the case of Anne Hutchinson. And I distinctly recall that she condemned the persecution severely."
Disdaining to reply, Janet walked away from his side. In that moment, she hated him. It was incredible that he could be such a willing, subservient dupe.
She looked hostilely at his magnificent exterior. He had also inherited a lively wit and considerable mental dexterity. Had he possessed any force of character he might have been a great financier or statesman instead of a petty manager of a small branch bank. And Mrs. Barr's temper might have been kept within bounds, and the Barrs might have enjoyed a happy home, instead of becoming a phantom replica of a bigoted Boston family in the high and palmy days of Cotton Mather.
He misinterpreted her silence.
"You need merely say that you are sorry," he urged, "and that you'll never stay out again without her approval. That will patch up everything."
"Father," she cried, exploding. "I can't say that. Because I simply don't mean it. From now on, I'm going to have my own way about some things, even if I have to leave the family. Mother may grind you to the very dust. Marriage seems to give her that right, and you seem to enjoy the process. But she shan't do so to me."
"Good Lord, what will happen next?" exclaimed the unhappy man, appalled at the collapse of his plan of conciliation. "The house has been like a funeral all day. Would to HeavenIwere the corpse."
But his daughter did not hear this pathetic wish, for she was already on her way upstairs.
II
In Emily's bedroom above the parlor, Mrs. Barr was reclining in an invalid's chair. Illness had not softened the rigidity of that too, too solid flesh. She was pale, but her pallor merely accentuated the iron lines of her face.
Emily, more matronly than ever, hovered about her mother in unctuous solicitude, while Laura, the maid, busied herself setting chairs and knick-knacks wrong, in order to set them right again. Mrs. Barr disliked to have anyone about her unoccupied.
When Janet entered, her mother greeted her coldly, and then dismissed Laura with studied sweetness. She was actually much kinder to her domestics than to members of the family. Servants were hard to get and harder to keep.
"I'm sorry you have been ill," said the impenitent, politely.
"Sit down, my child. I'm getting better now, thanks in part to Doctor Hervey."
"What did the doctor say?"
"That it was to be expected under the circumstances," interposed Emily. "He thought it better for mother not to go to the missionary society tonight."
This was ominous news. Janet recollected that her mother had not missed a missionary meeting in two years.
The pause was filled with a battery of silent criticism. Usually Janet dispersed these terrible silences with a torrent of impromptu apologies. Today, however, she held her peace. Though every muscle in her body was taut, she felt care-free.
Yes, at this supreme inquisitorial moment, she felt surprisingly care-free. Except that, in response to Emily's allusion to missionaries, an old jingle ricochetted weirdly through her mind. It ran:
Oh, to be a cassowary,On the plains of Timbuctoo,Chewing up a missionary—Skin and bone, and hymn book, too.
Oh, to be a cassowary,On the plains of Timbuctoo,Chewing up a missionary—Skin and bone, and hymn book, too.
Oh, to be a cassowary,
On the plains of Timbuctoo,
Chewing up a missionary—
Skin and bone, and hymn book, too.
Outwardly, she was as impassive as a Chinese joss.
"Well, Janet?" said Mrs. Barr, outfought with one of her own weapons.
"Yes, mother?" replied Janet, demurely interrogative. She folded her hands innocently in her lap, and looked with a show of impersonal interest at Emily's new pumps.
"Have you nothing to tell me?"
"Not unless you wish to learn about the ball I went to yesterday. Are you interested in that?"
Emily gave a scornful laugh.
"I'm not interested in the ball," said Mrs. Barr, "and no one knows it better than you. What I am interested in is your attending the ball against my express wishes."
"Mother, in the twentieth century—"
"Are the ways of God less valid in the twentieth century than in the tenth?"
In disputes with her children, Mrs. Barr always invoked God first. This failing, she took stronger measures.
"Why do you always make poor God responsible for your severity, mother," said Janet. "It is not His way you want me to follow, but your own. Indeed, whenever you accuse me of disobeying the will of God, it is because I have really disobeyed your will, which you identify with God's. I wonder whether He likes it?"
"I don't propose to discuss the Deity with you. You have studied your Bible so little that you are apparently unable to give any opinion on the subject which is not blasphemous."
"As far as I know, the Bible does not prohibit dancing," said Janet, shifting the defensive attack so as to bring matters to a head.
"The Bibledoessay, however, that a child must obey its parents. I don't wish to be harsh, Janet. I believe that you have no just ground for accusing me of severity. I say now, as I have said before, that if you must dance, you may go to the affairs that are given at the church."
"Thank you!" cried Janet, ironically. "But I don't like a Sunday School atmosphere or a Sunday School man."
"I thought as much!" said Mrs. Barr, her eyes like points of steel. "You prefer to associate with unprincipled men who, having no religion, lead lives of pleasure and dance the lascivious dances of the time.
"Mother, I don't dance anything but thoroughly ancient and respectable dances. I've never had a chance to learn the modern steps. I dance very rarely, anyhow."
"Emilyneverdances," said her mother, cuttingly.
"No, she is rather heavy and men are so lazy nowadays, and so tender about their toes."
Some demon had made Janet spring up and stop reflectively in front of Emily. The latter's podgy bulk became a size larger by contrast with Janet's mobile slenderness.
"Oblige me by not arguing," said Mrs. Barr, coming to her elder daughter's rescue. "I tell you I won't tolerate anyone in my house that openly flouts her mother, spends whole nights with a woman of evil reputation, and deliberately wastes the Lord's time."
In her agitation she rose halfway from her chair. But rage and lack of food had so weakened her that she sank back limply. Emily, looking unutterable things at Janet, implored her mother to be calm in tones that invited her to be just the contrary.
Mrs. Barr hardly needed this spur. She sincerely believed that she was fighting the evil one for the possession of Janet's soul. Revived by this conviction she bravely returned to her task.
"See the condition to which you've brought me," she said, the angry tears welling up in her eyes. "What with watching and waiting and praying for you all night, and fretting about your safety—"
She instinctively followed a religious appeal with a sentimental one. But her speech had so much anger mixed with the pathos, that it left Janet cold.
"I hope you won't get upset about me again, mother," she said, unemotionally. "I'm quite old enough to take care of myself—"
"You'd better go to your room, Janet!" exclaimed Emily, "before you kill mother with your cruel selfishness."
"I'm not aware that I'm under orders to you, Emily, or that you've the right to play the Pharisee because you're content to lead a stagnant, hole-in-the-corner life. If you wanted anything you'd disobey mother fast enough. Only you happen tohaveno wants. And you make a virtue of your necessity. I have plenty of wants. And you persuade mother that my necessity is a vice."
"Be as theatrical as possible, Janet!" said Emily. "Why don't you add that I poisoned mother's mind against you?"
"You didn't have to carry coals to Newcastle, Emily. You merely had to fan the flame in your own sweet, sisterly way."
Mrs. Barr checked them both with an autocratic wave of her hand.
"You need not abuse Emily, or me either," she decreed, black-browed. "There is absolutely nothing more to be said. Either you respect my wishes about your comings and goings, or you leave my house."
"Mother, do you really propose to put me out for refusing to submit to an arbitrary wish?"
"I should think I had fallen far short of my duty, if I did not guard my children against sensual folly—"
"By showing them the door?"
"If you leave your home, it will be by your own choice and not by your mother's command," said Mrs. Barr, emphatically. "This is your home. It will remain yours so long as you keep Christian precepts. But a mother must hold the family hearth inviolate against evil doing. I cannot condone a wicked waste of the Lord's time simply because you describe the practice as a wish to be free. If you don't value a good home, you are certainly quite free to choose another."
"Why must I adopt the habits that suit your tastes and Emily's, but that are hateful to mine?"
"My child, you are flesh of my flesh—"
"All the laws and all the prophets can't justify the narrow, friendless, joyless, medieval life that you wish me to lead," cried Janet, in a passion of insurgency. "When you were young you led no such life yourself. Aunt Mary, your own sister, told me that you were the flightiest girl in the family. Your girlhood was a perpetual round of balls, theatres, parties and flirtations. Do I ask for a life of pleasure like that? No. I simply want to choose my own friends, trust to my own instincts, and follow my own bent."
This reference to her mother's youth was not a happy one. Mrs. Barr looked back on her younger days as a period of godless frivolity for which she had largely atoned by enduring with a contrite heart the double affliction of a weak husband and a wilful daughter. Her duty, as she saw it, was to keep Emily and Janet out of the primrose paths which she herself had trodden with such levity and with such disastrous results. Accordingly, Janet's presumptuous allusion merely stirred her fanaticism to its iciest depths.
"You either obey me or go," she said, with pitiless brevity.
"Oh, very well," said Janet, affecting a blitheness she was far from feeling, "I'll go."
Without another word, Mrs. Barr, weak as she was, rose and walked with a firm step to her own room. Emily, not altogether pleased with this climax, followed her immediately, giving a flabby imitation of her mother's really magnificent exit.
Janet stood nonplussed for a few seconds. Then she went upstairs to the inward refrain of:
"Chewing up a missionarySkin and bones and hymn book, too."
"Chewing up a missionarySkin and bones and hymn book, too."
"Chewing up a missionary
Skin and bones and hymn book, too."
Her inveterate evenness of spirit amounted almost to a failing; but now, for the first time, she became conscious of latent impulses of a vindictive and murderous kind.
Back in her own room, she hastily packed a suit-case with her most necessary belongings.