” To begin at the pop of the pistol—I was born in New York—over on the
East Side, where people live like flies. You’ve never been there, have
you?” Joy shook her head. “Then you probably won’t believe some of the
things I’m going to tell you. I was one of ten—and we all lived in two
rooms.” Jerry’s voice seemed to have grown dull, and she stared away
from Joy as she talked. “When you toss it over in your mind—it’s pretty
brutalizing, living that way—it tends to turn humans into worse than
animals—for humans can make themselves as much lower than animals as
they can higher—that’s one of the things I’ve learned so far in life.”
“You don’t mean _ten people_—in two rooms?” Joy gasped.
Jerry shrugged her shoulders. “That’s exactly what I do mean. Not only
that, but we took two boarders in our rooms because my father was always
out of work.”
Joy’s eyes were huge disks of horror; already she had shrunk into her
chair looking at Jerry as if she had suddenly dropped in from Mars.
Jerry was continuing rapidly:
“I sold newspapers as soon as I was able to take in the pennies. I wore
a grey sweater and a pair of bloomers, and talked to everybody who
bought a paper of me, whether they slung a line back or not.” She gave a
long, quivering sigh. “I don’t intend to go into details about my life
from the ground floor up——But get this clear, Joy: _I never knew what
it was to be innocent_, not since I can remember. And I’m not throwing
out any cross lines when I say that it wasn’t my fault or my own
choosing. I—never had any other slant on it offered to me. My life, as
I have said, was like that of an alley cat, and it couldn’t be
translated to you any other way.”
“I don’t understand,” said Joy faintly.
“You wouldn’t. You were having milk fed to you when I was picking up
beer-leavings. That’s the best way I can put it to you.”
There was a pause while Jerry studied her pink mules and searched for
words in which to clothe what she wanted to say. Finally, with a swift
frown, she plunged into narrative again, obviously leaving a hiatus.
“When I was thirteen, I got a job as messenger girl for Charlette et
Cie. Happened to have drifted up the Avenue to see if I could get some
man to buy my whole load of papers—saw the sign, Girl Wanted, and
tacked inside. There were a bunch of others waiting that dressed the
part a little better—I had on the grey sweater and bloomers—but I told
the dame that was doing the interviewing that I’d carry their old
bundles for less than any other applicant. This underbidding tickled the
old girl somehow, and before I knew it, I was one of Charlette’s regular
messenger-girls at five dollars per.
“My getting rich quick was the cause of a split between me and the
family. I shut my mitt on my income—and the result was the throwing of
a few flat-irons and other little parties, which ended in the fact that
one night I didn’t come back and I’ve never been back since. I hadn’t
ever bet much on the family—and there was a new boarder I didn’t like.”
“What do you mean, Jerry,” Joy interposed; “you couldn’t live—not
_live_ on five dollars a week?”
“I could and did. I took a room at a dollar a week. It was a hall
bedroom, the kind you don’t even read about. No light, and squirming all
over. I used to——Never mind—I got along all right—and the family
never came after me; I guess one more or less didn’t make such a hell of
a difference.
“Excuse me, Joy! You look paralyzed or something. I was inhaling the
dollar-a-week air again——Cheer up—I’m whirling off the slum stuff as
swift as it can go—but you’ve really got to hear some of this, so you
can understand every little thing.”
“Go—on,” Joy articulated with difficulty.
“My next two years I spent carrying bundles for Charlette’s and
incidentally hanging around the place before and after hours, talking to
the models every chance I could get, absorbing the main truths about
what clothes can do to you and what you can do to clothes. My errands
took me into the workrooms and fitting-rooms, and I began to make my own
clothes and what I admitted was improving on Charlette designs in doing
so. Watching the models and hearing them talk had given me an idea of
what colour and line could do.
“I think I was at my worst at fifteen. I tossed a mean make-up and
looked probably older than I do now. I had no morals and a bunch of bad
ideas. Some of the models were all right, but those weren’t the ones who
shot their mouths off. About the only rule I went by was to look out for
myself.
“Along about then, I struck for recognition—I was working twelve hours
a day and only pulling down seven a week—and they graduated me into the
work-rooms.
“That’s the way my rise in the world began—that and changing to a
sub-let room in an apartment uptown. I was five years more at
Charlette’s; and at the end of that time I was one of their
designers—what I had been working for, all that time.” She closed her
eyes as if they hurt. “I’d been working on the same old twelve-hour
average, but it was a change and higher pay, and I lapped up the work, I
was so crazy about it. There seemed a sort of poetry to it—even when I
started as a cutter, baster, fitter and spent days over the sewing
machine—a poetry that grew as I pushed myself into the designing end
and put the right thing on the right person.”
“Like Mrs. Messy,” Joy said, with a little hysterical giggle. She had
lost her look of breathless horror, and was listening with minute
interest.
“Well—there were a lot of people like her around, of course—there
always are, in a big designing shop—and I learned how to put things on
them, too—as you’ve seen.” The two girls smiled at each other. The air
had become less tense. It was almost in relief that Jerry continued:
“I always worked overtime, at first because I knew that was the way to
get ahead, then later from habit as well as my burning to get to the
top. I saved my money, too, and was the original glued-to-a-nickel
fiend. Men dropped out of my life pretty much in those five years. I was
too busy getting ahead.
“Before I go on and get to the heart-throb—I’ll give you a general
snapshot of me at the age of twenty. I made myself up every A.M. as
peppily as if I were going to tread the boards. I wore my hair in the
last gasp from Paris. I cut my clothes as snappy as I could get away
with, which was some, you can gather. And I looked like a misprint. As
for the rest—I was hard as a city pavement, tough as gum, and looked on
men as a necessary evil.”
“That wasn’t your fault!” Joy interpolated swiftly. Jerry shrugged her
shoulders by way of answer, but gave a faint nod, before going on.
“Then one day a man walked into Charlette’s who—I’ve never lined this
out to a soul, Joy; but I’ll try to hold my words in when I talk about
him. You know, or of course you don’t, the type of man likely to float
around Charlette’s. Husbands, or sapheads. Mostly both. But this day—a
man came in with his sister, who was having us do her wedding dress.
“She was Mabel Lancaster. Of course you know who she is.”
“I’m afraid I don’t,” Joy admitted. “The name sounds vaguely familiar,
but most nice names sound that way to me——”
“Well, New Yorkers would know; it’s an old family, not much ready cash;
and she tied up to Eustace Drew, also old family, and a lot of ready
cash. The papers were full of blurbs about it at the time. I had thrown
a lot of thought over her dress, and it was good, by the way—but
Fanchon spread a noise about having done it herself. Fanchon was the old
girl who had first interviewed me when I came in for messenger girl. Her
real name was Mrs. O’Brien, but never mind.
“I was out front shadowing Fanchon O’Brien with a telephone message when
he came, not trailing after his sister with a dragged-in-look or
tripping along with all the zest in the world—just the in-between
effect that I had often remarked no man ever got in Charlette’s Louis
Somebody salon. Joy, he—well, he’s tall, and big, and he’s got brown
hair, sort of choppy, with a pinch of red in it. And his eyes are blue
as yours, only they’re breezy and full of zip—and then they can look at
you with a little half-smile——”
She caught herself up. “Tell me when, I blow, Joy! I knew I would.”
Joy laughed. “I love it when you ‘blow,’ Jerry! I’ve often wondered if
you ever—could! Go on—quick!”
“Well—he didn’t look at me at all. Fanchon took them into the theatre
salon, and I sneaked after them, pretending I was busy at something or
other. Mabel Lancaster was saying that she wanted to look at some
evening gowns for her trousseau, and Fanchon nailed me to rustle the
dear models along. I did so, and then stood at the end of the salon and
kept my eyes pasted on the back of his head. I was hard in love with him
then—with the back of his head and the way he turned and smiled and
said things to his sister. The back of a man’s head is an awful test—it
can register, or not register, so many things. Try it and see some time!
“Finally I came down the theatre to a seat almost behind them. Fanchon
had gone back in the workroom to see about the wedding dress, and thanks
to Charlette having the theatre salon in semitones, they didn’t notice
me, although they never wasted an eye on surrounding human scenery
anyhow.
“‘Those models fascinate me, Phil,’ she was saying. ‘What an empty show
their life must be! Or is it? What do you think?’ ‘I’ve known some of
their kind,’ he answered, ‘and I can assure you that their chief concern
is what they put on or leave off their backs. Poor little rats! Not much
“honour and truth and a sure intent” among them!’
She laughed. ‘You’re always talking about “honour and truth and a sure
intent,”’ she said. ‘You’re so romantic, Phil—anyone would think you
were getting married instead of me!’
“Then he wasn’t married! That was my first thought, as I faded away back
to Fanchon. But later on, the things he said began to sink in. ‘Poor
little rats!’ He had said that in the same tone that he had looked
through me. Every time I thought of it I wanted to go and burn myself up
and then crawl out and fly away a new bird, like a Pegasus or a Phœnix,
or whatever the old thing is. I knew I was a poor little rat—that he’d
call me the same thing if he ever had a good look at me. And the worst
thing was that I didn’t have a clue on how not to be a poor little
rat—not a clue, except for those three things he had named—‘honour and
truth and a sure intent.’ The first two and me weren’t speaking. That
last—well, I thought I did have a sure intent. To get to the top on
designing for Charlette—to get so that I would be the acknowledged
head, second only to the old girl Charlette herself, who spent most of
her time hanging in on the Paris exhibits—that was my aim; and then I
was going to spread and have a good time. Not a bad aim, as aims go. The
trouble with everyone nowadays is, everyone wants to get to the top and
have a good time every step of the way too.”
She paused to take breath.
“Do you mean,” said Joy, “that you—you really fell in love with
him—then?”
“Yes.”
They were silent for a moment, and then Joy whispered an old, old
question—and one that of late had been pricking her with uncertainty.
“Jerry—how did you—know? How could you be so—sure?”
“How does one know?” Jerry repeated. “That’s something that crashes in
to different make-ups in different ways, Joy. With me—it came like a
pistol shot. Just as sudden, and as unwelcome.
“I thought about him on an average of every day, after that. You see, no
one had ever spilled it to me before that there might be something
lacking in my get-up. I always believed that you can get to anything you
want if you want it hard enough to work for nothing but that. Look where
I had landed by tearing my eyes out with work while other girls watched
the clock and beat it early for movie dates—from the East Side newsie
in grey sweater and bloomers to a Fifth Avenue designer in a Charlette
model—at twenty. And so I began to believe that if I wanted Phil
Lancaster hard enough, I could get him. There was this hitch to it,
though; I knew how to work for what I wanted, before. Now I was in the
dark. The only right thing I knew was that I was wrong—and that I
didn’t want to see him again until I was right.
“Then the war came along. When I read his name in the Plattsburg lists,
I decided that I’d better go over to France and see what I could do
about it, too. I had a stock-taking of myself, and decided—Y. M. C. A.
entertainment was my line. When I was a newsie, I used to sing in the
bars for a nickel, and I was always quick at catching on to popular
songs. I got one of the fitters at Charlette’s who could rustle the
ebonies, and we went over a bunch of stuff. My voice was big and I had
pep—but they told me I had no training—no repertoire—that I’d better
study singing, and also get some practical professional experience.
“That’s how I connected up with Pa Graham. One of the designers had a
friend who sang at Rector’s, and was studying for musical comedy.
Singing teachers are the worst lottery there is, but the alley cat fell
on her feet again. That girl took me to Pa—she was the only
musical-comedy special he had. He didn’t have much time, but when I told
him I wanted to get to France, and sang for him, he fixed it.”
“Wait a minute,” said Joy. “Where did you practice, and when? Just tell
me that.”
“Oh, about that time I changed my living quarters to a two-room-and-bath
arrangement up on West 111th. They were furnished, and a bum piano
thrown in. I didn’t care how bum it was, as it took all I could do to
pick out notes with one finger. This was a blurb or so more than I’d
been paying, which with my lessons meant that I was putting by a half of
one percent, of my regular speed, even with a raise I got along in
there.
“Then Fanchon came to me confidentially one day and offered to sell some
of her stock in the firm—war times were getting stiff. I can tell you I
stood still and shivered in my silk socks. Charlette’s stock was
closed-corporation stuff and it had been one of my largest ideas to get
some of it salted down. Only the old guard had their mitts on it, and I
didn’t know when I was going to be trusted with a block. I made her out
a cheque in quick order. A stockholder! They couldn’t kick me out now, I
doped it.”
She was silent for a moment of reflection, seeming to choose between the
thoughts that were crowding about her, while Joy held her breath in hope
that she would plunge ahead without choosing.
“I wanted to get some percentage on my lessons, and some of the
professional experience they talked about, so pretty soon I looked
around for a cabaret job and got one—through the girl at Rector’s, who
knew the manager at Hanley’s. It wasn’t bad. I wouldn’t have done
anything else with my evenings but sleep—and six hours’ sleep always
did me, from habit I guess. I came on at seven-thirty and eleven-five,
two songs each time.
“That was some life—practice early in the A.M., get to Charlette’s at
nine, work all day, Hanley’s in the evening, Pa Graham Sundays. That man
has got a soul in him for every art in music, and he showed me how to
succeed in my line while he was trying to make me into a diseuse. He
made me go and hear Yvette Guilbert, and told me that’s what I should
aim for—to be the American Yvette. But I had my own little idea of what
I wanted to do, and to try diseusing in war times wasn’t it.
“And all this time I steered clear of men. It wasn’t so easy now that I
was at Hanley’s, but being at work most of the time helped me, that and
the thought of Phil Lancaster—it was funny the way he and the things he
said stuck in my mind. ‘Honour and truth and a sure intent’—I had all
of that now, the way I looked at it. You remember war times,
Joy—everybody wanting to do something for somebody—air just reeking
with idealism—all I wanted was to get over there and be some good. And
after the war, Phil Lancaster, if he was still alive. Things would be
different after the war, I thought. And I figured it that the experience
of being over there would purify me as you read of its purifying
people’s souls. For by that time I saw what the first years of my life
had done to me. I don’t blame myself yet for being born an alley cat and
living with and in scum for the first fifteen years of my life. I wasn’t
taught any differently, and in spite of everything I taught myself and
pulled myself out of the scum. No, I didn’t blame myself—I only wanted
to better myself—and I thought that this Y stuff, overseas, would do a
lot towards wiping away the scum that seeps in under the skin, when
you’re buried in it, and sticks afterwards when you wash off the outside
part.
“It was in October of 1917 that the top of everything was knocked off
for me. I was at Hanley’s singing some fool song about ‘My Little
Service Flag Having Seven Stars,’ and it was about eleven-fifteen—when
suddenly I saw him—Phil Lancaster. Sitting alone at a table by the
wall. He was looking at me, _he was looking at me_! He was in the
uniform of a Captain of Infantry, and if I hadn’t been remembering him
every day ever since he had come into Charlette’s, I wouldn’t have known
him, he was so changed and tired. But he was looking at me! I faded up
and closed out—all my wind gone. Shut down on encores. Couldn’t pipe
another note. He had looked at me—well, as if he was noticing me hot.
“While I was still standing in the reception hallway, one of the waiters
blew in with a note for me. I never saved it—just like me to lose
it—but he asked if I couldn’t come out and have something to eat with
him, describing his location. Now, we’re not allowed to go out and sit
at the tables at Hanley’s. People could come back in the reception hall,
and talk to us there, but that was all. My first idea was to reel a note
back to him telling him that, and trust he would take the hint. But no!
I didn’t dare let that go. Supposing he didn’t come across—after all
those months—no, I couldn’t trust to it that he would tumble, or even
want to. I gave the waiter a note saying I would join him presently, and
scrubbed off most of my make-up, just leaving what I thought was a good
veneer for close-range work. I had worn a big hat that flopped all
around my face, and with my coat on and the lid flopping and the make-up
toned down, I didn’t look much like myself. I took a sneak out the side
and then breezed in front, told a waiter who didn’t know me I was
joining a friend, and fox-trotted up to his table with all the starch in
the world.
“And all the way I had been saying to myself: Jerry, you’ve had to fight
for everything you’ve got so far—and you’ve got to fight for this, but
you’ve been given the chance to fight!
“I sat down opposite him and grinned. He came out of a trance and looked
at me. ‘Oh, hello!’ he said. ‘Are you sure you’re the same one who has
seven stars on her service flag?’ ‘Seven is my limit,’ I said. ‘Is that
a fixed resolve? Because I was seriously considering asking you if you
would break over and add an eighth.’
“I took a minute off to look at him. Yes, he had the appearance of
having downed a few drinks. There was a lot more, too—he certainly had
been riding the sad sea waves! ‘Where do you get it, you officer guys?’
I asked him. He didn’t answer—he was lamping me. ‘On the stage up
there, you seemed quite wicked. Now, you are a disappointment. I can
never be taken up for conduct unbecoming an officer, with you at my
table.’
“I opened my mouth and nearly fell in it. Then I managed to get out that
I’d better leave, so he could try someone else. He said ‘No—I want
_you_. You look as though you had enough joy of living to cheer up even
a dead one—and that’s what I am, or the next thing to it.’
“I suggested that if he wanted me to trot out any joy of living stuff,
we had better leave that place and come on up to my apartment. I had
some there—a small but good assortment. I had outgrown my taste for
beer, but still wolfed down the Demon Rum—and I couldn’t sit in
Hanley’s much longer without being recognized. He paid the check and we
were off without even waiting for the change. Now I knew he’d been
drinking. It’s a long way from Hanley’s to West 111th, in case you don’t
know—in a taxi—although only about twenty minutes in the Subway. We
got in a meter-wagon and started off through the white lights. My heart
was travelling quicker than the meter.
“‘It’s sort of unusual for an officer to be alone in New York, isn’t
it?’ I said, and he pulled a laugh that would have been funny if it
hadn’t been so pitiful. ‘Alone? I’m the loneliest man in New York.’ Then
he set himself off and told me what was rotting in the State of Denmark.
His girl had knocked him one by quietly side-stepping around the corner
and getting sewed up to a French artillery officer. This had just burst
in upon him when he had heaved in from Upton that P.M.—after leaving
her last week with all the encouragement in the world. It had made him
simply silly—he’d been sampling everything he could get hold of, and
was quite poppo by now, as I could see.
“That girl was probably a good girl, but she hadn’t played fair, to do a
thing like that. And when you don’t play fair, you let yourself in for a
lot of responsibility. Here was her responsibility—shifted to me—and I
was her opposite. I hadn’t been good, according to her standards, but I
had always played fair.
“I gathered, as we bumped along through Columbus Circle, that she had
been about the only thing that had been keeping him treading water, just
now. He’d been made a Captain at Plattsburg, and he hadn’t felt he was
up to such a position; and at Upton he was feeling it more and more. He
told me about two young officers who’d shot themselves because they were
going crazy with their cares and responsibilities. It was a tough thing
for some of those young kids, to feel that they had whole companies of
men under them to answer for, when up to now they had never answered for
anything but the dog. He said if he hadn’t been older than those kids he
now would be tempted to do the same thing; that he never felt nearer to
it.
“It all seemed like a dream, Joy—bumping along in a taxi beside the man
I’d been in love with for so long—and he spreading his tale of woe. It
couldn’t have happened any other time but war times. If he thought about
telling me this stuff at all, he thought I was the grade of intelligence
that would peacefully let it slide by. I got that fact, and began to
think in quick flashes. Ever since I had watched the back of his head,
back in Charlette’s, I had fixed it in my mind so that he could have
walked over me in golf shoes and I would have sat up and begged for
more. I wanted to get hold of that girl and feel my fingernails meet in
her throat. As for Phil—the more he talked about it, the gloomier an
atmosphere he cast.
“We got to my apartment and as I opened up some joy getter, he passed
the remark that I did myself pretty well for a cabaret singer. Then he
slumped right down again, and got so low he couldn’t even drink. ‘It’s
no use,’ he said; ‘in my frame of mind, Uncle Sam’s army is better off
without me, and God knows there’s no one else in this universe who would
care!’ When men say that, you always know they mean a girl. They never
seem to think of their families in that connection.
“I went over to where he was looking at my wine, and said: ‘You’re
drunk. To snuff yourself out would brand you a coward in the eyes of the
world and God, too. Besides which, I won’t let you.’ He ripped off a
nasty laugh at that. ‘This is really almost amusing—to be sitting
listening to a cabaret girl tell me _she_ won’t let me “snuff myself
out!”’ He took my hand, and hung onto it. ‘Then you do want me for the
eighth star!’ A man never plain holds your hand, it seems—it’s just a
starter. ‘Listen here,’ I said. ‘I may be a cabaret girl, but I’m not
several other little things you seem to think I am. I’ve got “honour and
truth and a sure intent,” which is more than you’ll have if you follow
up your intent with me!’
“He dropped my hand like a hot potato and squared off to take a look at
me. ‘Did you say honour and truth and——?’ ‘I did,’ said I. ‘So come to
and stay there.’ ‘I never made a mistake like this before,’ he said. ‘I
think I had better go.’
“I can tell you it made me feel pretty sick. If I could have stopped
caring for him the way I’d started—but I couldn’t—I’d sort of fixed
everything on him and there it hung. And here he was going to the
sausages, and wanted me to help him fry himself. I was knocked cold. I
hadn’t really got what he had doped me out to be—until he said he’d
better go.
“I lost my head then. ‘Sit down,’ I said. ‘Sit down and let me tell you
something. You’ve never seen me before. Well, I have you—in at
Charlette’s last February—I heard you talking to your sister about
“honour and truth and a sure intent.” That was the first look-in I’d
ever had on the subject. You were the first real man that I had ever
come within shouting distance of, who sprung such stuff, and those words
sunk in till they got sewed in me. All the more so because I was—and
am—in love with a man who’d never look straight at me till I made
myself over, and I figured it that somehow those words might be the
combination that would fix me up for him. I always remembered you and
what you said, and I’ve been trying to get all those three things. And
then when you turned up to-night I was as happy as a fool, thinking I’d
be with a real man and he’d give some more dope on how to be a real
girl—then you talk about ending it all, like any thirty-center up
against a dark pocket, and take me for Mazie-off-the-streets thrown in!’
“He didn’t say anything for a few minutes—turned away from me and did a
walk over to the piano. There was a bunch of French stuff on it that Pa
was trying to get soaked into me, and a book of Yvette Guilbert’s. Then
he turned around and I saw he’d lost most of his edge. ‘I want to beg
your pardon,’ he said. ‘I’ve never been so ashamed of myself in all my
life. But I shan’t curse myself for writing that note to you—no matter
what prompted me to do so. Of all girls in New York—to stumble on one
who remembered something I said—something that she thought was doing
her good!
“I saw he’d gone sober, and I put away the cup that cheers too loud. He
came up to me and looked me over—not hot this time, but impersonal. ‘So
you’re in love with someone—who—won’t look straight at you?’ He
squinted his eyes up and took in the general effect, the way I do when I
stand off and look at a model draped in a half-built creation. ‘War
times are not so busy but what I’d like to play Pygmalion for you.’
‘What kind of a game is that?’ I said.
“He laughed, and gave me a close-up of the Pygmalion-Galatea affair. I
didn’t mind if I had pulled a bone—there he was, as keen and peepy as
if he hadn’t been talking about putting a bullet through his brains a
while ago and glimming me as cool and impersonal as if he hadn’t hauled
my hand around a minute back. The main thing was that I’d given him a
jolt—and he’d lost his edge.
“When he left that night, he’d given me a list of books to wade through.
The newspapers had always been my literature—them, and people. But he
told me it would Galatea me some to follow the books for awhile. And he
also said he’d come up to the apartment again in two weeks—he only got
every other week-end off, usually—and see how I was working it.
“After he went maybe I didn’t turn cart-wheels around the apartment till
the people underneath rapped on their ceiling with a broomstick, as they
had nothing to do around that time but sleep, and when people get that
way their mind runs on one track and you have to humour ’em. So I turned
in and thought till it was time to get up. You can always tell when it’s
time to get up—you’re just ready for a real sleep by then. I felt I had
done a good night’s work. By a trick shake of the dice he had landed
with me—and getting interested in my ‘case,’ as I had reeled it off to
him, had pulled him out of a pocket.
“I quit Hanley’s after that. I needed the evenings for getting those
books down. No matter what way I figured, there wasn’t any other time to
do it. He hadn’t supposed I did anything but sing, in which case I would
have had lots of time for his books. Every day of that two weeks was
just another day until he should come again, and when he did——He
looked so much better already that you couldn’t believe it was the same
man. First thing he did was to apologize again for the way he’d been the
other night. Said he’d never been so limp before and never would be
again, thanks to me. Then we slung a line of chatter about the books I
had surrounded, and he asked me was I getting along any better with that
man. I said no, I didn’t see much progress—which was the truth. He
said, well, he’d give me some Mid-Victorian stuff to dive into for next
time, and one book would do me. It was Tennyson’s ‘Idylls of the
King’—and believe me, Joy, it let in a whole new flood of light. I’d
never heard anything like it. When I got to the end of Guinevere I was
sobbing as I hadn’t since I was a kid and had had my bunch of papers
pinched from me. Joy, that book simply burst on me like dynamite. I’d
never heard of ideas like those before. If you read that when you’re in
love, it’ll either make you fall out with a thump or fall in harder than
ever. I fell in harder than ever. Could I wait until he came again? To
talk over the ‘Idylls of the King’ with _him_?”
Jerry spread out her hands, then looked at them and laughed suddenly.
“The action sags from now on, Joy. Because _he never turned up again_.”
“What?” cried Joy.
“He never showed up. I never have seen him since. I waited that
evening—God, Joy, I hope you don’t know what it is to wait like that
for a man who doesn’t come—when you’ve been waiting for days for that
evening—and then he doesn’t come—even when it gets too late,
hoping——And then the waiting afterwards—to hear some
explanation—some reason—watching the mail, jumping at the phone—oh, I
can’t go over it all again!”
“Perhaps he sailed for France,” Joy said.
“I thought of that, of course. But he had told me that another thing
that made him so sick was being stuck permanently on this side as far as
he could see. I thought too, he might have been transferred to another
camp. But whatever happened, to go off without a word—without a word,
for two years——When I thought it over long enough, though, I
understood. I was nothing but an incident in his life—and with soldiers
in war times, incidents flared up and then passed off in double quick
order. Something had happened so that it wasn’t convenient for him to
come around any more—probably he got a new interest—and why should he
bother to let me know? First place, there probably wasn’t any
excuse—just a bare statement of fact——Second place, I was nothing but
a cabaret singer—why should he go out of his way to observe any of the
fine hairs of convention for me? And so on!” Jerry’s teeth clicked.
“Oh, Jerry, I know there’s something more to this. I _know_ there must
be some awfully good excuse.”
Jerry shrugged her shoulders almost out of the purple kimono. “I thought
so at first. It took me quite a while to see that after all, it was a
pretty simple case. When I finally came to my senses, the first thing I
did was to knock the ‘Idylls of the King’ about the room a bit. Then the
very next day in at Charlette’s I keeled over while shooting my mouth
off at a cutter, and though I didn’t actually go out, a lot of little
black specks swam around and everything looked worse than it might have
if I’d fainted in a clean break. I didn’t need any pill-fiend to tell me
it was overwork—the effect of years—I knew it myself, had known it for
aforesaid years. I had to quit Charlette’s, but I kept the stock. The
dividends from that make my only steady income, now, and as you’ve
noticed, I can’t keep to it.
“Somehow, that day when I came to and kicked the ‘Idylls of the King’
about, something had snapped. I guess you can call it my sure intent. I
didn’t want to go on at Charlette’s. I didn’t want to work anywhere. I’d
worked all my life, I’d never had a speaking acquaintance with much of
anything but work and filth, and I felt it was time to give a farewell
bow to each. My sure intent beat it then and there—and the only thing
it left me was just as sure an intent to get as good a time as possible
out of the rest of my life before I got so old that I’d have to put the
snaffle on everything.
“Still, it was war times, and if you can go back into the Dark Ages of a
year ago, you can remember everybody wanted to do something for somebody
else then. I signed up with the Y—but not to go across. My physical
examination wouldn’t admit of that; so I signed up for duty over here.
‘I went and said good-bye to Pa, and he gave me a few tips I didn’t need
about not singing DeBussy to the doughboys. Then I went on my little
See-America-First expedition. It was more fun than I’d ever had, and the
Y people I was thrown with taught me a lot. Some of them were wonders,
others were such frosts that you wondered how even the hall could stand
it, let alone the audience in the hall. I put it over, as my songs were
snappy and my work had cabaret pep; by the same token I let myself in
for a lot of criticism, but since the criticism never came from the
soldiers, I didn’t care and I wouldn’t change my methods.
“You’ve probably heard me cartooned as an international character;
anyway, that’s what I’m called. This touring of the camps was what
started me. I had more freedom with the men than I would have if I’d
been in France, and the college-boy type was what looked good to me. The
reason I liked them both then and now—it’s truer now than it ever
was—is that they had just as sure an intent as I for having as good a
time as possible while they lasted, and I liked their ways of going
about it. They liked me, too, because I was easy to be with and they
could feel just as free as if they were among themselves.
“I suppose that’s the keynote of my relations with men; they can act
just as if they were among themselves. I smoke with them, drink more
than they do and hold it better; I tell ’em stories and sing ’em songs;
they can be as free as possible, and yet with the added pep in the
thought that after all, I _am_ a girl.
“At the end of the summer of 1918, I broke into pieces for a fact, and
the Y put me out for a rest. I think they breathed easier when I was
out, anyway. Before I was in trim again, the armistice was signed. I was
some relieved. As I saw it, the decks were cleared for me. I’d done more
work up to twenty than some people do in a lifetime; for a year I’d
worked for my country; and now I was going to have an everlasting good
time while my pep held out.
“What was the use of any other sure intent? I knew I could never care
again for anybody. I hadn’t seen him or heard of him. So what was the
use of anything—except having a good time? Sometimes I’ve wondered if
he could see me—now—would he like me any better—even if I am polished
off some from the cabaret singer he knew. But what was the use of taking
the ‘Idylls of the King’ to heart, when he wasn’t there to see me? If
he’d left me any other way——Men are like that; they break away clean;
girls make a jagged break, or leak away. He’d gone; and when you stop to
think of it, he was about the only nail I had to hold me down. So what
was the use? And away I popped.
“When the colleges started their parties again, I made my début into
society. I stood it all right, too. The way girls who had been brought
up in front families acted, made it possible for me to get away with my
varnished-over East-Side-plus Charlette style. I was only a little more
so than they were, and that little more so made me a little more popular
than they were.
“I decided to slip my things over to Boston and settle there. You can’t
blaze around at all hours the way you can in New York, but I can always
think of things to do no matter what the material is, and I was sick of
New York. It had got me once and I was afraid it would again. And every
time I went by Charlette’s I felt a pull—but I swore I wouldn’t go back
there. Boston was the nearest all colleges except Yale and Princeton,
and the numbers of little comrades I had in the other colleges, and
Harvard and Tech being right there, cinched the matter. I get to Yale
and Princeton when I want to just the same, and go over to New York when
I feel like it, which isn’t often.
“I met Sal at a Cornell house party, and afterwards ran into her around
a good deal. When I moved to Boston we agreed to hit it off in this
apartment. She comes from a little New Hampshire town, was the village
belle, wore spit curls, rhinestone combs and all that sort of thing till
some underdone Dartmouth freshman took her to Winter Carnival and she
saw she’d found her lifework. She contributed the black walnut pieces
that stick out in this room in spite of my black-and-white efforts. I
wanted to start right, so I got everything we needed. Some of the things
were donated, but even so, what we bought took all my capital except my
stocks, besides whatever few little onions she slipped into count.
Perhaps you’ve gathered there’s not too much love oozing between me and
Sal. I wanted someone to live with; you can see most girls wouldn’t do;
Sal’s the answer. As for the rest about Sal—she can tell you if she
wants to; I’ve told you just as much as touches me and makes it my
business.”
Jerry stopped and drew a long breath, much as she had earlier in the
story. “And so you’ve got my life history salted down, Joy. It’s not as
black as the ebonies nor as white as the ivories; I should say the
composite picture would be a nice medium grey, like the sweater I used
to sport.”
Joy had scarcely seemed to be listening for some time now. “But,
Jerry—you don’t still care for that man?”
Jerry’s mouth grew pale. “I do. I could never care for anyone else.”
“But how can you, when he has gone off and left you?”
“Grant has gone off and left you. Do you still care for him?”
Joy considered, and into her cheeks crept a startled flush. “Why—why—I
don’t think I know.”
“Well, then you never felt the way I do. When you’ve lived with a thing
like that for years—oh, it’s so blame all wrong! If I had been a man I
could have gone out and hunted for the person I cared for—_made_ her
give me at least a chance! But what can a girl do but wait and hope and
wonder—and _wait_!” She caught herself up. “H’m—almost turned on the
faucet then, all right. Well, Joy, I’ve spread the story for you. The
present status Sal and I hold is shifty to locate—but we notice we
never meet any fond relatives of our little friends. And so I see now
that it was a raw deal on you in a way, coming to live with us. It puts
you in our light. We’re not ashamed of it, for that’s the way we’re
going to live while we last—but this morning I’ve been thinking things
over, and for the first time I’ve got your side of the matter and so I
think it’s the best thing, for you to go.”
“I was at Pa’s this morning——” Joy began.
“There, he’s one can tell you I’m not much good. I went to him to get
back into shape after my work in the Y, and when I had been there only a
couple of times he told me it wasn’t worth it for me to go on. He said I
drank much too much, and smoked more than that, and he’d been watching
me long enough to see I’d never shake off either. So that ended.”
“I was at Pa’s this morning,” Joy continued as if there had been no
interruption, “and what he said made me decide to stay here—that is, if
you still want me.”
There was a little, breathing pause. Then Jerry spoke in a detached
tone. “Nothing I’ve said has made you change your mind?”
“Why, Jerry—what you’ve told—has made everything _right_! Oh, I was
horrified at first—it all seemed so awful—but to have come out of it
all as you did! Jerry—you’re—you’re _valiant_. I’ve always thought of
that word in connection with you—_valiant_.” Joy’s voice was clothed in
radiant relief. She looked at Jerry with a tenderness she dared not
express—one could not imagine being tender to Jerry.
“I’m not valiant.” Jerry rose, and the pink mules sounded their way to
the door. She stood with one finger on the knob, and with her hair
roughed up about her face, her kimono sliding from the slim angles of
her shoulders, she looked like a great butterfly, undecided whether to
hover or dart away. “I tell you, Joy, I’m not good for you; I can see
that now. I’m not fourteen-karat bad—but I’m an _Excitement-Eater_.
That’s _a new style girl_, and the style is getting popular. I live on
excitement—I feed on it. I can’t live without it. I scatter it around
me—all Excitement-Eaters do. And for you, a little goes a long
way—it’s taken me longer than it should have to discover that. I’m not
good for you. And that’s that.”
“Pa decided me this morning,” Joy repeated; “and that’s that. You can
eat your old excitement all you want—I’m going to eat music—and
languages—and music——Your story just clinches my resolve to stay. Oh,
Jerry, you _are_ valiant. I can see you standing up there with your chin
out telling that man you weren’t Mazie-off-the-street——”
“Valiant! Knock off that word, will you? It gives me the willies.
Valiant! When there’ve been times I’ve wished I _had_ been Mazie—then
I’d have had _something_—and might have kept him a little longer!”
“You’re only talking now!” cried Joy; but the door was swinging, and a
vanishing flutter of purple silk was her only response.