CHAPTER NINETEEN
It was a windy March afternoon when Anne, having secured the services of Mrs. Horton's oldest daughter to look after Rogie while she did some necessary shopping, came face to face with Merle, a Merle she scarcely knew.
"Going right straight by me," Merle began gayly, but at Anne's astonishment Merle quieted to sincerity. "I don't blame you. I scarcely know myself," she went on with a whimsical gesture that included her own person, from expensive hat and furs to dainty shoes. "I say, Anne, come and have tea. If I don't talk to some one, I'll bust."
But even after she had given the order for an elaborate tea at the exclusive shop where she was evidently known, Merle did not begin. She asked after Rogie and chattered of everything she could think of, until Anne said finally:
"I've only got a few minutes, Merle. Betty Horton can't stay with Rogie after four. She has to be home when the other children come from school."
And then, almost without a break or change of tone, Merle said:
"I've been thinking a lot about you, Anne. I came near 'phoning you twice. I've left Tom."
"Left Tom!"
Merle nodded. "Anne, do you know how Tom took it? Did Roger say anything? I haven't seen a soul of them for three weeks."
"No. I don't believe Roger knows it. He would have said something."
Merle shrugged. "Perhaps he doesn't. Perhaps Tom hasn't noticed it himself."
Her eyes misted, but she tossed her head with a cynical smile. "Oh, well, it doesn't matter. I wouldn't want him to go lallygaggin about it to others—even if he did any lallygaggin to himself."
Anne flushed. Merle and Tom together had seemed so ugly, but Merle like this was even worse.
"What happened?"
"Nothing," Merle said in fierce whisper, "nothing and everything. Anne, I couldn't stand it another minute. I tried, for the sake of the past and everything, but I couldn't." She was like a child begging forgiveness and Anne softened.
"Do you really want to talk about it, Merle?"
"Yes. It won't do any good, but I always did love to talk. I'm a good revolutionist, as far as that goes. I can babble and babble with the best of them till the cows come home. But where we part is that I do something in the end. Oh, I know they all think I'm Merle, the bobbed-haired fool, but I'm not such a fool as to sit tight and let Life run by, the one and only Life we'll ever get, and make no stab at anything in it. Anne, I'm so sick and tired of the Brotherhood of Man and the wicked capitalist and the abused proletariat, I could eat my hat. I can't live up on those holy heights and I don't want to. I always belonged down in the dust, gold dust if I could get it. And now—I'm there."
Anne waited in silence, and after a moment Merle went on:
"Of course, Katya and the rest will just believe I was tempted—if they think at all, but I wasn't. I worked it all out. I even made a kind of trial balance—what would happen if I stayed, on one side of the sheet—what would happen if I went, on the other. And I went. I'm going to keep that paper and some day I'm going to compare the results. Anyhow, I'm gone; Merle, the bobbed-haired fool, is no more. Behold Mrs. Benjamin Wilson, at least on hotel registers, and in private life—if I choose."
Anne did not move. She did not even turn her eyes from the angry violet eyes opposite.
"I'll do a little 'crushing under the heel of capitalism' myself, before my heel gets too old and shriveled and ugly to be hired for the job." The bitterness of Merle's voice cut.
"Don't, Merle. I mean don't talk like that, please. If—if you have left Tom because you want to—don't—don't make it any worse."
"But, Anne, it's true," Merle spoke more quietly now, and quickly, as if the things she had to say must be said instantly, once for all. "I do want money, because money is the only way to get the things I want, to get my kind of Beauty. To Tom it may be beauty to be always dodging jail, to live in the kind of rooms we have lived in, to yell himself hoarse four nights a week about Russia or India or longshoremen, anything that's far enough from him. But it's not to me. When there's a play in town I want to see it, and I want decent clothes to go in and a fairly decent seat, and I'm not waiting for any old 'adjustment' to give it to me. I'm going to take it while it's going. Why, Anne, when I first went to Tom, I used to wake in the night, afraid the 'Revolution' would hit us before morning, and that's five years ago and we're still dashing after its tail. Katya, poor old thing, has been kicking at the world for fifteen years, until she couldn't stop if she tried. And when they get it all done, how do I know it'll be any better? People will only be kicking about something else then. No, I'll take my million dollars now and hang on to it."
"But you loved Tom. You can't——"
"Y-e-s—I loved him. And what did I get for it? Not in money. I—I'm not that bad, Anne, but Tom doesn't know half the time whether I'm alive or not."
"That can't be true, Merle. He's always busy——"
"Oh, shucks, Anne, you can't tell me anything about Tom. I know he's busy. Doing what? Saving the world; wearing himself to skin and bones for millions of people he has never seen. But if all these 'oppressed' were there in one single soul he had to see and touch and be with all the time and do little loving things for, he'd hate them. Bah! they make me sick. They're all the same. They're monomaniacs. It's the fighting they like. If they had it all fixed to-night they'd mess it up again just for fun, or go insane because they had nothing to do. I know. I've been through it. You're only just beginning. Wait and see. Roger's the same stuff, floating 'round in the clouds with those blue eyes and that square chin. It'll get him too, Anne, if you don't watch out."
Anne's lips set tightly. "You're hurt and mad, Merle. You——"
Merle laughed. "All right, call it that. It's been a long time coming, but it's come to stay. I'm going to Europe, Anne."
"When?"
"Just as soon as Mr. Wilson can arrange his business. I went once with Tom—steerage, before the war. Good Lord! I'm going to have a stateroom, Anne, and I'm going to tip, God, how I am going to tip. Pay human beings, 'lackeys,' 'wage slaves,' to do the most menial things I can think of. I hope I'm seasick all the time just to——"
Merle broke off and her eyes invited some one who had just entered the door. The next moment a heavy young man whose well-cut clothes and expensive tie could not refine the overfed body, came forward.
"Anne, let me present Mr. Wilson. Ben, this is Anne you've heard me speak about, Mrs. Roger Barton."
His bold, brown eyes summed up Anne's fair delicacy, and he smiled approval of Merle's friend. But Anne felt that as long as Merle wanted him he would find no real interest in any other woman. He was shrewd and would know when Merle worked him, but it would please him to be so worked at his own pleasure. Merle's childish curls and violet eyes and scarlet mouth saying bitter, worldly things, had caught his jaded interest and filliped it to stinging passion, so far above the torn and frayed sample he had bought at extravagant prices, that the man was humble and grateful. Perhaps he, too, in his own way, was searching for Beauty. Besides, it gave him a pleasant sense of the security of the world he helped to make to have taken Merle from Black Tom O'Connell. In some way it justified the existence of things as they were, proved the tottering foundations of the movements that had begun to give him a good deal of trouble with his labor.
He was so plainly in love with Merle, it surprised Anne that his look was no grosser than it was, for it was evidently difficult for him to sit near and touch her in no way. If Merle were conscious of his restraint she did not show it, but after a few moments it got on Anne's nerves, and she rose. Merle rose too, insisting that Mr. Wilson stay where he was and finish the tea the waitress had just brought.
"I'll be back. I'm just going to the door with Anne. You wait here, honey."
Merle hurried after Anne.
"When's Tom coming back, do you know?" she whispered. "I saw in the papers he is out of town."
"Yes. No, I don't know; in a few days I think."
Merle's small, white teeth marked the crimson lip in a faint line. Slowly her black brows drew down in a frown. Her hands clenched.
"Anne, I would have died for him—I really would have once."
"Merle, don't go on with this. You're doing it in a fit of anger. You'll be sorry."
"I'm not doing it in a fit of anger. Didn't I tell you I thought it out, wrote it out? And do you know what was the last item on the balance sheet for Ben? Well, if I stay and marry him, it's a baby, a warm, cuddly thing like Rogie. And I'm going to dress him in the loveliest clothes, and nobody will kick about the starving Russians or the dying Roumanians. I'll feed him out of a gold-monogrammed nursing bottle if I take the fancy, and Ben will think it's grand."
At the exaggerated picture Anne smiled. Merle smiled, too, and then her eyes darkened again, just for a moment, as if a shadow had crossed them.
"Anne, you might let me know if Tom puts over that case he's gone on. I used to listen to it till I most went frantic, but it's—well, the last thing I'll ever hear of the crowd and I'll feel more finished, neat and tidy-like, to know. I'll be here another two weeks, anyhow."
"All right. I'll let you know."
But Anne did not keep her promise, because two days later she saw in the society news that Mr. Benjamin Wilson was leaving unexpectedly for Europe. The next day Black Tom came back. He had lost his case.