The next evening Avery called upon Gertrude to thank her for her letter,
and, incidentally, to tell her of the experience at Grady's Pavilion,
and bespeak the good office of the Guild for those two human pawns, who
had, somehow, weighed upon his heart.
Avery was not a Churchman himself, but he felt very sure that any Guild
which would throw Gertrude Foster's influence about less fortunate
girls, would be good, so he gave very little thought to the phase of it
which was not wholly related to the personality of the young woman in
whose eyes he had grown to feel he must appear well and worthy, if he
retained his self-respect. This bar of judgment had come, by unconscious
degrees, to be the one before which he tried his own cases for and
against himself.
"Would Gertrude like it if she should know? Would I dislike to have her
know that I did this or felt that?" was now so constantly a part of his
mental processes, that he had become quite familiar with her verdicts,
which were most often passed--from his point of view, and in his own
mind--without the knowledge of the girl herself.
He had never talked of love to her, except in the general and impersonal
fashion of young creatures who are wont to eagerly discuss the profound
perplexities of life without having come face to face with one of them.
One day they had talked of love in a cottage. The conversation had been
started by the discussion of a new novel they had just read, and Avery
told her of a strange fellow whom he knew, who had married against the
wishes of his father, and had been disinherited.
"He lost his grip, somehow," said Avery, "and went from one disaster
into another. First he lost his place, and the little salary they had to
live on was stopped. It was no fault of his. It had been in due course
of a business change in the firm he worked for. He got another, but not
so good a situation, but the little debts that had run up while he was
idle were a constant drag on him. He never seemed able to catch up. Then
his wife's health failed. She needed a change of climate, rare and
delicate food, a quiet mind relieved of anxiety, but he could not give
her these. His own nerves gave way under the strain, and at last
sickness overtook him, and he had to appeal to me for a loan."
It was the letter which his friend had written when in that desperate
frame of mind, which Avery read to Gertrude the day they had discussed
the novel together. It was a strange, desperate letter, and it had
greatly stirred Gertrude. One passage in it had rather shocked her. It
was this: "When a fellow is young, and knows little enough of life to
accept the fictions of fiction as guides, he talks or thinks about it
as 'love in a cottage.' After he has tried it a while, and suffered in
heart and soul _because_ of his love of those whom he must see day
after day handicapped in mind and wrecked in body for the need of larger
means, he begins to speak of it mournfully as 'poverty with love' But
when that awful day comes, when sickness or misfortune develops before
his helpless gaze all the horrors of dependence and agony of mind that
the future outlook shows him, then it is that the fitting description
comes, and he feels like painting above the door he dreads to
enter--'hell at home.' Without the love there would be no home; without
the poverty no hell. Neither lightens the burdens of the other. Each
multiplies all that is terrible in both."
Gertrude had listened to the letter with a sad heart. When she did not
speak, Avery felt that he should modify some of its terms if he would be
fair to his absent acquaintance.
"Of course he would have worded it a little differently if he had known
that any one else would read it. He was desperate. He had gone through
such a succession of disasters. If anything was going to fall it seemed
as if he was sure to be under it, so I don't much wonder at his language
after--"
"I don't wonder at it at all," said Gertrude, looking steadily into the
fire. "What seems wonderful, is the facts which his words portray. I can
see that they are facts; but what I cannot see is--is--"
"How he could express them so raspingly--so--?" began Avery, but she
turned to him quite frankly surprised.
"Oh, no! Not that. But how can it be right that it should be so? And if
it is not right, why do not you men who have the power, do something to
straighten things out? Is this sort of suffering absolutely _necessary_
in the world?"
It was this talk and its suggestions which had led Avery to first take
seriously into consideration the proposition that he run for a seat
in the Assembly. It seemed to him that men like himself, who had both
leisure and convictions, might do some good work there, and he began to
realize that the law-making of the state was left, for the most part, in
very dangerous hands, and that a law once passed must inevitably help
to crystallize public opinion in such a way as to retard freer or better
action.
"To think of allowing that class of men to set the standards about
which public opinion forms and rallies!" he thought, as the professional
politician arose before him, and his mind was made up. He would be a
candidate. So the night after his experience at Grady's Pavilion he had
another puzzle to lay before Gertrude. When he entered the hallway
he was sorry to hear voices in the drawing-room. He had hoped to find
Gertrude and her mother alone. His first impulse was to leave his card
and call at another time, but the servant recognizing his hesitation,
ventured a bit of information.
"Excuse me, Mr. Avery, but I don't think they will be here long. It's a
couple of--They--"
"Thank you, James. Are they not friends of Miss Gertrude?"
James smiled in a manner which displayed a large capacity for pity.
"Well, sir, I shouldn't say they was exactly friends. No, sir, ner yet
callers, sir. They're some of them Guilders."
Avery could not guess what Gertrude would have gilders in the
drawing-room for at that hour, but decided to enter. "Mr. Avery;" said
James, in his most formal and perfunctory fashion, as he drew back the
portiere and announced the new arrival No one would have dreamed from
the stolid front presented by the liveried functionary, that he had just
exchanged confidences with the guest.
"Let me introduce my friends to you, Mr. Avery," began Gertrude, and two
figures arose, and from one came a gay little laugh, a mock courtesy,
and "Law me! It's him! Well, if this don't beat the Dutch!"
She extended her hand to him and laughed again. "We didn't shake hands
last night, but now's we're regul'rly interduced I guess we will," she
added.
Avery took her hand, and then offered his to her companion, and bowed
and smiled again.
"Really, I shall begin to grow superstitious," he said, in an
explanatory tone to Gertrude. "I came here to-night to see if I could
arrange to have you three young ladies meet; to learn if there was a
chance at the Guild to--"
"Oh," smiled Gertrude, beginning to grasp the situation. "How very nice!
But these two are my star girls at the Guild now. We were just arranging
some work for next week, but--"
"Yas, she wants to go down to that Spillini hole agin," broke in Ettie
Berton, and Francis King glanced suspiciously from Gertrude to
Avery. She wondered just what these two were thinking. She felt very
uncomfortable and wished that he had not come in. She had not spoken
since Avery entered, and he realized her discomfort.
"You treated us pretty shabbily last night, Miss King," he said,
smiling, and then he turned to Gertrude. "She left me in the middle of a
remark. We met at Grady's Pavilion, and if I'm elected, I learn that the
fathers of both of these young ladies will be my companions-in-arms in
the Assembly. They--!" In spite of herself, Gertrude's face showed her
surprise, but Ettie Berton broke in with a gay laugh.
"Are you in politics? Law me! I'd never a believed it. I don't see how
you're agoin' to get on unless you get a--"
She realized that her remark was going to indicate a belief in certain
incapacity in him, and she took another cue.
"My pa says nobody hardly can't get on in politics by himself. You see
my pa is a sort of a starter for Fan's pa in politics, 're else he'd
never got on in the world. Fan's pa backs him, and he starts things that
her pa wants started."
Francis moved uneasily, and Gertrude said: "That is natural enough
since they were friends here, and, I think you told me, were in business
together, didn't you?"
Ettie laughed, and clapped her hands gaily. "That's good! In business
together! Oh, Lord, I'll tell pa that. He'll roar. Why, pa is a
prerofessional starter. He ain't in business with no particular one only
jest while the startin's done."
The girl appeared to think that Avery and Gertrude were quite familiar
with professional starters, and she rattled on gaily.
"I thought I'd die the time he started them butcher shops for Fan's pa,
though. He hadn't never learnt the difference between a rib roast 'n a
soup bone, 'n he had to keep a printed paper hung up inside o' the ice
chest so's he'd know which kind of a piece he got out to sell; but he
talked so nice an' smooth all the time he _was_ a gettin' it out, an'
tole each customer that the piece they asked fer was the 'choicest
part of the animal,' but that mighty few folks had sense enough to know
it--oh, it was funny! I used to get where I could hear him, and jest die
a laughin'. He'd sell the best in the shop for ten cents a pound, an'
he'd cut it which ever way they ast him to, an' make heavy weight. His
price list was a holy show, but he jest scooped in all the trade around
there in no time, an' the other shops had to move. Then you ought t'
a seen Fan's pa come in there an' brace things up! Whew!" She laughed
delightedly, and Francis's face flushed.
"He braced prices up so stiff that some o' the customers left, but most
of 'em stayed rather'n hunt up a new place to start books in. Pa, he'd
started credit books with _all_ of 'em.
"Pa, he was in the back room the first day Fan's pa and the new clerk
took the shop, after pa got it good'n started. Him an' me most died
laughin' at the kickin' o' the people. Every last one of 'em ast fer pa
to wait on 'em, but Fan's pa he told 'em that he'd bankrupted hisself
and had t' sell out to him. Pa said he wisht he had somethin' to
bankrupt on. But, law, he'll never make no money. He ain't built that
way. He's a tip top perfessional starter tho', ain't he, Fan?" she
concluded with a gleeful reminiscent grimace at her friend. Francis
shifted her position awkwardly, and tried to feel that everything
was quite as it should be in good society, and Gertrude made a little
attempt to divert the conversation to affairs of the Guild, but Ettie
Berton, who appeared to look upon her father as a huge joke, and to feel
herself most at home in discussing him, broke in again:--
"But the time he started the 'Stable fer Business Horses,' was the
funniest yet," and she laughed until her eyes filled with tears, and she
dried them with the lower part of the palms of her hands, rubbing them
red.
"The boss told him not to take anything _but_ business horses. What he
meant was, to be sure not to let in any fancy high-steppers, fer fear
they'd get hurt or sick, an' he'd have trouble about 'em Well, pa didn't
understand at first, an' he wouldn't take no mules, an' most all the
business horses around there _was_ mules, an' when drivers'd ask him why
he wouldn't feed 'em 'er take 'em in, he jest had t' fix up the funniest
stories y' ever heard. He tole one man that he hadn't laid in the kind
o' feed mules eat, n' the man told him he was the biggest fool to talk
he ever see. The mule-man he--"
Francis King had arisen, and started awkwardly toward Gertrude, with her
hand extended.
"I think we ought to go," she said, uneasily, her large eyes burning
with mortification, and an oppressed sense of being at a disadvantage.
"So soon?" said Gertrude, smiling as she took her hand, and laid her
other arm about the shoulders of Ettie, who had hastened to place
herself in the group. "I was so entertained that I did not realize that
perhaps you ought to go before it grows late--oh," glancing at a tiny
watch in her bracelet, "it is late--too late for you to go way down
there alone. I will send James, or--"
"Allow me the pleasure, will you not?" asked Avery, bowing first to
Gertrude, and then toward Francis, and Gertrude said:--
"Oh, thank you, if--" but Ettie clapped her hands in glee.
"Well, that's too rich! Just as if we didn't go around by ourselves all
the time, and--Lord! pa says if anybody carries me off he'd only go as
far as the lamp-post, and drop me as soon as the light struck me! Now
Fan's pretty, but--" she laughed, and made clawing movements in the air.
"Nobody'll get away with Queen Fan's long's she's got finger-nails 'n
teeth." She snapped her pretty little white teeth together with mock
viciousness, and laughed again. "I'd just pity the fellow that tried any
tomfoolery with Queen Fan. He'd wish he'd died young!"
They all laughed a bit at this sally, and Avery said he did not want
Miss King to be forced to extremities in self-protection while he was
able to relieve her of the necessity.
When James closed the door behind the laughing group, he glanced at Miss
Gertrude to see what she thought of it, but he remarked to Susan later
on, that "Miss Gertrude looked as if she was born 'n brought up that way
herself. She didn't show no amusement ner no sarcasm in her face. An' as
fer Mr. Avery, it was nothing short of astonishing, to see him offer his
arms to those two Guilders as they started down the avenue."
And Susan ventured it as her present belief, that if Gertrude's father
once caught any of her Guilders around, he'd "make short work of the
whole business. She ought't be ashamed o' herself, so she ought. Ketch
_me,_ if I was in her shoes, a consortin' with--"
"Anybody but me, Susie," put in the devoted James; but alas, for him,
the stiff, unyielding hooked joint of his injured finger came first
in contact with the wrist of the fair Susan as he essayed to clasp her
hand, and she evaded the grasp and flung out of the room with a shiver.
"Keep that old twisted base-ball bat off o' me! I--"
"Oh, Susie!" said James, dolefully, to himself, as he slowly surrounded
the offending member with the folds of his handkerchief, which gave it
the appearance of being in hospital. "Oh, Susie! how kin you?"
When John Martin, on his way, intending to drop in for the last act of
the opera, passed Gertrude's door just in time to see Avery and the two
girls come down the steps, his lip curled a bit, and his heart performed
that strange feat which loving hearts have achieved in all the ages
past, in spite of reason and of natural impulses of kindness. It took
on a distinctly hard feeling towards Avery, and this feeling was not
unmixed with resentment. "How dare he take girls like that to her house?
I was a fool to take her to the Spillinis, but I'd never be idiot enough
to take that type of girl to _her_ house. Avery's political freak has
dulled his sense of propriety."
Mr. Martin wondered vaguely if he ought not to say something to
Gertrude's father, and then he thought it might possibly be better to
touch lightly upon it himself in talking to her.
He had heard some gossip at the opera and in the club, which indicated
that society did not approve altogether of some of the things Gertrude
had recently said and done; but that it smiled approvingly at what
it believed to be as good as an engagement between the young lady and
Selden Avery. Martin ground his teeth now as he thought of it, and
glanced again at the retreating forms of Avery and the two girls.
"It was that visit to the Spillinis, and the revelation of life which it
gave her, that is to blame for it all," he groaned. "I was an accursed
fool--an accursed fool!"
That night Gertrude lay thinking how charmingly Selden Avery had met
the situation, and how well he had helped carry it off with Ettie and
Francis. "He seemed to look at it all just as I do," she thought. I felt
that I knew just what he was thinking, and he certainly guessed that I
wanted him to see them home, exactly as if they had been girls of our
own set. "Poor little Ettie! I wonder what we can do with, or for, such
as she? She is so hopelessly--happy and ignorant." Then she fell asleep,
and dreamed of rescuing Ettie from the fangs a maddened dog, and Francis
stood by and looked scornfully at Gertrude's lacerated hands, and then
pointed to her little friend's mangled body and the smile upon her dead
lips.
"She never knew what hurt her, and she teased the dog to begin with,"
she said. "You are maimed for life, and may go mad, just trying to help
her--and she never knew and she never cared." Gertrude's dreamed had
strayed and wandered into vagaries without form or outline, and in the
morning nothing of it was left but an unreasonably heavy heart, and a
restless desire to do--she knew not what.