For a week--the week before Christmas--Carl had seen neither Ruth nor
Gertie; but of the office he had seen too much. They were "rushing
work" on the Touricar to have it on the market early in 1913. Every
afternoon or evening he left the office with his tongue scaly from too
much nervous smoking; poked dully about the streets, not much desiring
to go any place, nor to watch the crowds, after all the curiosity had
been drawn out of him by hours of work. Several times he went to a
super-movie, a cinema palace on Broadway above Seventy-second Street,
with an entrance in New York Colonial architecture, and crowds of
well-to-do Jewish girls in opera-cloaks.
On the two bright mornings of the week he wanted to play truant from
the office, to be off with Ruth over the hills and far away. Both
mornings there came to him a picture of Gertie, wanting to slip out
and play like Ruth, but having no chance. He felt guilty because he
had never bidden Gertie come tramping, and guiltily he recalled that
it was with her that the boy Carl had gone to seek-our-fortunes. He
told himself that he had been depending upon Gertie for the
bread-and-butter of friendship, and begging for the opportunity to
give the stranger, Ruth Winslow, dainties of which she already had too
much.
When he called, Sunday evening, he found Gertie alone, reading a
love-story in a woman's magazine.
"I'm so glad you came," she said. "I was getting quite lonely." She
was as gratefully casual as ever.
"Say, Gertie, I've got a plan. Wouldn't you like to go for some good
long hikes in the country?"
"Oh yes; that would be fine when spring comes."
"No; I mean now, in the winter."
She looked at him heavily. "Why, isn't it pretty cold, don't you
think?"
He prepared to argue, but he did not think of her as looking heavily.
He did not draw swift comparisons between Gertie's immobility and
Ruth's lightness. He was used to Gertie; was in her presence
comfortably understanding and understood; could find whatever he
expected in her as easily as one finds the editorial page--or the
sporting page--in a familiar newspaper. He merely became mildly
contentious and made questioning noises in his throat as she went on:
"You know it is pretty cold here. They can say all they want to about
the cold and all that out in Minnesota, but, really, the humidity----"
"Rats; it isn't so very cold, not if you walk fast."
"Well, maybe; anyway, I guess it would be nice to explore some."
"All right; let's."
"I do think people are so conventional. Don't you?" said Gertie, while
Carl discerningly stole one of Ray's best cigars out of the humidor.
"Awfully conventional. Not going out for good long walks. Dorothy
Gibbons and I did find the nicest place to walk, up in Bronx Park, and
there's such a dear little restaurant, right on the water; of course
the water was frozen, but it seemed quite wild, you know, for New
York. We might take that walk, whenever you'd like to."
"Oh--Bronx Park--gee! Gertie, I can't get up much excitement over
that. I want to get away from this tame city, and forget all about
offices and parks and people and everything like that."
"N-n-n-now!" she clucked in a patronizing way. "We mustn't ask New
York to give us wilderness, you know! I'm afraid that would be a
little too much to ask of it! Don't you think so yourself!"
Carl groaned to himself, "I won't be mothered!"
He was silent. His silence was positively noisy. He wanted her to hear
it. But it is difficult to be sulky with a bland, plump woman of
thirty who remembers your childhood trick of biting your nails, and
glances up at you from her embroidery, occasionally patting her brown
silk hair or smoothing her brown silk waist in a way which implies a
good digestion, a perfect memory of the morning's lesson of her
Sunday-school class, and a mild disbelief in men as anything except
relatives, providers, card-players, and nurslings. Carl gave up the
silence-cure.
He hummed about the room, running over the advertising pages of
magazines, discussing Plato fraternities, and waiting till it should
be time to go home. Their conversation kept returning to the
fraternities. There wasn't much else to talk about. Before to-night
they had done complete justice to all other topics--Joralemon, Bennie
Rusk, Joe Jordan's engagement, Adelaide Benner, and symphony concerts.
Gertie embroidered, patted her hair, smoothed her waist, looked
cheerful, rocked, and spoke; embroidered, patted her hair, smoothed
her sleeve, looked amiable, rocked, and spoke--embroidered, pat----
At a quarter to ten Carl gave himself permission to go. Said he: "I'll
have to get on the job pretty early to-morrow. Not much taking it easy
here in New York, the way you can in Joralemon, eh? So I guess I'd
better----"
"I'm sorry you have to go so early." Gertie carefully stuck her
embroidery needle into her doily, rolled up the doily meticulously,
laid it down on the center-table, straightened the pile of magazines
which Carl had deranged, and rose. "But I'm glad you could drop up
this evening. Come up any time you haven't anything better to do.
Oh--what about our tramp? If you know some place that is better than
Bronx Park, we might try it."
"Why--uh--yes--why, sure; we'll have to, some time."
"And, Carl, you're coming up to have your Christmas turkey with us,
aren't you?"
"I'd like to, a lot, but darn it, I've accepted 'nother invitation."
That was absolutely untrue, and Carl was wondering why he had lied,
when the storm broke.
Gertie's right arm, affectedly held out from the elbow, the hand
drooping, in the attitude of a refined hostess saying good-by, dropped
stiffly to her side. Slowly she thrust out both arms, shoulder-high on
either side, with her fists clenched; her head back and slightly on
one side; her lips open in agony--the position of crucifixion. Her
eyes looked up, unseeing; then closed tight. She drew a long breath,
like a sigh that was too weary for sound, and her plump, placid left
hand clutched her panting breast, while her right arm dropped again.
All the passion of tragedy seemed to shriek in her hopeless gesture,
and her silence was a wail muffled and despairing.
Carl stared, twisting his watch-chain with nervous fingers, wanting to
flee.
It was raw woman, with all the proprieties of Joralemon and St.
Orgul's cut away, who spoke, her voice constantly rising:
"Oh, Carl--Carl! Oh, why, why, why! Oh, why don't you want me to go
walking with you, now? Why don't you want to go anywhere with me any
more? Have I displeased you? Oh, I didn't mean to! Why do I bore you
so?"
"Oh--Gertie--oh--gee!--thunder!" whimpered a dismayed youth. A more
mature Hawk Ericson struggled to life and soothed her: "Gertie, honey,
I didn't mean----Listen----"
But she moaned on, standing rigid, her left hand on her breast, her
eyes red, moist, frightened, fixed: "We always played together, and I
thought here in the city we could be such good friends, with all the
different new things to do together--why, I wanted us to go to
Chinatown and theaters, and I would have been so glad to pay my share.
I've just been waiting and hoping you would ask me, and I wanted us to
play and see--oh! so many different new things together--it would have
been so sweet, so sweet----We were good friends at first, and then
you--you didn't want to come here any more and----Oh, I couldn't help
seeing it; more and more and more and _more_ I've been seeing it; but
I didn't want to see it; but now I can't fool myself any more. I was
so lonely till you came to-night, and when you spoke about
tramping----And then it seemed like you just went away from me again."
"Why, Gertie, you didn't seem----"
"----and long ago I really saw it, the day we walked in the Park and I
was wicked about trying to make you call me 'Eltruda'--oh, Carl dear,
indeed you needn't call me that or anything you don't like--and I
tried to make you say I had a temperament. And about Adelaide and all.
And you went away and I thought you would come back to me that
evening--oh, I wanted you to come, so much, and you didn't even
'phone--and I waited up till after midnight, hoping you would 'phone,
I kept thinking surely you would, and you never did, you never did;
and I listened and listened for the 'phone to ring, and every time
there was a noise----But it never was you. It never rang at all...."
She dropped back in the Morris chair, her eyes against the cushion,
her hair disordered, both her hands gripping the left arm of the
chair, her sobs throat-catching and long--throb-throb-throb in the
death-still air.
Carl stared at her, praying for a chance to escape. Then he felt an
instinct prompting him to sob with her. Pity, embarrassment, disgust,
mingled with his alarm. He became amazed that Gertie, easy-going
Gertie Cowles, had any passion at all; and indignant that it was
visited upon himself.
But he had to help. He moved to her chair and, squatting boyishly on
its arm, stroked her hair, begging: "Gertie, Gertie, I did mean to
come up, that night. Indeed I did, honey. I would have come up, but I
met some friends--couldn't break away from them all evening." A chill
ran between his shoulder-blades. It was a shock to the pride he took
in Ruth's existence. The evening in question had found Ruth for him!
It seemed as though Gertie had dared with shrewish shrillness to
intrude upon his beautiful hour. But pity came to him again. Stroking
her hair, he went urgently on: "Don't you see? Why, blessed, I
wouldn't hurt you for anything! Just to-night--why, you remember,
first thing, I wanted us to plan for some walks; reason I didn't say
more about it was, I didn't know as you'd want to, much. Why, Gertie,
_anybody_ would be proud to play with you. You know so much about
concerts and all sorts of stuff. Anybody'd be proud to!" He wound up
with a fictitious cheerfulness. "We'll have some good long hikes
together, heh?... It's better now, isn't it, kiddy? You're just tired
to-night. Has something been worrying you? Tell old Carl all about---"
She wiped her tears away with the adorable gesture of a child trying
to be good, and like a child's was her glance, bewildered, hurt, yet
trusting, as she said in a small, shy voice: "Would folks really be
proud to play with me?... We did use to have some dear times, didn't
we! Do you remember how we found some fool's gold, and we thought it
was gold and hid it on the shore of the lake, and we were going to buy
a ship? Do you remember? You haven't forgotten all our good times,
while you've been so famous, have you?"
"Oh no, no!"
"But why don't--Carl, why don't you--why can't you care more now?"
"Why, I do care! You're one of the bulliest pals I have, you and
Ray."
"And Ray!"
She flung his hand away and sat bolt up, angry.
Carl retired to a chair beside the Morris chair, fidgeting. "Can you
beat it! Is this Gertie and me?" he inquired in a parenthesis in his
heart. For a second, as she stared haughtily at him, he spitefully
recalled the fact that Gertie had once discarded him for a glee-club
dentist. But he submerged the thought and listened with a rather
forced big-brother air as she repented of her anger and went on:
"Carl, don't you understand how hard it is for a woman to forget her
pride this way?" The hauteur of being one of the elite of Joralemon
again flashed out. "Maybe if you'll think real hard you'll remember I
used to could get you to be so kind and talk to me without having to
beg you so hard. Why, I'd been to New York and known the _nicest_
people before you'd ever stirred a foot out of Joralemon! You
were----Oh, please forgive me, Carl; I didn't mean to be snippy; I
just don't know what to think of myself--and I did used to think I was
a lady, and here I am practically up and telling you and----"
She leaned from her chair toward his, and took his hand, touching it,
finding its hard, bony places and the delicate white hollows of flesh
between his coarsened yet shapely fingers; tracing a scarce-seen vein
on the back; exploring a well-beloved yet ill-known country. Carl was
unspeakably disconcerted. He was thinking that, to him, Gertie was set
aside from the number of women who could appeal physically, quite as
positively as though she were some old aunt who had for twenty years
seemed to be the same adult, plump, uninteresting age. Gertie's solid
flesh, the monotony of her voice, the unimaginative fixity of her
round cheeks, a certain increasing slackness about her waist, even the
faint, stuffy domestic scent of her--they all expressed to him her
lack of humor and fancy and venturesomeness. She was crystallized in
his mind as a good friend with a plain soul and sisterly tendencies.
Awkwardly he said:
"You mustn't talk like that.... Gee! Gertie, we'll be in a regular
'scene,' if you don't watch out!... We're just good friends, and you
can always bank on me, same as I would on you."
"But why must we be just friends?"
He wanted to be rude, but he was patient. Mechanically stroking her
hair again, leaning forward most uncomfortably from his chair, he
stammered: "Oh, I've been----Oh, you know; I've wandered around so
much that it's kind of put me out of touch with even my best friends,
and I don't know where I'm at. I couldn't make any alliances----Gee!
that sounds affected. I mean: I've got to sort of start in now all
over, finding where I'm at."
"But why must we be just friends, then?"
"Listen, child. It's hard to tell; I guess I didn't know till now what
it does mean, but there's a girl----Wait; listen. There's a girl--at
first I simply thought it was good fun to know her, but now, Lord!
Gertie, you'd think I was pretty sentimental if I told you what I
think of her. God! I want to see her so much! Right now! I haven't let
myself know how much I wanted her. She's everything. She's sister and
chum and wife and everything."
"It's----But I am glad for you. Will you believe that? And perhaps you
understand how I felt, now. I'm very sorry I let myself go. I hope you
will----Oh, please go now."
He sprang up, only too ready to go. But first he kissed her hand with
a courtly reverence, and said, with a sweetness new to him: "Dear,
will you forgive me if I've ever hurt you? And will you believe how
very, very much I honor you? And when I see you again there won't
be--we'll both forget all about to-night, won't we? We'll just be the
old Carl and Gertie again. Tell me to come when----"
"Yes. I will. Goodnight."
"Good night, Gertie. God bless you."
* * * * *
He never remembered where he walked that night when he had left
Gertie. The exercise, the chill of the night, gradually set his numbed
mind working again. But it dwelt with Ruth, not with Gertie. Now that
he had given words to his longing for Ruth, to his pride in her, he
understood that he had passed the hidden border of that misty land
called "being in love," which cartographers have variously described
as a fruitful tract of comfortable harvests, as a labyrinth with walls
of rose and silver, and as a tenebrous realm of unhappy ghosts.
He stopped at a street corner where, above a saloon with a large
beer-sign, stretched dim tenement windows toward a dirty sky; and on
that drab corner glowed for a moment the mystic light of the Rose of
All the World--before a Tammany saloon! Chin high, yearning toward a
girl somewhere off to the south, Carl poignantly recalled how Ruth had
worshiped the stars. His soul soared, lark and hawk in one, triumphant
over the matter-of-factness of daily life. Carl Ericson the mechanic,
standing in front of a saloon, with a laundry to one side and a
cigars-and-stationery shop round the corner, was one with the young
priest saying mass, one with the suffragist woman defying a jeering
mob, one with Ruth Winslow listening to the ringing stars.
"God--help--me--to--be--worthy--of--her!"
Nothing more did he say, in words, yet he was changed for ever.
Changed. True that when he got home, half an hour later, and in the
dark ran his nose against an opened door, he said, "Damn it!" very
naturally. True that on Monday, back in the office that awaits its
victims equally after Sundays golden or dreary, he forgot Ruth's
existence for hours at a time. True that at lunch with two VanZile
automobile salesmen he ate _Wiener Schnitzel_ and shot dice for
cigars, with no signs of a mystic change. It is even true that, dining
at the Brevoort with Charley Forbes, he though of Istra Nash, and for
a minute was lonely for Istra's artistic dissipation. Yet the change
was there.