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."