Fillmore Street, its low-browed shops dark, but with great arcs of white lights spanning the streets that ran east and west, long shafts of yellow light shining across the sidewalk from the restaurants, the candy stores and the nicolodeons—where the pianola tinkled plaintively—was thronged with saunterers. Alexina darted quick curious glances at them as she walked rapidly along. In front of every saloon was a group of young men almost fascinatingly common to Alexina's cloistered eyes, their hats tilted over their foreheads at an indescribable angle, rank black cigars in the corners of their mouths, or cigarettes hanging from their loose lips, leering at "bunches" of girls that passed unattended, appraising them cynically, making strident or stage-whispered comments.
A great many girls had cavaliers, and these walked with their heads tossed, unless drooping toward a padded, shoulder; and they wore perhaps a coat or two less of make-up than their still neglected sisters. These were vividly earmined, although most of them were young enough to have relied on cold water and a rough towel; their hair was arranged in enormous pompadours and topped with "lingerie" or beflowered hats. Their blouses were "peek-a-boo" and cut low, their skirts high; slender or plump, they wore exaggerated straight front corsets, high heels and ventilated stockings. They practiced the débutante slouch and their jaws worked automatically.
Not all of them were "bad" by any means. Fillmore Street was a promenade at night for girls who were confined by day: waitresses, shop girls of the humbler sort, servants, clerks, or younger daughters of poor parents, who would see nothing of life at all if they sat virtuously in the kitchen every night.
The best of them were not averse to being picked up and treated to ice-cream-soda or the more delectable sundae. A few there were, and they were not always to be distinguished by the kohl round their eyes, the dead white of their cheeks, the magenta of their lips, who, ignoring the "bums" and "cadets" lounging at the corners or before the saloons, directed intent long glances at every passing man who looked as if he had the "roll" to treat them handsomely in the back parlor of a saloon, or possibly stake them at a gaming table. The town, still in its brief period of insufferable virtue, was "closed," but the lid was not on as irremovably as the police led the good mayor to believe; and these girls, who traveled not in "bunches" but in pairs, if they had not already begun a career of profitable vice, were anxious to start but did not exactly know how. Fillmore Street was not the hunting ground of rich men; but men with a night's money came there, and many "boobs" from the country.
Alexina had heard of Fillmore Street from Aileen, who investigated everything, escorted by her uxorious parent, and had been informed that many of these girls were "decent enough"; "much more decent than I would be in the circumstances: work all day, coarse underclothes, no place to see a beau but the street. I'd go straight to the devil and play the only game I had for all it was worth."
But to Alexina they all looked appalling, abandoned, the last cry in "badness." She was not afraid. The street was too brilliant and the great juggernauts of trolley cars lumbered by every few moments. Moreover, she could make herself look as cold and remote as the stars above the fog, and she had drawn herself up to her full five feet seven, thrown her shoulders back, lifted her chin and lowered her eyelids the merest trifle. She fancied that the patrician-beauty type would have little or no attraction for the men who frequented Fillmore Street. Certainly the bluntest of these males could see that she was not painted, blackened, dyed, nor chewing gum.
Moreover she was in mourning.
But she had reckoned without her youth.
"Say, kid, what you doin' all alone?"
A hand passed familiarly through her arm.
Her brain turned somersaults, raced. Should she burst into tears? Turn upon him with a frozen stare? Appeal for help?
Then she discovered that although astonished she was not at all terrified; nor very much insulted. Why should she be? A casual remark of the sophisticated Aileen flashed through her rallying mind: "When a man is even half way drunk he doesn't know a lady from a trollop, and ten to one the lady's a trollop anyhow."
She heartily wished that Aileen were in her predicament at the present moment. What on earth was she to do with the creature?
She had accelerated her steps without speaking or making any foolish attempts to shake him off; but she knew that her face was crimson, and one girl tittered as they passed, while another, appreciating the situation, laughed aloud and cried after her: "Don't be frightened, kid. He's not a slaver."
Irrepressible curiosity made her send him a swift glance from the corner of her eye. He was a young man, thick set, with an aggressive nose set in a round hard face. His small, hard, black eyes were steady, and so were his feet. He did not look in the least drunk.
"I think you have made a mistake," she said quietly, and with no pretense at immense dignity (she could hear Aileen say: "Cut it out. Nothing doing in that line here"). "I, also, have made a mistake—in walking at night on this street. Would you mind letting go my arm? I think I'll take a car."
"No, I think you'll stay just where you are," he said insolently. "You don't belong here all right, but you've come and you can stand the consequences. You're just the sort that needs a jolt and I like the idea of handing it."
Alexina gave him a coldly speculative glance. "I wonder why?"
"You would? Well, I'll tell you. Never been out alone at night before, I'll bet, like these other girls, that ain't got no place on earth to have any fun but the streets. Never even rubbed against the common herd? Generally go about in a machine, don't you?"
"It is quite true that I have never been out alone at night before. I certainly shall not go again."
"No, you don't have to! That's the point, all right. And if you weren't such a beauty, damn you! I'd hate you this minute as I hate your whole parasite class."
"Oh, you are a socialist!" Alexina looked at him with frank curiosity."I never saw one before."
He was obviously disconcerted. Then his face flushed with anger. "Yes, I'm a socialist all right, and you'll see more of us before you're many years older."
"You might tell me about it if youwillwalk with me. I am a long way from my destination, and that would be far more interesting than personalities."
"I've got more personalities where those came from. It makes me sick to see the difference between you and these poor kids—ready to sell their souls for pretty clothes and a little fun. There's nothing that has done so much to inflame class hatred as the pampered delicate satin-skinned women of your class, who have expensive clothes and 'grooming' to take the place of slathers of paint and cheap perfume. Raised in a hot house for the use of the man on top. It's the crowning offense of capitalism, and when the system goes, they'll all be like you, or you'll be more like them. You'll come down about a thousand pegs, and the ones down below will be shoved up to meet you."
Alexina stood still and faced him.
"Are you poor?" she asked.
"What a hell of a question. Have I been talkin' like a plutocrat?"
"Oh, there are, still, different grades. I was wondering if you would be so inconsistent as to earn a little money from me and two friends of mine. We have read socialism a bit, but, we don't understand it very well. I am in mourning and it would interest me immensely."
He had dropped her arm and was staring at her.
"You are not afraid of me, then?" His voice was sulky but his eyes were less hostile.
"Oh, not in the least. I fully appreciate that you merely wished to humiliate me, not to be insulting, as some of these other men might have been. My name is Mrs. Mortimer Dwight. I live on Ballinger Hill—do you know it? That old house in the eucalyptus grove?"
"I know it, all right."
"Then you probably know, also, that I am not rich and never have been.My husband is a struggling young business man."
"That cuts no ice. You train with that class, don't you? You're class yourself, reek with it. You had rich ancestors or you wouldn't be what you are now."
"Well, we can discuss that point another time. One of my friends is a daughter of Judge Lawton—"
"Hand in glove with every rich grafter in 'Frisco."
Alexina shuddered. "Please say San Francisco. I am positive you never heard a word against Judge Lawton's probity, nor that he ever rendered an unjust decision."
"He's a wise old guy, all right. But it would be wastin' time tryin' to make you understand why I have no use for him."
"Of course you would have no use for the husband of my other friend,Mrs. Frank Bascom."
She fully expected that the young millionaire's name would be the final red rag and that her escort would roar his opinion of him for the benefit of all Fillmore Street. But he surprised her by saying reluctantly:
"He's dead straight, all right. He's not a grafter. I've nothing against him personally, but he's part of a damnable system and I'd clean him out with the rest."
"Well, there you have three of us to your hand. Who knows but that you might convert us? Why not give us the chance? If you will give me your address I will write to you as soon as my friends come back to town."
"I don't know whether I want to do it or not. You may be makin' game of me for all I know."
"I am quite sincere. You interest me immensely. And we might teach you something too—what it means to have a sense of humor. I know enough of socialism to know that no socialist can have it. May I ask what your occupation is?"
"I'm just a plain working-man—housebuilding line."
"Then you could only come in the evening?"
"Not at all; I get off at five. You don't have your dinner until eight in your set, I believe," This with a sneer that curled his upper lip almost to the septum of his nose.
"Seven. My husband works until nearly six. He rarely has time for lunch and comes home very hungry."
Once more he looked puzzled and disconcerted, but his small steady eyes did not waver.
"My name's James Kirkpatrick." He found the stub of a pencil in his pocket and wrote an address on the flap of an envelope. "I'll think it over. Maybe I'll do it. I dunno, though."
"I do hope you will. I'm sure we can learn a good deal from each other. Now, would you mind putting me on the next car? Or don't the socialist tenets admit of gallantry to my sex?"
"Socialism admits the equality of the sexes, which is a long sight better, but I guess there's nothing to prevent me seeing you onto your car."
He even lifted his hat as she turned to him from the high platform, and as he smiled a little she inferred that he was congratulating himself on having had the last word.
Gora, to whom she had telephoned before leaving home, was standing on the steps of her house, looking anxiously up the street, as her young sister-in-law left the car at the corner.
Gora walked up to meet her guest. "Where on earth have you, been?" she demanded. "I supposed of course that you'd take a taxi. You should not go out alone at night. Mortimer would be wild. He has the strictest ideas; and you—"
"Haven't. Not, any more. I'm tired of being kept in a glass case—being a parasite." She laughed gayly at Gora's look of amazement. "I've had an adventure. Almost the first I ever had."
She related it as they walked slowly down the street and up the steps and stairs to the attic.
Gora looked very thoughtful as she listened. "Shall you tell Mortimer?"
"Oh, I don't know. Possibly not. Why agitate him? The thing is done."
"But if you study with this man?"
"There is no necessity to explain where I met him. I look upon myself as Morty's partner, not as his subject. We have never disputed over anything yet, but of course as time goes on I shall wish to do many things whether he happens to like it or not. Possibly without consulting him."
"You've had time to think these past three months for the first time in your life," said Gora shrewdly. "Here we are. I hope you don't hate stairs. I do when I come home dog-tired, but somehow I can't give up the old place…. And I've lit the candles in your honor."
"Oh, but it is pretty! Charming!"
Thought Gora: "I do hope she's not going to be gracious. I've never liked her so well before."
But Alexina was too excited to have a firm grip on the Ballinger-Groome tradition. She had had an adventure, an uncommon one, in a far from respectable night district; she had done something that would cause the impeccable Mortimer the acutest anguish if he knew of it; and she had caught sight immediately of Gathbroke's picture framed and enthroned on the mantelpiece.
She walked about the room admiring the hangings and prints, the oldChinese lanterns that held the candles.
"I am going to refurnish our lower rooms," she said. "If you have time do help me. Heavens! I wish I could work off some of that old furniture on you. I like the Italian pieces well enough, but there are too many of them. That rather low Florentine cabinet in the back parlor would just fit in this corner…."
She gave a little girlish exclamation and ran forward.
"Isn't that young Gathbroke, who was out here at the time of the earthquake and fire … or an older brother, perhaps?"
She had taken the photograph from the mantel and was examining it under one of the lanterns. Her alert ear detected the deeper and less steady note in Gora's always hoarse voice.
"It is the same. Did you meet him? … Oh, I remember he told me he met you at the Hofer ball. He rather raved over you, in fact."
"Did he? How sweet of him. I met him again, I remember. Mr. Gwynne brought him down to Rincona one day."
"Oh?"
And Alexina, knew that he had never mentioned that visit.
"But he looks much much older."
"He did before he left. That horrible experience of his seemed to prey on him more and more.
"Oh."
He had not looked a day over twenty-three on that afternoon at Eincona, two weeks after the fire.
Alexina replaced the picture, then turned to her sister-in-law with a coaxing smile. "Are you engaged? It would be too romantic. Do tell me."
"No," said Gora, shortly. "We are not engaged. Good friends, that is all, and write occasionally."
"Well, he must be very much interested—and you must be a very interesting correspondent, Gora dear! Is he? Interesting, I mean. What does he do, anyhow? I have a vague remembrance that he said something about the army."
"He was in the army, the Grenadier Guards. But he has resigned and gone into business with a cousin of his in Lancashire. He wrote me—oh, it must be nearly two years ago—that if there should be a war he would enlist as a matter of course, but as there was no prospect of any, and he was sick of idleness—his good middle-class energetic blood asserting itself, he said,—he was going to amuse himself with work, incidentally try to make a fortune. His mother left a good deal of money, but there are several children and I guess the present earl needs most of it to keep up his estates, to say nothing of his position. Fotten law, that—entail, I mean."
Alexina came and sat down on the divan beside Gora, piling the cushions behind her. "Are you a socialist?"
"I am not. I believe in sticking to your own class, whether you have a grudge against it or not, or even if you think it far from perfection."
She shot a quick challenging glance at her admittedly aristocratic sister-in-law, but Alexina had lifted the lower white of her eyes just above their soft black fringe and looked more innocent than any new born lamb. As she did not answer Gora continued:
"I remember that night I sat out with Gathbroke on Calvary he said something about socialism … that it was a confession of failure. I may feel so furious with destiny sometimes that I could go out and wave a red flag, or even the darker red of anarchy, but what always sobers me is the thought that if I had the good luck to inherit or make even a reasonable fortune I'd have no more use for socialism than for a rattlesnake in my bed. Why are you interested?"
"Only as in any subject that interests a few million people. I haven't the least intention of being converted, but I don't want to be an ignoramus. Aileen and Sibyl and I did start Marx'sDas Kapital—in German! We nearly died of it. But I felt sure that this man, Kirkpatrick, had studied his subject, if only because his language changed so completely when he talked about it. It was as if he were quoting, but intelligently. Of course the poor man had little or no education to begin with. Somehow he struck me as a pathetic figure. Perhaps when every one is educated—and there must be many thousands of naturally intelligent men in the working class whose brains if trained would be mighty useful in Washington—well, all having had equal opportunities they would surely arrive at some way to improve conditions without struggling for anything so hopeless as socialism. I know enough to be sure that it is hopeless, because it antagonizes human nature."
"Rather. The trend under all the talk is more and more toward individualism, not self-effacing communism. As for myself I like the idea of the fight—for public recognition, I mean; and I don't think I'd be happy at all if things were made too smooth for me; if, for instance, in a socialized state it were decided that I could devote all my time to writing, and that the state would take care of me, publish my work, and distribute it exactly where it was sure to be appreciated. I haven't any of the old California gambling blood in me, but I guess the hardy ghost of those old days still dominates the atmosphere, and I have not been one of those to escape."
"It's in mine! Not that I care for gambling, really, like Aileen and Alice. But I've always been fascinated by the idea of taking long chances, and I have had inklings that I'll be rather more than less fascinated as I grow older…. When are your stories to be published? I am simply expiring to read them."
"Are you?"
Alexina had thrust her slim index finger unerringly through Gora's bristling armor and tickled her weakest spot. The fledgling author smiled into the dazzling eyes opposite and a deep flush rose to her high cheek bones.
"Rather!"
"Then…" Gora rose and took a magazine from the table beside her bed. She spread it open on her lap, when she had resumed her seat, and handled it as Alexina had seen young mothers fondle their first-born.
"It's here. Just out."
"Oh!" Alexina gave a little shriek of genuine anticipation. "Read it to me. Quick. I can't wait."
Gora led a lonely life outside of her work, a lonely inner life always. She had never had an intimate friend, and she suddenly reflected that there had been a certain measure of sadness in her joy both when her manuscripts were accepted and to-day when for the first time she had gazed at herself in print…. She had had no one to rejoice with her…. She felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude to Alexina.
But she gave this young wife of her brother whom she knew as little as Alexina knew her, another swift suspicious glance…. No, there was nothing of Alexina's usual high and careless courtesy in that eager almost excited face.
"I'd love to have your opinion…. I read very badly…. Make allowances…."
"Oh, fire away. If I'd written a story and had it accepted by that magazine I'd read it from the housetops."
Gora read the story well enough, and Alexina's mind did not wander even to Gathbroke. It was written in a pure direct vigorous English. A little less self-consciousness and it would have been distinguished. The story itself was built craftily; she had been coached by a clever instructor who was a successful writer of short stories himself; and it worked up to a climax of genuine drama. But this was merely the framework, the flexible technique for the real Gora. The story had not only an original point of view but it pulsed with the insurgent resentful passionate spirit of the writer.
Alexina gave a little gasp as Gora finished.
"Many people won't like that story," she said. "It shocks and jars and gives one's smugness a pain in the middle. But those that do like it will give you a great reputation, and after all there are a few thousand intelligent readers in the United States. How on earth did that magazine come to accept it?"
Gora was staring at Alexina with an uncommonly soft expression in her opaque light eyes. She felt, indeed, as if her ego would leap through them and make a fool of her.
"The editor wrote me something of what you have just said. He wanted something new—to give his conservative old subscribers a shock. Thought it would be good for them and for the magazine. You—you—have said what I should have wanted you to say if I could have thought it out…. I think I should have hated you if you had said, 'How charming!' or 'How frantically interesting!'"
"Well, it's the last if not the first. Aileen will say that and mean it. I'll telephone to the bookstore the first thing Monday morning and get a copy. Now I must go. It's late."
"Let me telephone for a taxi."
Alexina laughed merrily. "You'll never believe it, but I've just thirty cents in my purse. I forgot to ask Morty for something before he left…. You see, I happened to find quite a bit in mother's desk and so I've never thought to ask him for an allowance. But I shall at once."
"An allowance? But you have your own money? Or is it because the estate isn't settled? What has Morty to do with that?"
"I believe we get the income from the estate until it is settled. But I gave my power of attorney to Morty."
"Oh! But if there is money on deposit in the bank you can draw on it."
"Could I? Well! I'll just draw a round hundred on Monday at ten A.M."
"Why did you give your power of attorney to Morty?"
"Oh … why … he asked me to … I know nothing about business, and he naturally would attend to my affairs."
"But you are not going away. No one needs your power of attorney. And the executors are Judge Lawton and Mr. Abbott. You are here to sign such papers as they advise…. Don't be angry, please. I am not insinuating anything against Morty. He's never bad a dishonest thought in his life … has always been, the squarest … but…"
"Well?"
Alexina's head was very high. It was quite bad enough for Tom Abbott and Judge Lawton … but for his sister …
"It's this way, Alexina. People in this world, more particularly men, are just about as honest as circumstances will permit them to be. Some are stronger than Life in one way or another, no doubt of it; but they make up for it by being weaker in others…. I am talking particularly of the money question, the struggle for existence, which the vast majority of men are forced to make….
"Men fight Life from the hour they leave their homes, when they have any, to force success—in one way or another—out of her until the hour they are able to lay down the burden…. Some are too strong and too firm in their ideals ever to do wrong; they would prefer failure, and generally they are strong enough to avoid it, even to succeed in their way against the most overwhelming odds…. Many are too clever not to find some way of compromising and circumventing…. Others just peg along and barely make both ends meet…. Others go under and down and out.
"Morty, like millions of other young Americans, had good principles and high ideals inculcated from his earliest boyhood and took to them as a duck takes to water. Nor is he weak. But although he is a hard and steady worker he is also visionary. He speculated on the stock market before he was married. Probably not now as the market is moribund. He is frantic to get rich … for more reasons than one."
"But he never would do anything dishonorable."
"No. Nothing he couldn't square with his conscience if it turned out all right. But the most honest man, when in a hole, finds little difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that what is, illogically, the possession of the women of his family, is his if he needs it.
"Moreover, no doubt you have discovered that Morty is the sort of man who looks upon women as man's natural inferiors, that if there is any question of sacrifice the woman is not to be considered for a moment … especially where no public risk is involved. That sort of man only thinks he is too honest to refrain from taking some unrelated woman's money, but as a matter of fact it is because she would send him to State's Prison as readily as a man would. One's own women are safe.
"I lent Morty my small inheritance with my eyes open. But he knows a good deal of that particular business, and I did not dream the times were going to be so bad…. I doubt if I ever see it again…. But you must not run the risk of losing yours. I want you to promise me that on Monday morning you will go down to the City Hall and revoke your power of attorney. And as much for Morty's sake as for your own. He will lose your money if he keeps it in his hands, and then he will suffer agonies of remorse. He will be infinitely more miserable than if he merely failed in business. That is honorable. It would only hurt his pride. Then he could get a position again, and you would have your own income."
"But do you mean to say that if I did revoke my power of attorney and he asked me later for money to save his business that I should not give it to him?"
"Yes, I mean just that. Morty will never take any of the prizes in the business world. He may hold on and make a living, that is all. He has plenty to start with, and tells me he is doing fairly well, in spite of the times. But he would do better in the long run as a clerk. In time he might get a large salary as a sort of general director of all the routine business of some large house—"
Alexina curled her lip. "I do not want him to be a clerk."
"No, of course you don't! But you'd like it still less if he cleaned you out. You—would have to sell or rent your old home and live on a hundred and fifty dollars a month in a flat in some out-of-the-way quarter. You might have to go to work yourself."
"I shouldn't mind that so much, except that I'm afraid I'd not be good for much. Perhaps it was snobbish of me to object lo Morty's being a clerk. But … well, I'm not so sure that it is snobbish to prefer what you have always been accustomed to—I mean if it is a higher standard. And after all I married him when he was only a clerk."
"You are surprisingly little of a snob, all things considered; but you are a hopeless aristocrat."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I think the line between the aristocratic and the snobbish attitude of mind is almost too fine to be put into words. But they are often confused by the undiscriminating. Will you revoke that power of attorney on Monday?"
"Shouldn't I wait until Morty is home? … tell him first? It seems rather taking an advantage … and he will be very angry."
"That doesn't matter."
"What excuse shall I give him?"
"Any one of a dozen. You are bored and want to take care of your money … intend to learn something of business, as all women should, and will in time…. Ring in the feminist stuff … wife's economic independence … woman's new position in the world…. That will make Morty so raving angry that he will forget about the other. Will you do it?"
"Yes, I will. I believe you are right. So were the others … there must be something in it."
She told Gora of the advice of Tom Abbott and Judge Lawton. Gora nodded.
"They meant more than they said. And merely because they are men of the world, not because they like and trust Morty any the less."
Alexina did not hear her. She was staring hard at the floor…. A year ago … three months ago … she couldn't have done this thing. She had been still under the illusion that she loved her husband, that her marriage was a complete success. She would have sacrificed her last penny rather than hurt his feelings. Now she only cared that she didn't care…. She had admitted to herself that she did not love her husband but that was different from committing an overt act that proved it…. She felt something crumbling within her…. It was the last of the fairy edifice of her romance … of her first, her real, youth…. What was to take its place? The future smugly secure on six thousand a year and an inviolate social position … a good dull husband … not even the prospect of travel….
She sprang to her feet and turned away her head.
"Why don't you come and live with us?" she asked abruptly. "Why should you keep this on? There are so many vacant bedrooms up there. You could have one for your study. I'd love to have you. You'd have the most complete independence. Do."
Gora shook her head. "I've always this to fall back on."
"Fall back on?"
"Oh! I never meant to let that out. However…. Perhaps it is as well…. Morty—you know his pride—everybody has his prime weakness and that is his. Transpose it into snobbery if you like…. We did not board down here. I kept a lodging house for business women. It paid well, but Morty, when he became engaged to you, insisted that I give it up. He was afraid you'd be outraged in your finest sensibilities! Well, I did. One of my lodgers resigned from her job and took it over. I entered the hospital, but kept on my room as I had to have one somewhere. Eight months later she married, and I took it back. I found I could run it as well as ever with the aid of a treasure of a Chinaman she had discovered. But I never told Morty."
Alexina laughed. "Better not. But you could run it and live with us all the same."
"No. I have too little time. I'd waste it coming back and forth, for I must be here some time every day…. Besides…"
"Your own precious atmosphere?"
"You do understand!"
"Well, come to see me often. I shall need your advice."
"You bet. And now, I'll see you to your car; stay with you until you are safely transferred to the Fillmore car. And don't assert your independence in just this way again. All those loafers on Fillmore Street are not spiteful socialists."
As Gora put on her hat at the distant mirror Alexina turned to Gathbroke's picture with a scowl. She even clenched her hands into fists.
"Oh … you … you…. Why weren't you…. Why didn't you…."
Mortimer arrived on Tuesday evening, looking immaculate in spite of his day on the train, and with that air of beaming gallantry that he could always summon at will, even when all was not well with him.
To-night, however, he was quite sincere. His visit to Los Angeles had been a success; he had actually put through a deal that had translated itself into a cheque for a thousand dollars. He had, through a mistaken order, been overstocked with a certain commodity from the Orient that the retail merchants of San Francisco bought very sparingly; but he had found in Los Angeles a firm that did a large business with the swarming Japanese population and was glad to take it over at a reasonable figure.
It was after dinner; his taut trim body was relaxed in evening luxury before the wood fire of the back parlor, and he was half way through a cigar when Alexina rose and extended one arm along the mantelpiece. She looked like a long black poplar with her round narrow flexible figure and her small head held with a lofty poise; as serene as a poplar in France on a balmy day. But she quaked inside.
She glanced at her happy unsuspecting husband with an engaging smile. "I'm afraid you will be rather cross with me," she said softly. "But I went down to the City Hall yesterday and revoked my power of attorney to you."
"You did what?" The slow blood rose to Dwight's hair. He mechanically took the cigar from his mouth. It lost its flavor. He had a sensation of falling through space … out of somewhere….
Alexina repeated her statement.
He recovered himself. "Tom Abbott has been at you again, I suppose. OrJudge Lawton."
"Neither. Really, Morty, you must give me credit for a mind of my own. I did it for several reasons. Sibyl was here Sunday. She motored up from Burlingame with Aileen on purpose to talk to me. She has induced Mrs. Hunter and some other of the more intelligent women down there—those that read the serious new books and go to lectures when there are any worth while—to join a class in economics. One of the professors at Stanford is going to teach us. Aileen has lost frightfully at poker lately and wants a new interest; she put Sibyl up to it—who was delighted with the suggestion as she hasn't been intellectual for quite a while now, and really has a practical streak; so that studying economics appealed to her.
"I jumped at the idea. It was a God-send. I have had so little to do. I don't care for poker and one can't read all the time…. But after they left I reflected that I should cut a rather ridiculous figure studying economies in the abstract if I didn't have sense and 'go' enough to manage my own affairs. Why, I was so ignorant I thought I couldn't draw any money from the bank because I had given you my power of attorney. Aileen has an allowance and the Judge makes her keep books. She usually comes out about even at poker in the course of the month, and if she doesn't she pawns something. I've been with her to pawn shops and it's the greatest fun. I don't mind telling you, as I know you never betray a confidence. The Judge would lock poor dear Aileen up on bread and water.
"Sibyl manages those two great houses herself. Frank gives her some stupendous sum a year and she is proud of the fact that she never runs over it. You know how she entertains.
"I should never dare admit to them—or to the professor if he asked my opinion on that sort of thing and it had to come out—that I was too lazy and too incompetent to manage my own little fortune. So I went down first thing Monday morning and revoked my power of attorney. I simply couldn't wait. When the estate is settled and turned over to me I shall attend to everything and not bother you, Morty dear."
Morty dear looked at her with a long hard suspicious stare. Alexina thoughtfully turned up her eyes and changed promptly from a poplar into a saint.
"I don't like it. I don't like it at all."
Words were never his strong point and he could find none now adequate to express his feelings.
"I may be old-fashioned—"
"You are, Morty. That is your only fault. You belong to the old school of American husbands—"
"There are plenty of old-fashioned people left in the world."
"So there are, poor dears. It's going to be so hard for them—"
"Are you trying to be one of those infernal new women?"
"Well, you see, I just naturally am a child of my times, in spite of my old-fashioned family. I'd be much the same if I'd never taken any interest in all these wonderful modern movements."
"It's those chums of yours—Aileen, Sibyl, Janet. I never did wholly approve of them."
"Neither did mother and Maria, but it never made any difference."
"Do you mean to say that you intend to ignore me … disobey me?"
"Oh, Morty, I never promised to obey you. You know the fun we all had at the rehearsal. You haven't noticed, these three years, that I've had my way, in pretty nearly everything, merely because it happened to be your way too. We've been living in a sort of pleasure garden, just playing about, with mother as the good old fairy. But everything has changed. We must look out for ourselves now, and I cannot put the whole burden on your shoulders—"
"I do not mind in the least. That is where it belongs."
Alexina shook her wise little head. "Oh, no. It isn't done any more. No woman who has learned to think is so unjust as to throw the whole burden of life on her husband's shoulders. You have your own daily battle in the business world. I will do the rest."
"What damned emancipated talk."
"What a funny old-fashioned word. We don't even say advanced or new any more."
"It's nonsense anyhow. You're nothing but a child."
"You may just bet your life I'm not a child. Nor have I awakened all of a sudden. In one sense I have. But not in this particular branch of modern science. I have read tons about it, and Aileen and I are always discussing everything that interests the public; I have even read the newspapers for two years."
"Much better you didn't. There is no reason whatever for a woman in your position knowing anything about public affairs. It detracts from your charm."
"Maybe, but we'll find more charm in Life as we grow older."
His memory ran back along a curved track and returned with something that looked like a bogey.
"May I ask what your program is? Your household program? I had got everything down to a fine point…. It seems too bad you should bother…."
"Bother? I've been bored to death, and feeling like a silly little good-for-nothing besides. The trouble is, it's too little bother. James and I have had a long talk. Housekeeping will be reduced to its elements with him, but at least I shall begin to feel really grown up when I pore over monthly bills and 'slips' and sign cheques."
She hesitated. "You mustn't think for a minute that I want to make you feel out of it, Morty. It. is only that Imust. The time has come, … Of course, you have been paying half the bills anyhow. We could simply go on along those lines. I will tell you what it all amounts to, shortly after the first of the month, and you'll give me half."
Dwight stared at the end of his cigar. His was not an agile brain but in that moment it had an illuminating flash. He realized that this sheltered creature, with whom her mother had never discussed household economics, and from whom he had purposely kept all knowledge of his business, took for granted that he could pay his share of the monthly expenses, merely because all the men she knew did twice as much, however they might grumble. For the matter of that she never saw Tom Abbott that he did not curse the ascending prices, but there was no change whatever in his bountiful fashion of living. Alexina knew that the times were bad and that her husband was having something of a struggle, and, as a dutiful wife, was anxious to help him out for the present, but it was simply beyond her powers of comprehension to grasp the fact that he was in no position to pay half the expenses of their small establishment.
If he told her … tried to make her understand … even if she did, how would he appear in her eyes?
Of all people in the world he wanted to stand high with Alexina … he had never taken more pains to bluff the street when things were at their worst than this girl who was the symbol of all he had aspired to and precariously achieved. He had longed for riches, not because she craved luxury and pomp, but because she would be forced to look up to him with admiration and a lively gratitude. He had, in this spirit, given her; in the most casual manner, handsome presents, or brilliant little dinners at fashionable restaurants, in all of which she took a fervent young pleasure. He had dipped into his slender capital, but of this she had not even a suspicion … he had made some airy remark about celebrating a "good deal" … no wonder … he had her too well bluffed.
For an instant he contemplated a plain and manly statement of fact. But he did not have the courage. Anything rather than that she should curl that short aristocratic upper lip of hers, stare at him with wide astonished eyes that saw him a failure, even if a temporary one. He set his teeth and vowed to go through with it, to make good. This thousand would last several months, even if he made no more than his expenses meanwhile.
He shrugged his shoulders and lit another cigar. The first had died a lingering and malodorous death.
"Have your own way," he said coldly. "I only wished to keep you young and carefree. If you choose to bother with bills and investments it is your own look-out."
"Thank you, Morty dear."
She felt that it would be an act of wifely self-abnegation to defer the announcement of her interest in socialism and Mr. Kirkpatrick. Aileen and Sibyl had hailed her plan as even more exciting than the study of economics with an exceedingly good-looking young professor (who had been tutoring in Burlingame), and she had already dispatched a note to him whom Aileen disreputably called her Fillmore Street mash.
Kirkpatrick sat before a crescent composed of Mrs. Mortimer Dwight,Mrs. Francis Leslie Bascom and Miss Aileen Livingston Lawton.
His reasons for coming to Ballinger House—which even he knew was inaccessible to the common herd—were separate and tabulated. Alexina had fascinated him against his best class principles; but he not only jumped at the chance of meeting her again, he was excessively curious to understand a woman of her class, to watch her in different moods and situations. He was equally curious to meet other women of the same breed; he had never brushed their skirts before, but he had often stood and gazed at them hungrily as they passed in their limousines or driving their smart little electric cars.
He was also curious to see several of those "interiors" he had read so much about, and hoped his pupils would meet in turn at their different homes. He was a sincere and honest socialist, was Mr. Kirkpatrick, and he had a good healthy class-consciousness and class-hatred. But he also had a large measure of intelligent curiosity. He had never expected to have the opportunity to gratify it in respect to "bourgeois" inner circles, and when it came he had only hesitated long enough to search his soul and assure himself that he was in no danger of growing compliant and soft. Moreover he might possibly make converts, and in any case it was not a bad way, society being still what it was, of turning an honest penny.
But in this the first lesson he was as disconcerted as a socialist serene in his faith could be.
The three girls had curved their slender bodies forward, resting one elbow on a knee. At the end of each of these feline arches was a pair of fixed and glowing eyes. No doubt there were faces also, but he was only vaguely aware of three white disks from which flowed forth lambent streams of concentrated light. They looked like three little sea-monsters, slim, flexible, malignant, ready to spring.
He exaggerated in his embarrassment, but he was not so very far wrong.
"The little devils!" he thought in his righteous wrath. "I'll teach 'em, all right."
As it was necessary to break the farcical silence he said in a voice too loud for the small library. "Well, what is it about socialism that you don't just know? Mrs. Dwight told me you had read some."
"There is one thing I want to say before we begin," said Aileen in her high light impertinent voice, "and that is that if there is one thing that makes us more angry than another it is to be calledbourgeois."
"And ain't you?"
"We are not. I suppose your Marx didn't know the difference, although he is said to have married well, butbourgeoisfor centuries in Europe had meant middle-class. Just that and nothing more. Marx had no right to pervert an honest historic old word into something so different and so obnoxious."
"To Marx all capitalists were in the same class. I suppose what you mean is that you society folks call yourselves aristocrats, even when you have less capital than some of them that can't get in."
"Sure thing. Take it from me."
He gazed at her astounded, and once more had recourse to his rather heavy sarcasm.
"Even when they use slang."
"Oh, we're never afraid to—like lots of the middle-class—bourgeois.Too sure of ourselves to care a hang what any one thinks of us."
Alexina came hastily to the rescue, for a dull glow was kindling in Mr. Kirkpatrick's small sharp eyes. She didn't mind baiting him a little, but as he was in a way her guest he must be protected from the naughtiness of Aileen and the insolence of Sibyl Bascom, who had taken a cigarette from a gold bejeweled case that dangled from her wrist and was asking him for a light. He gave her measure for measure, for he lifted his heavy boot and struck a match on the sole.
"You must not be too hard on us, Mr. Kirkpatrick." Alexina upreared and leaned against the high back of her chair with a sweet and gracious dignity, "We are really a pack of ignoramuses, full of prejudices, which, however, we would get rid of if we knew how. We are hoping everything from these lessons."
"Doyousmoke?"
"No, I don't happen to like the taste of tobacco, but I quite approve of my friends smoking—unless they smoke their nerves out by the roots, as Miss Lawton does. Don't give her a light. But I'm sure you smoke. I'll get you a cigar."
She pinched Aileen, glared at Sibyl, and left the room.
Mortimer was smoking furiously, trying to concentrate his mind on the evening paper.
"Give me a cigar, Morty dear."
"A cigar? What for?"
"It would be too mean of those girls to smoke unless Mr. Kirkpatrick did too, and I am sure we couldn't stand his tobacco. Even a whiff of bad tobacco makes me feel quite ill."
"I'll be hanged if I give my cigars to that bounder. The kitchen is the place for him."
"But not for us. And our minds are quite made up, you know. We are going to study with him just to find out what these strange animals called socialists are like. He is queer enough, to begin, with. And the knowledge may prove useful one of these days…. If you won't give me one I'll send James out—"
Mortimer handed over one of his choice cigars with ill grace, and Alexina returned to the library. Aileen was informing Mr. Kirkpatrick how intensely she disliked Marx's beard, not only as she had seen it in a photograph, but as she had smelt it in Spargo's too vivid description.
He rose awkwardly as she entered, but he rose. She handed him the cigar and struck a match and held it to one end while he drew at the other. Their faces were close and she gave him a smile of warm and spontaneous friendliness.
Thought Mr. Kirkpatrick: "Oh, Lord, she's got me. I'd better make tracks out of here. If she was a vamp like that Bascom woman she wouldn't get me one little bit. Plenty of them where I come from. But she's plain goddess with eyes like headlights on an engine."
Perturbed as he was, however, he resumed his seat and drew appreciatively at the finest cigar that had ever come his way. It had the opportune effect of causing his class-hatred to flame afresh. No fear that he would be made soft by teaching in the homes of these pampered cats. For the moment he hated Alexina, seated in a carved high-back Italian chair like a young queen on a throne.
"Well," he growled. "Let's get to business. I've brought Spargo. Marx is too much for me. He's terrible dull and involved. He was so taken up with his subject, I guess, that he forgot to learn how to write about it so's people without much time and education could understand without getting a pain in their beans. Of course I've heard him expounded many times from the platform, but there must have been about fifty Marxes, for I've heard—or read—just about that many expounders of him and no two agree so's you'd notice it. That, to my mind, is the only stumbling block for socialism—that we have a prophet who's so hard to understand.
"So, I've settled on Spargo. He has the name of being about the best student of Marx and of socialism generally—it's split up quite a bit—and he's easy reading. I fetched him along."
He produced "Socialism" from his hat and hesitated. "I don't know noth—a thing about teaching."
"Oh, don't let that worry you," drawled Sibyl Bascom in her low voluptuous voice and transfixing him with narrow swimming eyes; then as he refused to be overcome, she continued more humanly: "We've been to lots of classes, you know. There are all sorts of methods. Suppose one of us reads the first chapter aloud and then you expound. That is, we'll ask you questions."
"That's fine," said Mr. Kirkpatrick with immense relief. "Fire away."
And Alexina, who always read prefaces and introductions last, began with "Robert Owen and the Utopian Spirit."