Still time went by, and although things did not improve very much in his
office over the standards which he saw prevailing when he came there, he
was obviously getting things much better arranged in his private life.
In the first place Angela's attitude was getting much better. The old
agony which had possessed her in the days when he was acting so badly
had modified as day by day she saw him working and conducting himself
with reasonable circumspection. She did not trust him as yet. She was
not sure that he had utterly broken with Carlotta Wilson (she had never
found out who his paramour was), but all the evidence seemed to attest
it. There was a telephone down stairs in a drug store by which, during
his days on the _World_, Angela would call him up at any time, and
whenever she had called him up he was always in the office. He seemed to
have plenty of time to take her to the theatre if she wished to go, and
to have no especial desire to avoid her company. He had once told her
frankly that he did not propose to pretend to love her any more, though
he did care for her, and this frightened her. In spite of her wrath and
suffering she cared for him, and she believed that he still sympathized
with her and might come to care for her again--that he ought to.
She decided to play the role of the affectionate wife whether it was
true or not, and to hug and kiss him and fuss over him if he would let
her, just as though nothing had happened. Eugene did not understand
this. He did not see how Angela could still love him. He thought she
must hate him, having such just grounds, for having by dint of hard work
and absence come out of his vast excitement about Carlotta he was
beginning to feel that he had done her a terrific injustice and to wish
to make amends. He did not want to love her, he did not feel that he
could, but he was perfectly willing to behave himself, to try to earn a
good living, to take her to theatre and opera as opportunity permitted,
and to build up and renew a social relationship with others which should
act as a substitute for love. He was beginning to think that there was
no honest or happy solution to any affair of the heart in the world.
Most people so far as he could see were unhappily married. It seemed to
be the lot of mankind to make mistakes in its matrimonial selections. He
was probably no more unhappy than many others. Let the world wag as it
would for a time. He would try to make some money now, and restore
himself in the eyes of the world. Later, life might bring him
something--who could tell?
In the next place their financial condition, even before he left the
_World_, was so much better than it had been. By dint of saving and
scraping, refusing to increase their expenses more than was absolutely
necessary, Angela had succeeded by the time he left the _World_ in
laying by over one thousand dollars, and since then it had gone up to
three thousand. They had relaxed sufficiently so that now they were
wearing reasonably good clothes, were going out and receiving company
regularly. It was not possible in their little apartment which they
still occupied to entertain more than three or four at the outside, and
two was all that Angela ever cared to consider as either pleasurable or
comfortable; but they entertained this number frequently. There were
some slight recoveries of friendship and of the old life--Hudson Dula,
Jerry Mathews, who had moved to Newark; William McConnell, Philip
Shotmeyer. MacHugh and Smite were away, one painting in Nova Scotia, the
other working in Chicago. As for the old art crowd, socialists and
radicals included, Eugene attempted to avoid them as much as possible.
He knew nothing of the present whereabouts of Miriam Finch and Norma
Whitmore. Of Christina Channing he heard much, for she was singing in
Grand Opera, her pictures displayed in the paper and upon the
billboards. There were many new friends, principally young newspaper
artists like Adolph Morgenbau, who took to Eugene and were in a sense
his disciples.
Angela's relations showed up from time to time, among them David Blue,
now a sub-lieutenant in the army, with all the army officer's pride of
place and station. There were women friends of Angela's for whom Eugene
cared little--Mrs. Desmas, the wife of the furniture manufacturer at
Riverwood, from whom they had rented their four rooms there;
Mrs. Wertheim, the wife of the multimillionaire, to whom M. Charles had
introduced them; Mrs. Link, the wife of the West Point army captain who
had come to the old Washington Square studio with Marietta and who was
now stationed at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn; and a Mrs. Juergens, living
in a neighboring apartment. As long as they were very poor, Angela was
very careful how she revived acquaintances; but when they began to have
a little money she decided that she might indulge her predilection and
so make life less lonesome for herself. She had always been anxious to
build up solid social connections for Eugene, but as yet she did not see
how it was to be done.
When Eugene's new connection with the Summerfield company was
consummated, Angela was greatly astonished and rather delighted to think
that if he had to work in this practical field for long it was to be
under such comforting auspices--that is, as a superior and not as an
underling. Long ago she had come to feel that Eugene would never make
any money in a commercial way. To see him mounting in this manner was
curious, but not wholly reassuring. They must save money; that was her
one cry. They had to move soon, that was very plain, but they mustn't
spend any more than they had to. She delayed until the attitude of
Summerfield, upon an accidental visit to their flat, made it
commercially advisable.
Summerfield was a great admirer of Eugene's artistic ability. He had
never seen any of his pictures, but he was rather keen to, and once when
Eugene told him that they were still on display, one or two of them at
Pottle Freres, Jacob Bergman's and Henry LaRue's, he decided to visit
these places, but put it off. One night when he was riding uptown on the
L road with Eugene he decided because he was in a vagrom mood to
accompany him home and see his pictures there. Eugene did not want this.
He was chagrined to be compelled to take him into their very little
apartment, but there was apparently no way of escaping it. He tried to
persuade him to visit Pottle Freres instead, where one picture was still
on view, but Summerfield would none of that.
"I don't like you to see this place," finally he said apologetically, as
they were going up the steps of the five-story apartment house. "We are
going to get out of here pretty soon. I came here when I worked on the
road."
Summerfield looked about at the poor neighborhood, the inlet of a canal
some two blocks east where a series of black coal pockets were and to
the north where there was flat open country and a railroad yard.
"Why, that's all right," he said, in his direct, practical way. "It
doesn't make any difference to me. It does to you, though, Witla. You
know, I believe in spending money, everybody spending money. Nobody gets
anywhere by saving anything. Pay out! Pay out--that's the idea. I found
that out for myself long ago. You'd better move when you get a chance
soon and surround yourself with clever people."
Eugene considered this the easy talk of a man who was successful and
lucky, but he still thought there was much in it. Summerfield came in
and viewed the pictures. He liked them, and he liked Angela, though he
wondered how Eugene ever came to marry her. She was such a quiet little
home body. Eugene looked more like a Bohemian or a club man now that he
had been worked upon by Summerfield. The soft hat had long since been
discarded for a stiff derby, and Eugene's clothes were of the most
practical business type he could find. He looked more like a young
merchant than an artist. Summerfield invited them over to dinner at his
house, refusing to stay to dinner here, and went his way.
Before long, because of his advice they moved. They had practically four
thousand by now, and because of his salary Angela figured that they
could increase their living expenses to say two thousand five hundred or
even three thousand dollars. She wanted Eugene to save two thousand each
year against the day when he should decide to return to art. They sought
about together Saturday afternoons and Sundays and finally found a
charming apartment in Central Park West overlooking the park, where they
thought they could live and entertain beautifully. It had a large
dining-room and living-room which when the table was cleared away formed
one great room. There was a handsomely equipped bathroom, a nice kitchen
with ample pantry, three bedrooms, one of which Angela turned into a
sewing room, and a square hall or entry which answered as a temporary
reception room. There were plenty of closets, gas and electricity,
elevator service with nicely uniformed elevator men, and a house
telephone. It was very different from their last place, where they only
had a long dark hall, stairways to climb, gas only, and no phone. The
neighborhood, too, was so much better. Here were automobiles and people
walking in the park or promenading on a Sunday afternoon, and obsequious
consideration or polite indifference to your affairs from everyone who
had anything to do with you.
"Well, the tide is certainly turning," said Eugene, as they entered it
the first day.
He had the apartment redecorated in white and delft-blue and dark blue,
getting a set of library and dining-room furniture in imitation
rosewood. He bought a few choice pictures which he had seen at various
exhibitions to mix with his own, and set a cut-glass bowl in the ceiling
where formerly the commonplace chandelier had been. There were books
enough, accumulated during a period of years, to fill the attractive
white bookcase with its lead-paned doors. Attractive sets of bedroom
furniture in bird's-eye maple and white enamel were secured, and the
whole apartment given a very cosy and tasteful appearance. A piano was
purchased outright and dinner and breakfast sets of Haviland china.
There were many other dainty accessories, such as rugs, curtains,
portieres, and so forth, the hanging of which Angela supervised. Here
they settled down to a comparatively new and attractive life.
Angela had never really forgiven him his indiscretions of the past, his
radical brutality in the last instance, but she was not holding them up
insistently against him. There were occasional scenes even yet, the
echoes of a far-off storm; but as long as they were making money and
friends were beginning to come back she did not propose to quarrel.
Eugene was very considerate. He was very, very hard-working. Why should
she nag him? He would sit by a window overlooking the park at night and
toil over his sketches and ideas until midnight. He was up and dressed
by seven, down to his office by eight-thirty, out to lunch at one or
later, and only back home at eight or nine o'clock at night. Sometimes
Angela would be cross with him for this, sometimes rail at
Mr. Summerfield for an inhuman brute, but seeing that the apartment was
so lovely and that Eugene was getting along so well, how could she
quarrel? It was for her benefit as much as for his that he appeared to
be working. He did not think about spending money. He did not seem to
care. He would work, work, work, until she actually felt sorry for him.
"Certainly Mr. Summerfield ought to like you," she said to him one day,
half in compliment, half in a rage at a man who would exact so much from
him. "You're valuable enough to him. I never saw a man who could work
like you can. Don't you ever want to stop?"
"Don't bother about me, Angelface," he said. "I have to do it. I don't
mind. It's better than walking the streets and wondering how I'm going
to get along"--and he fell to his ideas again.
Angela shook her head. Poor Eugene! If ever a man deserved success for
working, he certainly did. And he was really getting nice again--getting
conventional. Perhaps it was because he was getting a little older. It
might turn out that he would become a splendid man, after all.