He went out of the house, banging the door behind him. No pride—what was a woman without pride? If she set no value on herself, how was a man to hold her dear?
He thought of Mabel, of all the American girls he had known. There was not one among them who would have bent her head humbly to that old fellow—not one; only this Ingeborg, this little alien with the dark braids about her head.
Halfway down the street he remembered his bag. He turned and strode back, ran up the steps, and rang the bell violently. Perhaps she would come again. What did he care?
But it was Oscar who opened the door.
“My bag!” said the young man.
“Well, there it is,” said Oscar. “In this house we are not thieves.”
The young man took up the bag, and for a moment the two of them looked at each other.
“So was I a fine fellow when I was young,” thought Oscar. Aloud he said, with a sort of mildness: “Too bad that that dumb one didn’t keep you your room! If you had come tome, it would have been different.”
“A nice thing for me!” said the young man. “A night like this—and I gave up my old room. A fellow I know told me to come here—name of Nielsen.”
“Nielsen?” repeated Oscar, staring thoughtfully at him. “Well, maybe I find something. One room I have, but that’s not for a young fellow like you—a fine room, with a piano in it. Maybe I let you have that room for one night at the price of the other, because that dumb one—”
“Oh, I’ll pay you for your fine room with a piano!” interrupted the young man. “You can charge what you like—I don’t care!”
Oscar Anders accepted the challenge.
“Pay nothing at all—I don’t care!” he said.
He threw open the door of the fine room, the front parlor, and lit the gas.
“Make yourself at home,” he said carelessly; for he would not let the fellow see how much he thought of this parlor.
The young man brought out a wallet, and again he and Oscar looked at each other; and there was the same pride in both of them.
“What’s your name, hey?” asked Oscar.
“My name? Jespersen’s my name.”
Oscar began to laugh.
“Jespersen you call it?” he said. “Yespersen, I guess! That’s a name from the old country.”
“Well, I’m not from the old country. I was born here.”
Oscar spoke to him in Danish.
“Forget it!” said Jespersen curtly.
“That’s right!” agreed Oscar. “I’m an American, too.”
“Oh, you’re a squarehead!” said Jespersen.
They both laughed at that. They sat down on two slender chairs covered with faded tapestry, and began to smoke in the dim and chilly parlor.
“Gunnar Jespersen—that’s my name,” said the young man. “My father was a Dane and my mother was Swedish, but I was born here.”
“Twenty-five years I am here,” said Oscar slowly. “It is a good country, but some of the old ways are good, too.” He smoked for awhile in silence. “You been a sailor,” he remarked, looking at the other’s hand, with an anchor tattooed on its back.
Gunnar did not answer that.
“Better for me if I were a sailor now!” he thought.[Pg 509]
For there would come across him, without warning in these days, terrible fits of bitterness and gloom. At the bottom of his soul there was a stern austerity, born in him and bred in him. He could laugh as much as he liked, he could swagger in his triumph, but in his soul he was sick and ashamed.
What was it that he had done?
Six months ago he had been at Long Beach, strolling along the sands, in his best shore clothes. He had been all alone, but he didn’t mind that. There was plenty to look at. Now and then some girl would smile at him, and he would smile back scornfully and go on his way.
And then he had met Mabel. At first he could not believe that it was he that she was looking at like that, out of the corners of her long black eyes. Heaven knows Gunnar was proud enough, but he could hardly believe that. The way she was dressed! The air she had!
She was with another girl, and it was the other girl who had dropped her purse almost at Gunnar’s feet. He had picked it up, and had spoken to them arrogantly; but the more curt and scornful he was, the more did Mabel smile on him, she with her pearls and her gloves and her drawling voice. Ignoring her friend, she had walked close beside Gunnar.
“It’s a shame,” she had said, “for you to be just a sailor!”
That made him angry. He was studying navigation, he was going to take an examination and get his mate’s ticket, and some day he would be master of a ship.
“My father’s the superintendent of a factory,” she said. “I know he’ll give you a job.”
“I don’t want any more jobs,” declared Gunnar.
But, all the same, he went to her father the next day, and he did get a job, and after two months he was made foreman. Now he had a little car of his own, and two suits of clothes, and a fine watch. He was making good money, and he wanted more. He had never thought much about money until he met Mabel.
Sometimes she came to the factory to drive her father home, and always she stopped to talk to Gunnar. She didn’t care how much the men stared.
“Gunnar,” she said one day, “I want you to come to the house to dinner.”
“Not me!” said Gunnar.
But he went, and he could not forget it. In the factory, grimy, in his rough work clothes, he would remember how he had sat at table in their fine house that night, with the girl opposite him, in a glittering low-cut dress, and her mother and father making much of him. They wanted him for their girl—he knew that. They would help him along in the world, for her sake, and to his ruin—he knew that, too.
For she waked everything that was worst in him. Sometimes in his heart he called her a devil, yet he could not escape from her. Waking and sleeping, his one dream was to conquer her, to make more money, to have a house such as she lived in, to have a place in her world, and to be his own master in it.
“Well, Gunnar Jespersen,” said Oscar, getting up, “your breakfast you can have downstairs at seven o’clock.”
“Good night!” returned Gunnar briefly.
But he did not have a good night in that fine room with a piano in it.
He got up early the next morning—too early. With the shades pulled down and the gas lighted, the parlor had a jaded look, as if it were tired and sullen, like himself. He dressed and went out into the hall, and downstairs to the basement.
At the kitchen door he stopped and looked in, and there he saw Ingeborg cooking the breakfast. She was as neat as a pin in her dark dress and white apron, and with her smooth coronet of braids. She was pale, and her eyes were red from weeping. A sad, quiet little thing she was, but so dear to him, all in a moment! How good she was, he thought, like a dear little angel! If only he could turn to her as his refuge!
He saw everything so clearly now. Here was his good angel, to save his soul from ruin. He had terrible need of her, of her goodness and gentleness and patience.
He went into the room. She turned at his footstep, and he came close to her and stood before her, looking down into her face. Her eyes, shining with clear truth, were lifted to his, but she did not smile. It was as if she knew how desperate was his case.
“Ingeborg!” he said, very low. “Dear little thing!”
She turned away her head, and a faint color rose in her cheeks.[Pg 510]
“Such nice herrings for your breakfast!” she said.
It was part of her blessedness that she could think of things like that—safe and homely things. She was the innocent little handmaiden, destined to make a home for his stormy spirit. He caught both her hands.
“Look at me!” he commanded.
But she shook her head, confused and smiling.
“Ingeborg!” he began, but just then there came a stamping and a great voice calling out:
“Hey! You Ingeborg! I’m ready!”
She ran to the stove and looked into the coffeepot. Then she began to put the breakfast on the table, and Oscar and Gunnar sat down together.
“I’ll keep the room,” said Gunnar.
“That room’s for a married couple,” objected Oscar, “not for a young fellow like you.”
“I can pay for it,” said Gunnar.
“I guess you want to play on that piano!” cried Oscar, with a shout of laughter, and Gunnar laughed, too, because he was happy.
The sun was up when he left for his work. It was a sharp March morning, with a wind that blew the sky clear and clean.
“The spring is coming,” thought Gunnar. “On Sunday, if it’s a nice day, maybe I’ll get out my car and take Ingeborg for a ride.”
He thought about that with a masterful joy. She was a little angel, but she was human enough to falter beneath his bold gaze. He was a conqueror again.
It was late in the afternoon when Mabel came in. She came like a queen, for wasn’t she the daughter of the superintendent? She beckoned to Gunnar with her gloved hand, and he left his work and came to her; but not like a subject to a queen. He stood before her with his blue shirt open at the neck, his fair hair damp with sweat, his hands blackened, but he was as cool and easy as she.
They stood apart in the great room that trembled and throbbed with the beat of machinery, and the men looked at them sidelong; but she was not abashed. She could do as she pleased.
“Gunnar,” she said, “I’ll wait for you by the bridge and drive you part of the way home.”
“You’ll have a nice long wait, then,” said Gunnar. “I won’t be finished here for another hour.”
“Perhaps they can manage to get on without you, if you leave a little early,” she suggested with a slow smile.
“Maybe they could,” said Gunnar; “but I’m not coming.”
It was just this insolence that she liked in Gunnar. It was a challenge to her.
“I want to talk to you, Gunnar,” she told him.
“There’s a rush order to get out,” replied Gunnar, “and I can’t leave early.”
At any cost she had to humble him—at any cost!
“Gunnar,” she said, “after all, if it wasn’t for me—”
“Some day I’ll pay you what I owe you,” he interrupted.
They looked steadily at each other.
“You’re a fool!” she said. “If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t be here at all.”
Gunnar laughed.
“Do you think I’d starve if I wasn’t here?” he said.
She wished it were like that. She wished she had the power of life and death over him. Shewouldconquer him!
She was silent for a moment, thinking how she could do it. He watched her; and, for all his scorn, his heart beat fast at the sight of her vivid beauty. She was a tall girl, thin, with a dark, narrow face, rouged and powdered, her cruel mouth reddened. She was dressed in a fur coat and high-heeled shoes, with her pearls about her neck. She was for him the very symbol of the new world of money that he so fiercely desired.
“Gunnar!” she said.
“Well?” returned Gunnar.
She was not looking at him now.
“Sunday evening I’m going to be all alone.”
A sort of fear seized them both, for they saw a crisis coming near. Either she must win or he must win.
“What about it?” asked Gunnar.
“You can telephone me on Sunday afternoon,” she said, “if you want to come.”
“Well, I don’t,” declared Gunnar.
She smiled, but it was a queer smile, and she said nothing. Perhaps she herself did not know what she meant.
Gunnar spun around on his heel and went back to his work.[Pg 511]
“Let her wait!” he thought, and laughed aloud. “Here, you, Kelly! Get on the job there!”
He slept well that night, and the next morning, when he came down into the kitchen, he was swaggering a little. Mrs. Anders was there, and he had no chance to talk to Ingeborg; but he looked straight into the girl’s face, and she smiled at him.
“I’ll marry her!” he thought. “Yes, that’s what I’ll do!”
“What you laughing about?” asked Mrs. Anders.
“Oh, nothing!” said Gunnar.
As a matter of fact, he was laughing at the idea of his getting married. Gunnar Jespersen a married man! It was funny, but it made him very happy.
“Such a fine young man!” thought Mrs. Anders. “The best room in the house he takes. He must be rich; and so handsome and strong, and his people from the old country! If there should be a man like that for the little Ingeborg—”
The next morning was Sunday. Gunnar took his bath, put on his Sunday clothes, and came down into the kitchen, smiling with a secret happiness. It was a mild, bright day; he was going to get his car and take Ingeborg for a drive.
All morning he was busy in the garage where his sedan had been stored for the winter. Then he took off his overalls, scrubbed his hands, got some lunch in a dairy, and drove to the house. He let himself in with his latchkey, and went downstairs to the basement. In the kitchen Oscar was sitting alone, reading the newspaper. Not caring to disturb him, Gunnar went quietly away, looking for Ingeborg. He heard Mrs. Anders down in the cellar, shaking up the furnace.
Going upstairs again, in the front hall he stopped to listen, and he heard quick little footsteps overhead. He ran up the stairs to the next floor, and there he found Ingeborg, carrying a pile of clean towels.
“I’ve brought my car,” he announced. “I’m going to take you out.”
“Oh!” said Ingeborg.
“Come on!” said Gunnar. “Get your hat and coat. There’s a heater in my car.”
“I’ve got to ask Uncle Oscar—”
“No, you haven’t,” interrupted Gunnar. “None of his business! You’re working all the time. You can go out on Sunday afternoon if you like.”
“I can’t go without asking.”
He was not angry now at her old-fashioned, foreign ways. Indeed, they pleased him.
“Well, I’ll ask your uncle,” he said.
He went down into the basement, but before he got to the kitchen he passed the open door of Ingeborg’s dark little room, and in there he saw her hat and coat lying on the bed.
“He might say no, that old squarehead,” thought Gunnar; so he took the hat and coat, and ran upstairs again. “It’s all right,” he assured the girl.
If there was a row when they got home, he didn’t care. By that time he would have told Ingeborg that they were going to be married, and Oscar could say what he liked.
Ingeborg did not doubt his assurance. She put on her hat and coat, there in the hall.
“I don’t look so very nice,” she said.
“You’ll do,” replied Gunnar.
He could have caught her in his arms that moment, she was so dear and so funny in that hat and coat!
“When we get married,” he thought, “I’ll buy new clothes for her—stylish clothes. She’s pretty—prettier than any one else.”
He was in a hurry to get her out of the house, before any one could stop them.
“Hurry up!” he said.
She got into the car beside him, and they set off.
“Oh, how fast you go!” she said.
“Haven’t you ever been in a car before?” asked Gunnar.
“Oh, yes—Uncle Oscar brought us from the ship in a taxicab.”
“This is my own car,” said Gunnar. “In the summer I use it every day.”
He knew where he wanted to go—out of the city, and across the bridge to Long Island. It was not a pleasant neighborhood, but the rush of wind against her face, and Gunnar beside her, made her heart sing. He turned down a street gloomy and empty, lined with shuttered warehouses, and at the end of it he stopped the car.
“Here!” he said. “This is where I work.”
“Oh, what a big place!” said Ingeborg.
“I’m a foreman,” said Gunnar.[Pg 512]
Then, even as he spoke, he saw what was going to happen. If he married Ingeborg, he wouldn’t be a foreman much longer. Mabel would see to that. He would lose his job. He would have to give up his car, give up the fine room, the good money. He could find another job in another factory, but not as foreman. That wasn’t so easy. He would have to go to work under another man.
For a time he sat staring before him, his blue eyes grown hard. He had not thought of this before. To give up so much, and of his own free will! He was terribly downcast.
Then Ingeborg stirred beside him, and he turned to her with a queer look. His eyes were narrowed; he stared and stared at her. She glanced at him, and then, with an uncertain little smile, bent her head. There she sat, with her small hands folded—patient, a little confused; and she was so dear to him—dearer than anything else in the world! He was glad to give up all these things for her. He would give his life for her, his beloved maiden, his little angel!
He looked up and down the empty street. There was no one in sight. He caught her in his arms, held her tight, and kissed her pale cheek.
“Don’t!” she cried.
He paid no attention to that. He laughed, because he was so proud and so happy; and, putting his hand under her chin, he turned her head and kissed her mouth.
“You’re my girl!” he said.
“Gunnar Jespersen!” she said. “How dare you treat me like this?”
Her eyes were looking into his, and he was astounded by the stern anger in them. She was not gentle now, not patient. Such a hot color there was in her cheeks, such a light in her eyes!
“Dare?” said Gunnar. “Do you think I’m afraid of you?”
But he let her go; for he was afraid, and ashamed, and terribly hurt.
“Gunnar Jespersen!” she said. “Take me home!”
“You came out with me quick enough,” argued Gunnar.
“Take me home!” repeated Ingeborg.
“You can’t talk to me like that,” said Gunnar. “I’ll go when I’m ready.”
But, just the same, he had to obey her. He turned the car and started back. He was sick to the soul with shame and disappointment. He had offered her everything, and she returned him only scorn and anger. Never before in his life had any woman been able to hurt him so. Whether it was anger or pure sorrow that he felt, he did not know; but it seemed to him that he could not endure it.
He wanted to say something that would hurt her; but when he looked at her, he could not. She had grown pale again, and sat very straight, looking before her, so stern and cold, and still dear to him. He could not endure it.
He stopped the car before a drug store.
“Going to telephone,” he said.
When he came out again, he felt that he had paid her back.
“You’re not the only one. If you don’t want me, all right! There’s somebody else that wants me—somebody who’s rich, with a fine house, and pearls. What do I care foryou?”
In his heart he said this to Ingeborg, but not aloud. He dared not. For all his great anger against her, there was something in her, some strange dignity and power, that checked him.
He took her to the corner of his street.
“All right!” he said. “Now I’m going somewhere else.”
He did not want to look at her again, but, as she walked off, he had to look. There she went, so slender and little, so unattainable!
“What have I done, anyhow?” he asked himself, with a sort of amazement.
He did not know, and yet a terrible sense of guilt oppressed him; and because he would not be humbled, not by any human creature, not by his own soul, he would go to Mabel. He was reckless now.
Unfortunately, Mabel would not be expecting him for several hours. He drove about at random. At first he made up his mind that he would never go back to the house where Ingeborg was. Never mind about the clothes he had there! Let them go—what did he care?
As the dusk came, and his bitterness still grew, he changed his mind and turned back there. He was going to tell Ingeborg, going to tell all of them. He wanted to do some reckless, arrogant thing, to show them what a fellow he was.
The most extraordinary ideas came into his head. He thought that perhaps he would go down into the basement and tell[Pg 513]Oscar that he wanted to buy that piano. He must do something to show them, and something to give rest to his inexplicable pain.
He strode up the steps, unlocked the door, and opened it with a violence that sent it crashing back against the wall. What did he care if he broke it? He could pay for it.
As he entered, a shadowy little form came up the stairs.
“Ach, Gott, what have you done?” whispered Mrs. Anders.
He closed the door and stood leaning against it.
“What d’you mean?” he asked.
She spoke to him rapidly in Danish, but he had long ago forgotten the language of his fathers.
“Speak English!” he said. “I don’t understand that stuff.”
“Ach, what a spectacle!” said Mrs. Anders. “Her Uncle Oscar, he finds she is vent out, and she will not say who vas it.Ach, so mad is he!” She wiped her eyes on her apron. “It is a badness dat you do so, Gunnar Jespersen!”
He wanted to laugh, but he could not. Something of the same fear he had felt for Ingeborg he felt now for Mrs. Anders—the mystic reverence for a good woman that was in his soul.
“Well, I’ll tell the old squarehead,” he said. “What’s the harm if she does go out with a fellow?”
“Hush!” said Mrs. Anders sternly. “It is a badness when you speak so of the Uncle Oscar. He is a goot man. He gifs us a home.”
Gunnar had to understand that, for in his own heart there was an echo of that simple fidelity. Let him try to laugh if he would, the old austerities were deathless in him. He stood before a good woman, and he was abashed.
He thought no more of going boastfully and arrogantly to Oscar Anders. Anders was the master of this house, as Gunnar’s father had been master of his. He was not to be affronted.
“Where’s Ingeborg?” asked Gunnar, speaking very low.
“You shall not tr-rouble my Ingeborg!” said Mrs. Anders.
“I can speak to her, can’t I?” he inquired sullenly.
Mrs. Anders looked at him in silence for a time.
“She sits up on the stairs,” she said. “Her Uncle Oscar is too mad, so he yells that she cannot come downstairs for it.”
Gunnar set his foot on the lowest stair. He did not want to go to Ingeborg. What had he to say to her? But he had to go. He went unwillingly, slowly.
“Well, what have I done, anyhow?” he asked himself.
Up at the top of the house he found Ingeborg sitting on the stairs, in the twilight. She was leaning her head against the wall, and her hands were folded in her lap. He stood looking down at her for a long while, but she paid no heed to him.
“Well!” he said, with a rough affectation of carelessness. “What you doing here?”
“Nothing,” she answered coldly.
Pain came over him like a wave, because of that coldness.
“Ingeborg,” he said, “what makes you so mad at me?”
“Go away, please! I don’t want to talk to you.”
He could see her only dimly, and he dared not go a step nearer to her, or even stretch out his hand.
“Ingeborg,” he said, “if I told you I was sorry—”
Such an effort it was to say that!
“It wouldn’t make any difference,” said she.
“What?” cried Gunnar. “If I’m sorry?”
“No!” said Ingeborg.
It was like a blow to him. He could not speak for a time. He had humbled himself again, and still she was cold and stern—and still so dear to him!
“She’s right!” he cried, in his heart. “If she knew—”
Suppose she did know? He was ready to believe that her clear and innocent glance had a terrible penetration. He could not understand her. Perhaps, in some way of her own, she did know all the wrong things he had done.
“Ingeborg!” he cried. “I—I’m sorry I did that! I—”
Despair and pain choked him. In his blind need for her kindness, he came close to her, sat down on the step below her, and buried his head in his hands.
“If you would marry me, Ingeborg,” he said, “then I’d be different![Pg 514]”
“Marry you?” she said. “Do you think I am like that? Do you think I would marry the first man who comes along? Why, I don’t even know you, Gunnar Jespersen!”
“Ingeborg!” he said.
And that was all he could say. He could not tell her what he meant—that for her sake he would give up all his pride, that for her sake he was sick and ashamed. All he could do was to speak her name.
She made no answer. He waited and waited for even one word, but in vain.
“Are you—mad at me, Ingeborg?” he asked unsteadily.
“No,” replied Ingeborg quietly.
He sat up abruptly.
“I think I’ll—lose my job,” he said. “Maybe I’ll have to go away.” He thought that somehow she would understand all that he meant by that, all that he renounced. “If I have to go away somewhere, to get a job,” he went on, “promise not to marry some other fellow!”
“I don’t want to marry any one, Gunnar Jespersen.”
“Just promise to wait!”
“No!” she said; but her voice was not cold now.
“Ingeborg!” he cried. “Do you like me?”
“I don’t know you, Gunnar Jespersen,” said Ingeborg with dignity.
He rose, chilled and hopeless.
“Well,” he said, “I’m going.”
Her clear little voice came to him through the dark:
“Maybe I will like you when I know you, Gunnar Jespersen!”
He spun around. She had risen, and was standing close to him. He put out his hand, but she drew back, and his arm fell to his side. He must not touch her. He must wait. She had given him hope, and that was all.
And it was enough. He had found at last the beloved maiden who must be won. It would be hard, but it was good; it was what he wanted. It was a challenge worthy of him.
“All right!” he said. “You’ll see!”
He ran down the stairs again, and his heart was light now. He was so proud of the little Ingeborg who made him wait![Pg 515]
MUNSEY’SMAGAZINE
AUGUST, 1927Vol. XCINUMBER 3
[Pg 516]
By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
KIRBY lay stretched out on the sand, watching the driftwood fire he had built. The flame mounted steadily, this quiet night, sending out over the dark water a trembling path of ruddy light. Now and then a little rain of sparks fell, to die at once in the thick sand; and overhead a young moon swam, clear silver, in a sky without clouds.
He might have been alone on a desert island. Before him lay the calm summer sea, and all about him stretched the flat and empty beach. He liked this blank solitude—indeed, he needed it.
The tiny thread of smoke from his cigarette rose beside the column of smoke from the fire, like a sturdily independent spirit. His thoughts, too, were aloof, detached from the insistent current of other people’s thoughts.
He had received a substantial rise in salary that morning.
“Now you ought to think about getting married,” his sister had said, not for the first time.
He was thinking about it, but in a way that would have dismayed her. She was always introducing him to “nice girls,” and growing a little annoyed with him because of his indifference.
“I don’t see what fault you can find withher!” she would say, as if one of the “nice girls” was as good as another; and, in her heart, that was what she did think. She wanted only to see Kirby married and in a home of his own.
He kept his own counsel, for it was no use trying to tell his sister. Let her go on trying to snare him, to capture him, to bind him tight to the life that he so utterly rejected! He had seen it happen to other fellows he knew. He had watched them fall in love, get married, and set up homes of their own, and had seen them grow harassed, preoccupied, sometimes bitter. There was his brother-in-law, for instance, complaining about the bills, talking of giving up his club, guilty and apologetic if he came in late. It was supposed to be comic, all this sort of thing, but Kirby did not see it so.
“If there’s nothing better than that—” he thought.
When he was younger he had been sure that there was something better. In books, in operas, in plays, he had caught the echo of a sublime thing, and he had believed that it was every man’s birthright—a love passionate and honest and beyond measure generous. He had meant to wait for it; but, as he grew older, his faith died.
He did not see any such thing in actual life. He saw, instead, love that began beautifully and honestly, but ended in a suburban home and a thousand ignoble worries; and he would have none of that. If there was nothing better, then he would do without. He was doing well in business, and he would keep on doing better and better, and that would have to be enough.
He threw away his cigarette, clasped his hands under his head, and lay looking at the stars. Here on this beach, as a boy, he had played intensely serious games of Indians and pirates, always with a fire like this. Even now he could recapture something of the old thrill of wonder and expectancy, the feeling he had had that marvelous things were surely going to happen.
Well, they never had. Here he was, twenty-six, and assistant manager of the accounting department of a machine belting company; a quiet, competent young[Pg 517]fellow with an air of businesslike reserve that disguised the moods of his exacting and sensitive spirit. He went to the office every day, he worked, he came home, he met those “nice girls.” He talked to them and danced with them, and sometimes made love to them a little, out of politeness; and that was all there was.
And it wasn’t enough. Out here, in the summer night, his restlessness grew intolerable. He wanted so much more—something stirring and lovely, something that would give to his work and his life a fine significance. So much more!
“I’d better go back now,” he thought, and tried to pretend that this was a concession to his sister. But it was not; it was because he had grown too lonely. He got up, and was about to kick out the fire, to scatter it and stamp it out, when, far down the beach, he saw a little white figure coming toward him.
He stood still, curiously intent. He had grown to think that this was his own private territory, for hardly any one else came here, especially after dark; yet here was this little thing coming on resolutely.
It was a girl in a white dress—he could see that now. Her step made no sound upon the sand. There was no breeze to flutter her skirts. She was like a wraith, silent and dim.
Then, to his surprise, she turned directly toward him. There was a rise in the beach here, up from the edge of the sea, and she mounted it briskly.
“Excuse me,” she said, in a serious little voice. “I just wanted to see the time.”
Stretching out her arm toward the fire, she looked at her wrist watch.
“You’ll have to come nearer,” Kirby told her. “I’m sorry, but mine’s stopped.”
But she stood where she was.
“I saw your fire,” she said. “I’ve been watching it as I came along. I do love fires on a beach!”
“Yes?” returned Kirby vaguely.
Her confident and friendly manner disconcerted him. He had never encountered a girl like this. There was something unreal about her, walking out of the dark, up to his fire, and beginning at once to talk to him, as if she knew and trusted him.
“Won’t you sit down for a little while?” he asked, a little doubtfully.
“Thank you,” she answered promptly, and, coming nearer, sat down on the sand, facing the sea.
“She ought to know better,” thought Kirby. “She can’t know what sort of fellow I might be.”
He stood behind her, looking down at her. The firelight behind her threw her slight figure, sitting with her hands clasped about her knees, into sharp relief, but her face he could not see at all.
“Do you know,” she said earnestly, “that pirates used to come here?”
“Pirates?” he echoed.
“Yes!” she said. “I read about it in a book from the library; and last summer IthinkI found a pirate’s earring. Auntie said it was a curtain ring, but perhaps it wasn’t.”
An odd thrill ran through Kirby. Pirates! Easy to imagine them, on just such a night as this, landing in the cove below the rocks—swarthy, evil men, creeping up inch by inch, with knives between their teeth. They would leap upon him suddenly; there would be a desperate fight in the glare of the fire. Then the pirate chief would carry away the girl, and Kirby, the hero, would somehow escape from his bonds and swim after them, and save her.
She would know exactly how to behave in such circumstances, he felt sure. He felt sure, too, that if he were to suggest that they should “make believe” there were pirates here, she would immediately and seriously agree. She was like a little girl, like some playmate from his lost youth. In some queer way of her own she evoked for him the glamour of childhood—she and her pirate’s earring!
He sat down beside her, and they began to talk. It no longer seemed to him a foolish and imprudent thing that she should have come to him like this. She had the unthinking independence that children have. She would go where she chose, and, if she was startled or distrustful, she would run away.
It made him happy that she should be here, this friendly little thing with her pretty voice.
“The fire’s getting low!” she cried.
Springing up, she gathered an armful of wood to put on it. So did he, and they stood side by side, throwing in the sticks with nice care. The flames leaped up, and he saw her face—a small, pointed face framed in dark hair, which floated in silky threads, and lit up by big, shining dark eyes. It was like a face in a dream, so lovely that it almost took his breath away.[Pg 518]
She sat down again, her head a little turned away from the blaze, and he could no longer see her face; but he remembered it. It was there before him in the dark, in all its vivid loveliness. He could not think of her as a playmate now. The magic evocation of childhood was gone; he was a man, and she was a young and beautiful woman. His content, his happiness, had vanished. He was troubled, almost dismayed.
“I’ve never seen any one like her!” he thought. “I didn’t know therewasany one like her; and for her to come to me like this!”
After all, wasn’t it what he had been waiting for, just this glimpse of a lovely face, this clear and steady little voice in the dark, this utterly unexpected encounter in the firelight on the lonely beach?
She was still talking to him, with a sort of eagerness, but he scarcely listened now. It seemed to him that her voice had changed. Indeed, he could not hear or see her now. The fire was dying down, and she was no more than a little silhouette against the starlit sky; but in her place there was another—some one very beautiful and almost august, like the young Diana come to earth. The innocence and candor of her were sublime; she was fearless, of course, just as she was beautiful.
Kirby did not realize how long he had been silent, when she stopped speaking. Her voice still echoed in his ears, blended with the whisper of the sea. He sat beside her, lost in a reverie.
“This is how it ought to be,” he thought. “This is just right—to have her come to me like this, and for her tobelike this!”
He was roused by her getting up.
“I’ll have to be going,” she said.
“No!” said Kirby, rising, too. “Please don’t!”
“But it’s late.”
She turned toward him, and he had another glimpse of her face and her shining, solemn dark eyes.
“Please don’t!” he repeated.
“But, you see, I’ve got to,” she explained. “I promised I’d be home by nine o’clock.”
“I’ll walk home with you.”
“But—” she began. “I—I’d like you to, only—I think you’d better not, please.” Then, as he was silent, she added, in distress: “I’m sorry—really I am,” and held out her hand.
He took it. He might have known, by the clasp of that warm and sturdy little hand, that this was no goddess Diana whose feet were on the hilltops; but he would not know it. His heart beat fast, and his fingers tightened on hers.
“You’ll let me see you again?” he said.
“Oh, yes!” she replied. “Yes, of course! Some other evening—but I’ve got to go now. Good night!”
She tried to draw her hand away, but he held it fast.
“Look here!” he said. “You can’t go like this! I don’t even know your name.”
“It’s Emmy—Emmy Richards,” she told him.
“Mine’s Alan Kirby. You’ll let me come to see you?”
“Well, you see,” she said, “I can’t very well. I’m just visiting here.”
“Then meet me somewhere.”
She stood before him with her head bent. The fire was almost out, and it seemed to him that the world had grown dark and very still and a little desolate. It was as if something had gone—some warm and living presence. In his heart he was vaguely aware of what had happened. It was the dear, jolly little playmate who had gone, taking with her the innocent glamour of this hour, driven away by the note of ardor in his voice.
He was sorry and uneasy, but he would not stop.
“Won’t you give me a chance?” he asked. “Let me see you again!”
“I will,” she promised. “I’ll come here again—some other evening—like this!”
He understood very well what she meant. She wanted to recapture the vanished charm, to come again in the same happy and careless way, to talk by the fire again; but he would not have it so.
“Look here!” he said. “Will you let me take you out to dinner to-morrow?”
She did not answer, but stood there with her head averted; and a fear seized him that was like anger.
“I don’t want to bother you,” he said curtly. “If you don’t want to see me again—”
“Well, I—I do!” she cried unsteadily. “Only—”
He would go on.
“Then come to dinner with me to-morrow!”
“Oh, let’s not!” she cried. “I never go out to dinner—with people.[Pg 519]”
He smiled to himself at that, yet it hurt him. Poor little playmate, so reluctant to leave her world of make-believe!
“Just with me?” he urged, coming close to her.
“Well, all right!” she said suddenly, with a sort of desperation. “All right, then—I will!”
“Where shall I meet you?”
“I don’t know.”
“The Pennsylvania Station—Long Island waiting room—at six?”
She drew her hand away.
“All right!” she said again. “Good night!”
“Good night!” he answered.
He stood beside what was left of his fire and watched her walking away, a swift, light little figure against so vast a horizon; and he felt very unhappy.
“What’s the matter with me, anyhow?” he asked himself angrily. “It’s no crime to ask a girl out to dinner, is it?”
He stamped out the last sparks and set off for his sister’s house. He was surprised, when he drew near, to hear the phonograph still playing. It seemed to him that he had been gone so long, so far!
He crossed the lawn, went up on the veranda, and looked in at the window. They were still dancing in there. He saw that pretty little blond girl in her short, sleeveless white satin frock. There came before him the face of that other girl, seen only for a brief instant in the firelight—that little dark face with shining eyes.
“I love her!” he thought, with a sort of awe. “She’s the girl I’ve always been waiting for. Emmy—little darling, wonderful Emmy—I love her!”
He could not endure to go in, to dance, to speak to any one else. He stayed out there in the dark garden, walking up and down, smoking, cherishing his dear vision.
After awhile the two girls who had been dancing, and whom his sister had invited specially on his account, came out, with two young fellows. Kirby stepped back into the shadow of the trees and waited until they had driven off, until he could no longer hear their gay voices.
He compared these girls with Emmy.Shewore no paint or powder; he had not seen her dancing in a hot and brilliant room. She belonged to another world—a world of sea and open sky and firelight. She was a creature with the free, fearless innocence of the Golden Age.
“I love her so!” he thought.
Nearly all of that long summer night he walked there in the garden, profoundly stirred by the great thing that had overtaken him. Before him was always the vision of her lovely face, filling his heart with tenderness and a troubled delight.
“I’m not good enough for her,” he thought.
Without realizing it, he began to forget that he had smiled to himself at the dear, funny things she had said, to forget what a little young thing she was. What was in his mind now was a sort of goddess, beautifully kind, but austere and aloof—a woman to be worshiped. His humility was honest and fine and touching, but it was cruel, because there was no goddess girl like that. There was only little Emmy Richards, who was nineteen, and altogether human and liable to error.
He let himself into the house quietly, so that no one heard him. He did not want to talk to any one.
When he came downstairs the next morning, he was still anxious for silence, but his sister was not disposed to humor him.
“Where did you go last night?” she demanded.
How was he to answer that? He had gone into an enchanted world, and he had found his beloved!
“I took a walk along the beach,” he said, briefly.
“A walk!” she cried. “You come here to visit me, and I ask people in to meet you, and you go off, without a word, and take a walk! I never heard of anything so selfish and hateful!”
Her indignation took him by surprise. It seemed to him the most preposterous thing that she should blame him for being with Emmy.
“I’m sorry,” he said, though he really wasn’t, and his sister knew it; but, looking at him, she saw that he was tired and troubled, and she held her tongue.
Kirby’s work suffered that day because of his preoccupation with the problem of the evening before him. He was determined to offer something at least a little worthy of her. He had taken other girls out to dinner, but this was beyond measure different.[Pg 520]
At last he thought of a restaurant he had seen advertised—a quiet, dignified place; and he went there, engaged a table, and ordered a wonderful little dinner. All the rest of the day he imagined how it was going to be, he and Emmy sitting at that table, softly lit by candles. He knew what he was going to say to her, and how she would look at him, with her shining, solemn eyes.
He came early to the waiting room and walked up and down, restless and anxious.
“She didn’t want to come,” he thought. “Perhaps she didn’t like me.”
A pretty girl sitting on one of the benches smiled at him, but he looked past her. Ten minutes late now! Of course, other girls were usually late, but Emmy was different—utterly different. He remembered her now with a sort of amazement—the innocent beauty of her face, the almost incredible charm of her dear friendliness.
“No one like her!” he thought.
And that was true. There was not, and never could be, any girl like the one that he, in his ardent, imperious young heart, had invented.
Suppose she didn’t come at all?
“I’ll find her!” he thought. “I know her name, and I’ll find her. I won’t lose her!”
He glanced around the waiting room again, and again he met the eyes of the pretty girl who had smiled at him before. No denying that she was pretty, but he was sternly uninterested. Let her smile!
This time, though, she rose from her seat, and made a step in his direction.
“She’ll ask me some question about a train,” thought Kirby.
He was a good-looking young fellow, and this sort of thing had happened to him before. At another time he might perhaps have been a little less severe. She was very pretty—a tall, slender girl in a very short frock, with a red hat pulled down over one eye. Her piquant little face was rouged and powdered. Kirby might have seen a sort of debonair charm about her, if he had not had in his heart the image of another face, so honest, so unspoiled, so very different!
He walked the length of the room, and when he came back he passed quite close to her. She smiled again—a tremulous, miserable, forlorn little smile. He stopped and stared at her.
“Look here!” he said. “You’renot—areyou—Miss Richards?”
“Yes, I am,” she replied in a defiant and unsteady voice.
He could not speak for a moment, so bitter was his disappointment. She was not rare and wonderful; she was only a pretty, silly, painted little thing, like thousands of others.
“If only she hadn’t come!” he thought. “If only I’d never seen her again! Then I could have gone on—”
He realized, however, that he had invited her to meet him, and that in common decency he must not let her see how he felt; so he smiled as politely as he could.
“Didn’t recognize you at first,” he said. “I’m sorry!”
That was all he could manage for the moment. She, too, was silent, with a set, strained smile on her lips.
“We can’t stand here like this,” he thought. “I’ve asked her to dinner!”
But he was not going to take this girl to the quiet little restaurant with candles on the table. That had been for the other girl—the grave, aloof, and beautiful one, who didn’t exist.
“Come on!” he said briefly. “We’ll get a taxi.”
She followed him without a word, and he helped her into a cab.
“Where would you like to go?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t care,” she answered.
Very well—if she didn’t care, neither would he. He gave the driver an address and got in beside her.
“Like to dance?” he asked.
“I love it!”
Then this would be merely an evening like other evenings. He would dance with her, spend more money than he could afford, and then forget her. She was not different, after all. There never had been any girl like the one he had dreamed of, or invented, last night in the firelight.
“What a fool I was!” he thought.
He wanted to laugh at himself, and could not; it hurt too much. He so badly needed the girl who did not exist—that honest, friendly, lovely little thing with the innocent glamour of childhood still about her. He glanced at the real one, sitting beside him. By the passing lights he could see her face, which was turned toward the window.
“She doesn’t know anything about me,[Pg 521]” he thought. “She doesn’t care. All she wants is a ‘good time’!”
He took out his cigarette case and tendered it to her.
“No, thank you,” she said.
“I will, if you don’t mind,” said Kirby, and that was all he did say.
He sat back in his corner, smoking, lost in his own thoughts. It was a long drive, for he was taking her to a road house just outside the city—a third-rate sort of place.
“But she said she didn’t care,” he thought.
They went on in a stream of other cars, like a flotilla of lighted ships, in the mild summer night. He hated the whole thing—the dust, the reek of gasoline, the tawdriness and staleness of the undertaking. He had wanted something better. His ardent spirit had groped toward an ideal, and, when he thought he had found it, it was only this!
It was as if he had gone into a dim temple, ready to worship, and suddenly a flood of garish light had come, and he saw that it was not a temple at all, but a sorry palace of pleasure. He lit another cigarette from the first one.
“I’m—sorry I came!” said the girl beside him, in a shaky voice.
He turned, but it was too dark to see her.
“I beg your pardon?” he said, very much taken aback.
“I didn’t want to come,” she went on. “I told you, but youmademe, and now—and now—you see—”
He quite realized that he had been behaving very ill, not even trying to talk to her. After all, it wasn’t her fault. She couldn’t know what a fool he had been.
“I don’t see at all,” he said. “I—I’m very glad you’re here.”
The feebleness of that made him ashamed, but he drew closer to her and took her hand. She kept her head averted, but she made no objection.
“That’s what she expects,” he thought bitterly. “She expects me to make love to her. All right!”
So he put his arm about her shoulders, and made up his mind to say to her the things he had said to other girls; and because he was young, and she was very pretty, some of his bitterness vanished.
“You’re the sweetest little thing!” he said. “The moment I saw you—”
She pulled away from him with a violence that astounded him.
“Don’t talk to me like that!” she cried. “It’s—horrible!”
“Sorry!” said Kirby stiffly, and withdrew to his corner; but the sound of a sob made him bend toward her, filled with a reluctant contrition. “Look here!” he continued. “I didn’t mean—”
“I just—bumped my head,” she said. “That’s all; but I’d rather go home now.”
“But we’ve just got here,” objected Kirby. “Better have some dinner first.”
He got out of the cab and held out his hand to her, but she jumped out unaided and walked to the foot of the steps. As he turned and saw her standing where the lights of the portico shone full upon her, a queer, reluctant tenderness swept over him. Her coat was a little too big for her. Her red hat was pushed back, showing more of her candid brow, and her dark hair was ruffled. She looked so weary and angry, and so young! Even if she was not what he wanted her to be, she was somehow dear to him.
“Look here!” he said. “Look here! Let’s have a nice evening, anyhow!”
She responded instantly to his tone. For the first time that night he saw in her some likeness to the lost little playmate.
“All right—let’s!” she cried.
He led the way to the glass-inclosed veranda where small tables were set out. The orchestra was playing, and through the long windows they could see the ballroom where couples were dancing.
“Isn’t it lovely?” she said.
Kirby did not think so. He was regretting that he had brought her here. They sat down at a table, and he took up the menu.
“What do you like?” he asked.
“Oh, anything!” said Emmy.
She was looking about her with a sort of rapture.
“Yes!” he thought. “This is the sort of thing she likes!”
And again his disappointment came back, sharper than ever. He thought of the dinner he had meant to have, by candlelight, in that quiet restaurant, with the girl who didn’t exist. Was there never to be anything like that for him, nothing fine and beautiful and stirring?
“Well, I’m here, and I’ve got to make the best of it,” he thought. “What will you have to drink?” he asked aloud.[Pg 522]
“To drink?” she repeated, looking at him anxiously. “Oh, let’s not!”
Kirby ordered two cocktails.
“You can’t come to a place like this and not order anything to drink,” he explained when the waiter had gone. “Everybody does.”
“Then I wish we hadn’t come here,” said she.
The cocktails came, and he drank both of them.
“Care to try a dance?” he asked.
“No, thank you,” replied Emmy.
She was looking about her with a different vision now. All the light was gone from her face. Evidently she didn’t find the place lovely now. Kirby himself became more conscious of the loud voices, the hysteric laughter, the ugly disorder about him. He was sorry that he had brought her here. He was ashamed of himself, and he did not like being ashamed of himself.
“You said you loved dancing,” he suggested.
“Not now,” said Emmy. “It’s getting late. If you don’t mind, I’d like to go home.”
“Just as you please,” replied Kirby.
They finished the dinner in silence. Kirby paid the preposterous bill, and they went out to the taxi.
“You needn’t bother to come with me,” said Emmy politely.
“No bother at all,” returned Kirby, equally polite. “I’ll see you safely to the station.”
“I’m going to a friend’s house in the city.”
He got in beside her. He sat as far from her as he could, and neither of them spoke one word during all that long drive. In his heart he felt a great remorse and regret, but he would not let her know that.
But when the cab stopped at the address she had given him, and he helped her out, he could no longer maintain that stubborn, miserable silence.
“I’m sorry,” he told her. “I didn’t mean it to be like this.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Emmy. “Good night!”
Kirby stood where he was until she had gone up the steps and into the house. Then he paid the cab and set off on foot for the Pennsylvania Station. When he got there he found that there was an hour to wait for the next train, and again he set off to walk about the streets, his hands in his pockets, his pipe between his teeth. All the time her voice echoed in his ears—her quiet little voice.
“Good Lord!” he said to himself angrily. “It’s no tragedy! I asked the girl out to dinner, I tried to give her a good time, and that’s all there is to it.”
But still her voice echoed in his heart, and still he felt that bitter ache of regret. Let him walk as far as he would, he could not escape from it.
“She was unhappy,” he thought, and the thought pained him. He went on walking, and when he got back to the station he found that he had missed his train. It was the last for that day; the next one left at four o’clock in the morning.
He didn’t really care. He went to an all-night restaurant and had coffee and bacon and eggs. Then he strolled back to the waiting room where he had met her, and sat down there. He had the place to himself; there was nothing to disturb his reflections.
“The trouble was,” he said to himself, “that I was disappointed.”
And, like an audible response, the words shaped themselves in his mind:
“Well, what about her?”
He had never been more unhappy in all his life. He dozed a little during those long hours; but whether he slept or waked, he was conscious all the time of that bitter ache of regret.
There was an air of unreality about the early morning train. It was almost empty, and such passengers as there were seemed to Kirby to be very incongruous. For instance, where could that neat little gray-haired woman be going at such an hour? Or that Italian with a fierce mustache, who carried a square package wrapped in newspaper?
The world outside, seen through the train window, had the same unreal air. It was still dark, but this was not the serene darkness of night; it was, he thought, more like the dim silence of an auditorium before the curtain goes up. There was a feeling in the air that something tremendous was about to happen, and that a myriad creatures waited.
He felt the thrill of that expectancy himself. The window beside him was open, and the wind blew in his face with a di[Pg 523]vine freshness. He could see the trees and the sharp lines of roofs, as if they had stepped forward out of the night’s obscurity. There came a drowsy chirping; the curtain had begun to rise.
Then all the birds began to wake, and the chorus swelled and swelled. The insects were chirping, and he could hear the lusty crow of barnyard cocks—such little creatures, raising so sublime and tremendous a “Laudamus.”
“The sun’s coming up,” said Kirby to himself.
When he got out of the train the sky was gray, with only a thin veil before the face of the coming wonder. There was a single taxi at the station, and he hesitated, because two women had got out of the train after him; but one of the women set off briskly along the village street and the other one took the road, so he got into the cab.
A moment later he had passed the woman on the road. There was light enough to see her now.
“Stop!” he cried, but the driver did not hear him. He banged on the glass. “Stop! I want to get out!”
Giving the man his last dollar bill, Kirby jumped out and turned back.
She was coming toward him steadfastly, a straight and slender figure in a dark dress and drooping black hat. He could see that the dress was shabby, that her shoes were dusty and a little worn. Her face was pale, and there was a smudge on her forehead.
“Emmy!” he cried.
She stopped short. A hot color rose in her cheeks, and ebbed away, leaving her still paler.
“Emmy!” he said uncertainly. “You look—you’ve changed!”
“Well, no,” she answered, in that serious little voice. “You see, I’d borrowed those clothes from a girl at the office. I stopped at her house to leave them, and I missed the train.” She paused a moment. “I’m sorry I ever wore them,” she said; “only she’s been so awfully dear and kind to me, and she said she wanted to make me look nice.”
“You did look nice!” said Kirby.
He felt a sort of anguish at the sight of her. Why hadn’t he known, all the time, that she was like this? She was innocent and honest and lovely—and he had so grossly offended against her! He had taken her to that third-rate place; he had been surly, obstinate, utterly blind; and, worst of all, he had judged her so arrogantly!
“I’m so sorry!” he said. “You don’t know—I didn’t mean—”
“I’m sorry, too,” she said. “I never went out like that before, and I wish I hadn’t done it.”
They stood facing each other, standing in the middle of the empty road. She was downcast, but he was looking at her with amazement. She wasnotthat little flippant painted thing, like a thousand other girls! How could he ever have thought so? Neither was she the wise, aloof young goddess. She was just Emmy, rather shabby and very tired, with a smudge on her forehead.
“You don’t know,” he said, “how beautiful you are—in the daylight!”
Again the color rose in her cheeks, and as swiftly receded.
“I’ve got to hurry,” she exclaimed, with that earnest politeness of hers. “You see, my little brother’s taking examinations to-day, and I promised I’d make pancakes for his breakfast.”
“Oh, Emmy!” he said, and began to laugh.
She smiled herself, reluctantly.
“Well, I did promise,” she declared.
An immense happiness filled him. He knew now! He understood why those other fellows wanted to get married and set up homes! Bills and worries and even quarrels were not tragic, and not basely comic. They simply didn’t matter. The one great thing was this infinite tenderness. He did not want to worship a goddess any more; he wanted to take care of Emmy.[Pg 524]
MUNSEY’SMAGAZINE
NOVEMBER, 1927Vol. XCIINUMBER 2
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