There were, as Ruth had remarked, families.
When Carl was formally invited to dine at the Winslows', on a night
late in April, his only anxiety was as to the condition of his
dinner-coat. He arrived in a state of easy briskness, planning apt and
sensible remarks about the business situation for Mason and Mr.
Winslow. As the maid opened the door Carl was wondering if he would be
able to touch Ruth's hand under the table. He had an anticipatory
fondness for all of the small friendly family group which was about to
receive him.
And he was cast into a den of strangers, most of them comprised in the
one electric person of Aunt Emma Truegate Winslow.
Aunt Emma Truegate Winslow was the general-commanding in whatsoever
group she was placed by Providence (with which she had strong
influence). At a White House reception she would pleasantly but firmly
have sent the President about his business, and have taken his place
in the receiving line. Just now she sat in a pre-historic S chair,
near the center of the drawing-room, pumping out of Phil Dunleavy most
of the facts about his chiefs' private lives.
Aunt Emma had the soul of a six-foot dowager duchess, and should have
had an eagle nose and a white pompadour. Actually, she was of medium
height, with a not unduly maternal bosom, a broad, commonplace face,
hair the color of faded grass, a blunt nose with slightly enlarged
pores, and thin lips that seemed to be a straight line when seen from
in front, but, seen in profile, puffed out like a fish's. She had a
habit of nodding intelligently even when she was not listening, and
another habit of rubbing her left knuckles with the fingers of her
right hand. Not imposing in appearance was Aunt Emma Truegate Winslow,
but she was born to discipline a court.
An impeccable widow was she, speaking with a broad A, and dressed
exquisitely in a black satin evening gown.
By such simple-hearted traits as being always right about unimportant
matters and idealistically wrong about important matters, politely
intruding into everything, being earnest about the morality of the
poor and auction bridge and the chaperonage of nice girls, possessing
a working knowledge of Wagner and Rodin, wearing fifteen-dollar
corsets, and believing on her bended knees that the Truegates and
Winslows were the noblest families in the Social Register, Aunt Emma
Truegate Winslow had persuaded the whole world, including even her
near-English butler, that she was a superior woman. Family tradition
said that she had only to raise a finger to get into really smart
society. Upon the death of Ruth's mother, Aunt Emma had taken it as
one of her duties, along with symphony concerts and committees, to
rear Ruth properly. She had been neglecting this duty so far as to
permit the invasion of a barbarian named Ericson only because she had
been in California with her young son, Arthur. Just now, while her
house was being opened, she was staying at the Winslows', with Arthur
and a peculiarly beastly Japanese spaniel named Taka-San.
She was introduced at Carl, she glanced him over, and passed him on to
Olive Dunleavy, all in forty-five seconds. When Carl had recovered
from a sensation of being a kitten drowned in a sack, he said
agreeable things to Olive, and observed the situation in the
drawing-room.
Phil was marked out for Aunt Emma's favors; Mr. Winslow sat in a
corner, apparently crushed, with restorative conversation administered
by Ruth; Mason Winslow was haltingly attentive to a plain,
well-dressed, amiable girl named Florence Crewden, who had
prematurely gray hair, the week-end habit, and a weakness for baby
talk. Ruth's medical-student brother, Bobby Winslow, was not there.
The more he saw of Bobby's kind Aunt Emma, the more Carl could find it
in his heart to excuse Bobby for having escaped the family dinner.
Carl had an uncomfortable moment when Aunt Emma and Mr. Winslow asked
him questions about the development of the Touricar. But before he
could determine whether he was being deliberately inspected by the
family the ordeal was over.
As they went in to dinner, Mr. Winslow taking in Aunt Emma like a
small boy accompanying the school principal, Ruth had the chance to
whisper: "My Hawk, be good. Please believe I'm not responsible. It's
all Aunt Emma's doing, this dreadfully stately family dinner. Don't
let her bully you. I'm frightened to death and----Yes, Phil, I'm
coming."
The warning did not seem justified in view of the attractive
table--candles, cut glass, a mound of flowers on a beveled mirror,
silvery linen, and grape-fruit with champagne. Carl was at one side of
Aunt Emma, but she seemed more interested in Mr. Winslow, at the end
of the table; and on his other side Carl had a safe companion in Olive
Dunleavy. Across from him were Florence Crewden, Phil, and Ruth--Ruth
shimmering in a gown of yellow satin, which broke the curves of her
fine, flushed shoulders only by a narrow band.
The conversation played with people. Florence Crewden told, to
applause and laughter, of an exploratory visit to the College of the
City of New York, and her discovery of a strange race, young Jews
mostly, who went to college to study, and had no sense of the nobility
of "making" fraternities.
"Such outsiders!" she said. "Can't you imagine the sort of a party
they'd have--they'd all stand around and discuss psychology and
dissecting puppies and Greek roots! Phil, I think it would be a
lovely punishment for you to have to join them--to work in a
laboratory all day and wear a celluloid collar."
"Oh, I know their sort; 'greasy grinds' we used to call them; there
were plenty of them in Yale," condescended Phil.
"Maybe they wear celluloid collars--if they do--because they're poor,"
protested Ruth.
"My dear child," sniffed Aunt Emma, "with collars only twenty-five
cents apiece? Don't be silly!"
Mr. Winslow declared, with portly timidity, "Why, Em, my collars don't
cost me but fifteen----"
"Mason dear, let's not discuss it at dinner.... Tell me, all of you,
the scandal I've missed by going to California. Which reminds me; did
I tell you I saw that miserable Amy Baslin, you remember, that married
the porter or the superintendent or something in her father's factory?
I saw her and her husband at Pasadena, and they seemed to be happy. Of
course Amy would put the best face she could on it, but they must have
been miserably unhappy--such a sad affair, and she could have married
quite decently."
"What do you mean by 'decently'?" Ruth demanded.
Carl was startled. He had once asked Ruth the same question about the
same phrase.
Aunt Emma revolved like a gun-turret getting Ruth's range, and
remarked, calmly: "My dear child, you know quite well what I mean.
Don't, I beg of you, bring any socialistic problems to dinner till you
have really learned something about them.... Now I want to hear all
the nice scandals I have missed."
There were not many she had missed; but she kept the conversation
sternly to discussions of people whose names Carl had never heard.
Again he was obviously an Outsider. Still ignoring Carl, Aunt Emma
demanded of Ruth and Phil, sitting together opposite her:
"Tell me about the good times you children have been having, Ruthie.
I am so glad that Phil and you finally went to the William Truegates'.
And your letter about the Beaux Arts festival was charming, Ruthie. I
quite envied you and Phil."
The dragon continued talking to Ruth, while Carl listened, in the
interstices of his chatter to Olive:
"I hope you haven't been giving all your time and beauty-sleep doing
too much of that settlement work, Ruthie--and Heaven only knows what
germs you will get there--of course I should be the first to praise
any work for the poor, ungrateful and shiftless though they are--what
with my committees and the Truegate Temperance Home for Young Working
Girls--it's all very well to be sympathetic with them, but when it
comes to a settlement-house, and Heaven knows I have given them all
the counsel and suggestions I could, though some of the professional
settlement workers are as pert as they can be, and I really do believe
some of them think they are trying to end poverty entirely, just as
though the Lord would have sent poverty into the world if He didn't
have a very good reason for it--you will remember the Bible says, 'The
poor you always have with you,' and as Florence Barclay says in her
novels, which may seem a little sentimental, but they are of such a
good moral effect, you can't supersede the Scriptures even in the most
charming social circles. To say nothing of the blessings of poverty,
I'm sure they're much happier than we are, with our onerous duties,
I'm sure that if any of these ragamuffin anarchists and socialists and
anti-militarists want to take over my committees they are welcome, if
they'll take over the miserable headaches and worried hours they give
me, trying to do something for the poor, they won't even be clean but
even in model tenements they will put coal in the bath-tubs. And so I
do hope you haven't just been wearing yourself to a bone working for
ungrateful dirty little children, Ruthie."
"No, auntie dear, I've been quite as discreet as any Winslow should
be. You see, I'm selfish, too. Aren't I, Carl?"
"Oh, very."
Aunt Emma seemed to remember, then, that some sort of a man, whose
species she didn't quite know, sat next to her. She glanced at Carl,
again gave him up as an error in social judgment, and went on:
"No, Ruthie, not selfish so much as thoughtless about the duties of a
family like ours--and I was always the first to say that the Winslows
are as fine a stock as the Truegates. And I am going to see that you
go out more the rest of this year, Ruthie. I want you and Phil to plan
right now to attend the Charity League dances next season. You must
learn to concentrate your attention----"
"Auntie dear, please leave my wickedness till the next time we----"
"My dear child, now that I have the chance to get all of us
together--I'm sure Mr. Ericson will pardon the rest of us our little
family discussions--I want to take you and Master Phil to task
together. You are both of you negligent of social duties--duties they
are, Ruthie, for man was not born to serve alone--though Phil is far
better than you, with your queer habits, and Heaven only knows where
you got them, neither your father nor your dear sainted mother was
slack or selfish----"
"Dear auntie, let's admit that I'm a black sheep with a little black
muzzle and a habit of butting all sorts of ash-cans; and let Phil go
on his social way rejoicing."
Ruth was jaunty, but her voice was strained, and she bit her lip with
staccato nervousness when she was not speaking. Carl ventured to face
the dragon.
"Mrs. Winslow, I'm sure Ruth has been better than you think; she has
been learning all these fiendishly complicated new dances. You know a
poor business man like myself finds them----"
"Yes," said Aunt Emma, "I am sure she will always remember that she
is a Winslow, and must carry on the family traditions, but sometimes I
am afraid she gets under bad influences, because of her good nature."
She said it loudly. She looked Carl in the eye.
The whole table stopped talking. Carl felt like a tramp who has kicked
a chained bulldog and discovers that the chain is broken.
He wanted to be good; not make a scene. He noticed with intense
indignation that Phil was grinning. He planned to get Phil off in a
corner, not necessarily a dark corner, and beat him. He wanted to
telegraph Ruth; dared not. He realized, in a quarter-second, that he
must have been discussed by the Family, and did not like it.
Every one seemed to be waiting for him to speak. Awkwardly he said,
wondering all the while if she meant what her tone said she meant, by
"bad influences":
"Yes, but----Just going to say----I believe settlement work is a good
influence----"
"Please don't discuss----" Ruth was groaning, when Aunt Emma sternly
interrupted:
"It is good of you to take up the cudgels, Mr. Ericson, and please
don't misjudge me--of course I realize that I am only a silly old
woman and that my passion to see the Winslows keep to their fine
standards is old-fashioned, but you see it is a hobby of mine that
I've devoted years to, and you who haven't known the Winslows so very
long----" Her manner was almost courteous.
"Yes, that's so," Carl mumbled, agreeably, just as she dropped the
courtesy and went on:
"----you can't judge--in fact (this is nothing personal, you know) I
don't suppose it's possible for Westerners to have any idea how
precious family ideals are to Easterners. Of course we're probably
silly about them, and it's splendid, your wheat-lands, and not caring
who your grandfather was; but to make up for those things we do have
to protect what we have gained through the generations."
Carl longed to stand up, to defy them all, to cry: "If you mean that
you think Ruth has to be protected against me, have the decency to say
so." Yet he kept his voice gentle:
"But why be narrowed to just a few families in one's interests? Now
this settlement----"
"One isn't narrowed. There are plenty of _good_ families for Ruth to
consider when it comes time for my little girl to consider alliances
at all!" Aunt Emma coldly stated.
"I _will_ shut up!" he told himself. "I will shut up. I'll see this
dinner through, and then never come near this house again." He tried
to look casual, as though the conversation was safely finished. But
Aunt Emma was waiting for him to go on. In the general stillness her
corsets creaked with belligerent attention. He played with his fork in
a "Well, if that's how you feel about it, perhaps it would be better
not to discuss it any further, my dear madam," manner, growing every
second more flushed, embarrassed, sick, angry; trying harder every
second to look unconcerned.
Aunt Emma hawked a delicate and ladylike hawk in her patrician throat,
prefatory to a new attack. Carl knew he would be tempted to retort
brutally.
Then from the door of the dining-room whimpered the high voice of an
excited child:
"Oh, mamma, oh, Cousin Ruthie, nurse says Hawk Ericson is here! I want
to see him!"
Every one turned toward a boy of five or six, round as a baby chicken,
in his fuzzy miniature pajamas, protectingly holding a cotton monkey
under his arm, sturdy and shy and defiant.
"Why, Arthur!" "Why, my son!" "Oh, the darling baby!" from the table.
"Come here, Arthur, and let's hear your troubles before nurse nabs
you, old son," said Phil, not at all condescendingly, rising from the
table, holding out his arms.
"No, no! You just let me go! I want to see Hawk Ericson. Is that Hawk
Ericson?" demanded the son of Aunt Emma, pointing at Carl.
"Yes, sweetheart," said Ruth, softly, proudly.
Running madly about the end of the table, Arthur jumped at Carl's lap.
Carl swung him up and inquired, "What is it, old man?"
"Are you Hawk Ericson?"
"At your commands, cap'n."
Aunt Emma rose and said, masterfully, "Come, little son, now you've
seen Mr. Ericson it's up to beddie again, up--to--beddie."
"No, no; please no, mamma! I've never seen a' aviator before, not in
all my life, and you promised me 'cross your heart, at Pasadena you
did, I could see one."
Arthur's face showed signs of imminent badness.
"Well, you may stay for a while, then," said Aunt Emma, weakly,
unconscious that her sway had departed from her, while the rest of the
table grinned, except Carl, who was absorbed in Arthur's ecstasy.
"I'm going to be a' aviator, too; I think a' aviator is braver than
anybody. I'd rather be a' aviator than a general or a policeman or
anybody. I got a picture of you in my scrap-book--you got a funny hat
like Cousin Bobby wears when he plays football in it. Shall I get you
the picture in my scrap-book?... Honest, will you give me another?"
Aunt Emma made one more attempt to coax Arthur up to bed, but his
Majesty refused, and she compromised by scolding his nurse and sending
up for his dressing-gown, a small, blue dressing-gown on which yellow
ducks and white bunny-rabbits paraded proudly.
"Like our blue bowl!" Carl remarked to Ruth.
Not till after coffee in the drawing-room would Arthur consent to go
to bed. This real head of the Emma Winslow family was far too much
absorbed in making Carl tell of his long races, and "Why does a
flying-machine fly? What's a wind pressure? Why does the wind shove
up? Why is the wings curved? Why does it want to catch the wind?" The
others listened, including even Aunt Emma.
Carl went home early. Ruth had the opportunity to confide:
"Hawk dear, I can't tell you how ashamed I am of my family for
enduring anybody so rude and opinionated as Aunt Emma. But--it's all
right, now, isn't it?... No, no, don't kiss me, but--dear dreams,
Hawk."
Phil's voice, from behind, shouted: "Oh, Ericson! Just a second."
Carl was not at all pleased. He remembered that Phil had listened with
obvious amusement to his agonized attempt to turn Aunt Emma's attacks.
Said Phil, while Ruth disappeared: "Which way you going? Walk to the
subway with you. You win, old man. I admire your nerve for facing Aunt
Emma. What I wanted to say----I hope to thunder you don't think I was
in any way responsible for Mrs. Winslow's linking me and Ruth that way
and----Oh, you understand. I admire you like the devil for knowing
what you want and going after it. I suppose you'll have to convince
Ruth yet, but, by Jove! you've convinced me! Glad you had Arthur for
ally. They don't make kiddies any better. God! if I could have a son
like that----I turn off here. G-good luck, Ericson."
"Thanks a lot, Phil."
"Thanks. Good night, Carl."