off. But the garden was lovely, and tea being over, we all busied
ourselves in rifling the flowerbeds to dress the dinner table. If we
were going in two days, where was the good of leaving the flowers to
die alone? I don't suppose that it was strange that the table
conversation was all reminiscent. We talked of the old days: of
ourselves when we were boys and girls together: of old Papanti, and
our first Cotillion, of Class Days, and, I remembered afterward, that
not one of us talked of ourselves except in the days of our youth.
When the coffee came out, we looked about laughing to see which of the
three of us left was to tell the story. The Lawyer coughed, tapped
himself on his chest, and crossed his long legs.
* * * * *
It was a cold December afternoon.
The air was piercing.
There had been a slight fall of snow, then a sudden drop in the
thermometer preceded nightfall.
Miss Moreland, wrapped in her furs, was standing on a street corner,
looking in vain for a cab, and wondering, after all, why she had
ventured out.
It was somewhat later than she had supposed, and she was just
conventional enough, in spite of her pose to the exact contrary, to
hope that none of her friends would pass. She knew her set well enough
to know that it would cause something almost like a scandal if she
were seen out alone, on foot, on the very eve of her wedding day, when
all well bred brides ought to be invisible--repenting their sins, and
praying for blessings on the future in theory, but in reality, fussing
themselves ill over belated finery.
She had had for some years a number of poor protégées in the lower end
of the city, which she had been accustomed to visit on work of a
charitable nature begun when she was a school girl. She had found work
enough to do there ever since.
It was work of which her father, a hard headed man of business,
strongly disapproved, although he was ready enough to give his money.
Jack was of her father's mind. She realized that when she returned
from the three years' trip round the world, on which she was starting
the day after her wedding, she would have other duties, and she knew
it would be harder to oppose Jack,--and more dangerous--than it had
been to oppose her father.
In this realization there was a touch of self-reproach. She knew, in
her own heart, that she would be glad to do no more work of that sort.
Experience had made her hopeless, and she had none of the spiritual
support that made women like St. Catherine of Sienna. But, if
experience had robbed her of her illusions, she knew, too, that it had
set a seal of pain on all the future for her. She could never forget
the misery she had seen. So it had been a little in a desire to give
one more sop to her conscience, that she had dedicated her last
afternoon to freedom to her friends in the very worst part of the
town.
If her mother had remained at home, she would never have been allowed to
go. All the more reason for returning in good season, and here it was
dark! Worse still, the trip had been in every way unsuccessful. She had
turned her face homeward, simply asking herself, as she had done so many
times before, if it were "worth while," and answered the question once
more with: "Neither to me nor to them." She had already learned, though
too young for the lesson, that each individual works out his own
salvation,--that neither moral nor physical growth ever works from the
surface inward. Opportunity--she could perhaps give that in the future,
but she was convinced that those who may give of themselves, and really
help in the giving, are elected to the task by something more than the
mere desire to serve. In her case the gift of her youth and her
illusions had done others no real good, and had more or less saddened
her life forever. If she were to really go on with the work, it would
only be by giving up the world--her world,--abandoning her life, with
its luxury, its love, everything she had been bred to, and longed for.
She did not feel a call to do that, so she chose the existence to which
she had been born; the love of a man in her own set,--but the shadow of
too much knowledge sat on her like a shadow of fear.
She was impatient with herself, the world, living,--and there was no
cab in sight.
She looked at her watch. Half past four.
It was foolish not to have driven over, but she had felt it absurd,
always, to go about this kind of work in a private carriage, and
to-day she could not, as she usually did, take a street car for fear
of meeting friends. They thought her queer enough as it was.
An impatient ejaculation escaped her, and like an echo of it she heard
a child's voice beside her.
She looked down.
It was a poor miserable specimen. At first she was not quite sure
whether it were boy or girl.
Whimpering and mopping its nose with a very dirty hand, the child
begged money for a sick mother--a dying mother--and begged as if not
accustomed to it--all the time with an eye for that dread of New
England beggars, the man in the blue coat and brass buttons.
Miss Moreland was so consciously irritated with life that she was
unusually gentle. She stooped down. The child did not seem six years
old. The face was not so very cunning. It was not ugly, either. It was
merely the epitome of all that Miss Moreland tried to forget--the
little one born without a chance in the world.
With a full appreciation of the child's fear of the police,--begging
is a crime in many American towns--she carefully questioned her,
watching for the dreaded officer herself.
It was the old story--a dying mother--no father--no one to do
anything--a child sent out to cunningly defy the law, but it seemed to
be only for bread.
Obviously the thing to do was to deliver the child up to the police.
It would be at once properly cared for, and the mother also.
But Miss Moreland knew too much of official charity to be guilty of
that.
The easiest thing was to give her money. But, unluckily, she belonged
to a society pledged not to give alms in the streets, and her sense of
the power of a moral obligation was a strong notion of duty, which had
descended to her from her Puritan ancestors. There was one thing left
to do.
"Do you know Chardon Street?" she asked.
The child nodded.
There was a flower shop on the corner. She led the child across to it,
entered, and asked for an envelope. She wrote a few lines on a card,
enclosed it and sealed the envelope. Then she went out to the
side-walk again with the child. Stooping over her she made sure that
the little one really did know the street. "It isn't far from here,"
she said. "Give that to any one there, and somebody will go right home
with you to see your mother, to warm you, you poor little mite, and
feed you, and make you quite happy."
She did not explain, and the child would not have understood, that she
vouched for a special donation for the case as a sort of commemorative
gift. The sum was large--it was a quixotic sort of salve to a sick
conscience which told her that she ought to go herself.
The child, still sobbing, turned away, and drearily started up the
hill. She did not go far, however. Miss Moreland had her misgivings on
that point. And, just as she was about to draw a breath of relief,
convinced that, after all, she would go, the girl stopped deliberately
in the shadow of a tree, and sat down on the snow-covered curbstone.
No need to ask what the trouble was. The poor are born with a horror
of organized charity. It obliges them to be looked over in all their
misery; it presumes a worthiness, or its pretence, which they resent
almost as much as they do the intrusion of the visiting committee.
This disinclination is as old as poverty, and is the rock ahead of all
organized charity. Its exemplification was very trying to Miss
Moreland at that moment, and the crouching figure was exasperating.
She pursued the child. She pulled her rather roughly to her feet. It
was so provoking to have her sit down in the cold, and to so personify
all that she wanted so ardently,--it was purely selfish, she knew
that,--to put out of her mind. There seemed but one thing to do: go
with the child.
She knew that if she did not, she would not sleep that night, nor
smile the next day--and that seemed so unfair to others. Besides, it
was not yet so very late.
Bidding the child hurry, she followed her up the hill, and down the
other side to a part of the city with which she was not familiar.
The child cried quietly all the way.
Miss Moreland was too vaguely uncomfortable to talk to her, as they
hurried along.
It was in front of a dark house that they finally stopped, and went up
the stone steps into a hall so dark that she was obliged to take the
child's dirty cold hands in hers to be sure of the way.
Perhaps it was a foolish distaste for the contact, combined with her
frame of mind, which prevented her from noticing facts far from
trifles, which came back to her afterward.
She groped her way up the uncarpeted stairs, and followed her still
whimpering guide along what seemed an upper corridor, stumbled on what
she immediately knew was the sill of a door, lurched forward as the
child let go of her hand, and, before she recovered her balance, the
door closed behind her.
She called to the child. No answer.
She felt for the door, found it--it was locked.
She was in perfect darkness.
A terrible wave of sickness passed over her and left her trembling and
weak.
All she had ever heard and found it difficult to believe, coursed
through her mind.
The folly of it all was worse. Fifteen minutes before all had been
well with her--and now--!
Through all her terror one idea was strong within her. She must keep
her head, she must be calm, she must be alertly ready for whatever
happened.
The whole thing had seemed so simple. The crying child had been so
plausible! Yet--to enter a strange dark house, in an unknown part of
the city! How absurd it was of her! And that--after noticing--as she
had--that, cold as the halls were and uncarpeted, there was neither
smell of dirt nor humanity in the air!
While all these thoughts pursued one another through her mind she
stood erect just inside the door.
She really dared not move.
Suddenly a fear came to her that she might not be alone. For a moment
that fear dominated all other sensations. She held her breath, in a
wild attempt to hear she knew not what.
It was deathly still!
She backed to the door, and began cautiously feeling her way along the
wall. Inch by inch, she crept round the room, startled almost to
fainting at each obstacle she encountered.
It was a large room with an alcove--a bedroom. There was but little
furniture, one door only, two windows covered with heavy drapery, the
windows bolted down, and evidently shuttered on the outside.
When she returned to the door, one thing was certain, she was alone.
The only danger she need apprehend must come through that one door.
Yet she pushed a chair against the wall before she sat down to
wait--for what? Ah, that was the horror of it! Was it robbery? There
was her engagement ring, a few ornaments like her watch, and very
little money! Yet, as she had seen misery, even that might be worth
while. But was this a burglar's method? A ransom? That was too
mediæval for an American city. If neither, then what?
She had but one enemy in the world, her Jack's best friend, or at
least, he was his best friend until the days of her engagement. But he
was a gentleman, and these were the days when men did not revenge
themselves on women who frankly rejected the attentions they had never
encouraged. It was weak, she knew it, to even remember the words he
had said to her when she had refused to hear the man she was to marry
slandered by his chum--still she wished now that she had told Jack,
all the same.
If she could only have a light! There was gas, but no matches. To sit
in the dark, waiting, she knew not what, was maddening.
Then a new terror came over her. Suppose she should fall asleep from
fatigue and exhaustion, and the effect of the dark?
It seemed days that she sat there.
She knew afterward that it was only five hours and a half, but that
five hours and a half were an eternity--three hundred and thirty
minutes, each one of which dragged her down, like a weight, into the
black abyss of the unknown; three hundred and thirty minutes of
listening to the labored beating of her own heart--it was an age,
after all!
Only once did she lose control of herself. She imagined she heard
voices in the hall--that some one laughed--was there still laughter in
the world? In spite of herself, she rushed to the door, and pounded on
it. This was so useless that she began to cry hysterically. Yet she
knew how foolish that was, and she stumbled back to her chair, sank
into it, and calmed herself. She would not do that again.
What was her mother thinking? Poor mama! What would Jack say, when,
at eleven o'clock, he ran in from his bachelor's dinner--his
last--which he was giving to a few friends? What would her father say?
He had always prophesied some disaster for her excursions into the
slums.
Her imagination could easily picture the mad search that would be
made--but who could find a trace of her?
The blackness, the fear, the dread, were doing their work! She was
numb! She began to feel as if she were suspended in space, as if
everything had dropped away from her, as if in another instant she
would fall--and fall--and fall--.
Suddenly she heard a laugh in the hall again--this time there was no
mistake about it, for it was followed by several voices. Some one
approached the door.
A key was inserted and turned in the lock.
She started to her feet, and steadied herself!
The door swung open quickly--some one entered. By the dim light in the
hall behind, she saw that it was a man--a gentleman in evening
clothes, with a hat on the back of his head, and a coat over his arm.
But while her alert senses took that in, the door closed again--the
man had remained inside.
The thought of making a dash for the door came to her, but it was too
late.
She heard the scratching of a match--a muttered oath at the darkness
in a thick voice--then a sudden flood of light blinded her.
She drew her hands quickly across her eyes, and was conscious that the
man had flung his hat and coat on the bed before he turned to face
her.
In a moment all her fear was gone.
She stumbled weakly as she ran toward him, crying hysterically, "Jack,
dear Jack, how did you find me? I should have gone mad if you had been
much later! Take me home! Take me home--"
Had Miss Moreland fainted, as a well-conducted girl of her class ought
to have done, this would have been a very different kind of a story.
Unluckily, or luckily, according as one views life--in the relief of
his presence, all danger of that fled. Unluckily for him, also, the
appearance of his bride-elect in such an unexpected place was so
appalling to him that his nerve failed him entirely. Instead of
clasping her in his arms as he should have done, he had the decency
to recoil, and cover his face instinctively from her eyes.
Miss Moreland stopped as if turned to stone.
She was conscious at first of but one thing--he had not expected to
find her there. He had not come to seek her. Then, for what?
A sudden flash illumined her ignorance, and behind it she grasped at
the vague accusation her other suitor had tried to make to her
unwilling ears.
Her outstretched hands fell to her sides.
He still leaned against the wall, where the shock had flung him. The
exciting fumes of the wine he had drunk too recklessly evaporated, and
only a dim recollection remained in his absolutely sobered brain of
the idiotic wager, the ugly jest, the still more contemptible bravado
that had sent him into this hell.
He did not attempt to speak.
When her strained voice said: "Take me home, please," he started and
the fear that had been on her face was now on his. A hundred dangers,
of which she did not dream, stood between that room and a safe exit in
which she should not be seen, and that much of this wretched
business--which he understood now only too well--miscarry.
He started for the door. "Stay here," he said. "You are perfectly
safe," and he went out, and closed and locked the door behind him.
For the man who plotted without, and the woman who sat like a stone
within that room, the next half hour were equally horrible. But time
was no longer measured by her!
She never remembered much more of that evening. She had a vague
recollection that he came back. She had a remembrance that he had
helped her stand--given her a glass of water--and led her down the
uncarpeted stairs out into the street. Then she was conscious that she
walked a little way. Then that she had been helped into a carriage,
and then she had jolted and jolted and jolted over the pavings, always
with his pale face opposite, and she knew that his eyes were full of
pity. Then everything seemed to stop, but it was only the carriage
that had come to a standstill. She was in front of her own door.
A voice said in her ear, "Can you stand?" And she knew she was on the
steps. She heard the bell ring, but before her mother could catch her
in her arms as she fell, she heard the carriage door bang, and he was
gone forever.
All that night she lay and tossed and wept and raved, and longed in
her fever to die.
And all night, he walked the streets marvelling at himself, at Nature,
and at Civilization, between which he had so disastrously fallen, and
wondering to how many men the irremediable had ever happened before.
And the next morning, early, messengers were flying about with notices
of the bride's illness.--Miss Moreland's wedding was deferred by brain
fever.
When she recovered, her hair was white, and she had lost all taste for
matrimony, but she had found instead that desire for anything rather
than personal existence, which made her the ardent, self-abnegating
worker for the welfare of the downtrodden that the world knew her.
* * * * *
There was a moment of surprised silence.
Some one coughed. No one laughed. Then the Journalist, always ready
to leap into a breach, gasped: "Horrible!"
"Getting to be a pet word of yours," said the Lawyer.
The Violinist tried to save the situation by saying gently: "Well, I
don't know. It is the commonest of all situations in a melodrama. So
why fuss?"
The Trained Nurse shrugged her shoulders. "I know that story," she
said.
"You do not," snapped the Lawyer. "You may know _a_ story, but you
never heard that one."
"All right," she admitted. "I am not going to add footnotes, don't be
alarmed."
"You don't mean to say that is a true story?" ejaculated the Divorcée.
"As for me," said the Critic, "I don't believe it."
"No one asked you to," replied the Lawyer. "It is only another case of
the Doctor's pet theory--that whatever the mind of mortal mind can
conceive, can come to pass."
"I suppose also that it is a proof of another of his pet theories.
Scratch civilized man, and you find the beast."
The Doctor was lying back in his chair. He never said a word. Somehow
the story seemed a less suggestive topic of conversation than usual.
"The weather is going to change," said the Doctor. "There's rain in
the air."
"Well, anyway," said the Journalist, as we gathered up our belongings
and prepared to shut up for the night, "the Youngster's ghost story
was a good night cap compared to that."
"Not a bit of it," said the Critic. "There's the foundation of a bully
melodrama in that story, and I'm not sure that it isn't the best one
yet--so full of reserves."
"No imagination, all the same," answered the Critic. "As realistic in
subject, if not in treatment, as Zola."
"Now give us some shop jargon," laughed the Lawyer. "You've not really
treated us to a true touch of your methods yet."
"I only do that," laughed the Critic, "when I'm getting paid for it.
After all, as the Violinist remarked, the situation is a favorite one
in melodrama, from the money-coining 'Two Orphans' down. The only
trouble is, the Lawyer poured his villain and hero into one mould. The
other man ought to have trapped her, and the hero rescued her. But
that is only the difference between reality and art. Life is
inartistic. Art is only choosing the best way. Life never does that."
"Pig's wrist," said the Doctor, and that settled the question.
VIII
THE JOURNALIST'S STORY
IN A RAILWAY STATION
THE TALE OF A DANCER
On Friday night, just as we were finishing dinner--we had eaten
inside--the Divorcée said: "It may not be in order to make the remark,
but I cannot help saying that it is so strange to think that we are
sitting here so quietly in a country at war, suffering for nothing,
very little inconvenienced, even by the departure of all the men. The
field work seems to be going on just the same. Every one seems calm.
It is all most unexpected and strange to me."
"I don't see it that way at all," said the Journalist. "I feel as if I
were sitting on a volcano, knowing it was going to erupt, but not
knowing at what moment."
"That I understand," said the Divorcée, "but that is not exactly what
I mean. I meant that, in spite of _that_ feeling which every one
between here and Paris must have, I see no outward signs of it."
"They are all about us just the same," remarked the Doctor, "whether
you see them or not. Did it ever happen to you to be walking in some
quiet city street, near midnight, when all the houses were closed, and
only here and there a street lamp gleamed, and here and there a ray of
light filtered through the shuttered window of some silent house, and
to suddenly remember that inside all these dark walls the tragedies of
life were going on, and that, if a sudden wave of a magician's wand
were to wipe away the walls, how horrified, or how amused one would
be?"
"Well," said the Lawyer, "I have had that idea many times, but it has
come to me more often in some hotel in the mountains of Switzerland. I
remember one night sitting on the terrace at Murren, with the Jungfrau
rising in bridal whiteness above the black sides of the
Schwarze-Monch, and the moon shining so brightly over the slopes, that
I could count any number of isolated little chalets perched on the
ledges, and I never had the feeling so strongly of life going on with
all its joys and griefs and crimes, invisible, but oppressive."