I
Four years at Wellesley; two years about equally divided among Paris,
Dresden and Florence. And now Jane Hastings was at home again. At
home in the unchanged house--spacious, old-fashioned--looking down from
its steeply sloping lawns and terraced gardens upon the sooty, smoky
activities of Remsen City, looking out upon a charming panorama of
hills and valleys in the heart of South Central Indiana. Six years of
striving in the East and abroad to satisfy the restless energy she
inherited from her father; and here she was, as restless as ever--yet
with everything done that a woman could do in the way of an active
career. She looked back upon her years of elaborate preparation; she
looked forward upon--nothing. That is, nothing but marriage--dropping
her name, dropping her personality, disappearing in the personality of
another. She had never seen a man for whom she would make such a
sacrifice; she did not believe that such a man existed.
She meditated bitterly upon that cruel arrangement of Nature's whereby
the father transmits his vigorous qualities in twofold measure to the
daughter, not in order that she may be a somebody, but solely in order
that she may transmit them to sons. "I don't believe it," she decided.
"There's something for ME to do." But what? She gazed down at Remsen
City, connected by factories and pierced from east, west and south by
railways. She gazed out over the fields and woods. Yes, there must be
something for her besides merely marrying and breeding--just as much
for her as for a man. But what? If she should marry a man who would
let her rule him, she would despise him. If she should marry a man she
could respect--a man who was of the master class like her father--how
she would hate him for ignoring her and putting her in her ordained
inferior feminine place. She glanced down at her skirts with an angry
sense of enforced masquerade. And then she laughed--for she had a keen
sense of humor that always came to her rescue when she was in danger of
taking herself too seriously.
Through the foliage between her and the last of the stretches of
highroad winding up from Remsen City she spied a man climbing in her
direction--a long, slim figure in cap, Norfolk jacket and
knickerbockers. Instantly--and long before he saw her--there was a
grotesque whisking out of sight of the serious personality upon which
we have been intruding. In its stead there stood ready to receive the
young man a woman of the type that possesses physical charm and knows
how to use it--and does not scruple to use it. For a woman to conquer
man by physical charm is far and away the easiest, the most fleeting
and the emptiest of victories. But for woman thus to conquer without
herself yielding anything whatsoever, even so little as an alluring
glance of the eye--that is quite another matter. It was this sort of
conquest that Jane Hastings delighted in--and sought to gain with any
man who came within range. If the men had known what she was about,
they would have denounced her conduct as contemptible and herself as
immoral, even brazen. But in their innocence they accused only their
sophisticated and superbly masculine selves and regarded her as the
soul of innocence. This was the more absurd in them because she
obviously excelled in the feminine art of inviting display of charm.
To glance at her was to realize at once the beauty of her figure, the
exceeding grace of her long back and waist. A keen observer would have
seen the mockery lurking in her light-brown eyes, and about the corners
of her full red lips.
She arranged her thick dark hair to make a secret, half-revealed charm
of her fascinating pink ears and to reveal in dazzling unexpectedness
the soft, round whiteness of the nape of her neck.
Because you are thus let into Miss Hastings' naughty secret, so well
veiled behind an air of earnest and almost cold dignity, you must not
do her the injustice of thinking her unusually artful. Such artfulness
is common enough; it secures husbands by the thousand and by the tens
of thousands. No, only in the skill of artfulness was Miss Hastings
unusual.
As the long strides of the tall, slender man brought him rapidly
nearer, his face came into plain view. A refined, handsome face, dark
and serious. He had dark-brown eyes--and Miss Hastings did not like
brown eyes in a man. She thought that men should have gray or blue or
greenish eyes, and if they were cruel in their love of power she liked
it the better.
"Hello, Dave," she cried in a pleasant, friendly voice. She was
posed--in the most unconscious of attitudes--upon a rustic bench so
that her extraordinary figure was revealed at its most attractive.
The young man halted before her, his breath coming quickly--not
altogether from the exertion of his steep and rapid climb. "Jen, I'm
mad about you," he said, his brown eyes soft and luminous with passion.
"I've done nothing but think about you in the week you've been back. I
didn't sleep last night, and I've come up here as early as I dared to
tell you--to ask you to marry me."
He did not see the triumph she felt, the joy in having subdued another
of these insolently superior males. Her eyes were discreetly veiled;
her delightful mouth was arranged to express sadness.
"I thought I was an ambition incarnate," continued the young man,
unwittingly adding to her delight by detailing how brilliant her
conquest was. "I've never cared a rap about women--until I saw you. I
was all for politics--for trying to do something to make my fellow men
the better for my having lived. Now--it's all gone. I want you, Jen.
Nothing else matters."
As he paused, gazing at her in speechless longing, she lifted her
eyes--simply a glance. With a stifled cry he darted forward, dropped
beside her on the bench and tried to enfold her in his arms. The veins
stood out in his forehead; the expression of his eyes was terrifying.
She shrank, sprang up. His baffled hands had not even touched her.
"David Hull!" she cried, and the indignation and the repulsion in her
tone and in her manner were not simulated, though her artfulness
hastened to make real use of them. She loved to rouse men to frenzy.
She knew that the sight of their frenzy would chill her--would fill her
with an emotion that would enable her to remain mistress of the
situation.
At sight of her aversion his eyes sank. "Forgive me," he muttered.
"You make me--CRAZY."
"I!" she cried, laughing in angry derision. "What have I ever done to
encourage you to be--impertinent?"
"Nothing," he admitted. "That is, nothing but just being yourself."
"I can't help that, can I?"
"No," said he, adding doggedly: "But neither can men help going crazy
about you."
She looked at him sitting there at once penitent and impenitent; and
her mind went back to the thoughts that had engaged it before he came
into view. Marriage--to marry one of these men, with their coarse
physical ideas of women, with their pitiful weakness before an emotion
that seemed to her to have no charm whatever. And these were the
creatures who ruled the world and compelled women to be their
playthings and mere appendages! Well--no doubt it was the women's own
fault, for were they not a poor, spiritless lot, trembling with fright
lest they should not find a man to lean on and then, having found the
man, settling down into fat and stupid vacuity or playing the cat at
the silly game of social position? But not Jane Hastings! Her bosom
heaved and her eyes blazed scorn as she looked at this person who had
dared think the touch of his coarse hands would be welcome. Welcome!
"And I have been thinking what a delightful friendship ours was," said
she, disgustedly. "And all the time, your talk about your
ambition--the speeches you were going to make--the offices you were
going to hold--the good you were going to do in purifying politics--it
was all a blind!"
"All a blind," admitted he. "From the first night that you came to our
house to dinner--Jen, I'll never forget that dress you wore--or the way
you looked in it."
Miss Jane had thought extremely well of that toilet herself. She had
heard how impervious this David Hull, the best catch in the town, was
to feminine charm; and she had gone prepared to give battle. But she
said dejectedly, "You don't know what a shock you've given me."
"Yes, I do," cried he. "I'm ashamed of myself. But--I love you, Jen!
Can't you learn to love me?"
"I hadn't even thought of you in that way," said she. "I haven't
bothered my head about marriage. Of course, most girls have to think
about it, because they must get some one to support them----"
"I wish to God you were one of that sort," interrupted he. "Then I
could have some hope."
"Hope of what," said she disdainfully. "You don't mean that you'd
marry a girl who was marrying you because she had to have food,
clothing and shelter?"
"I'd marry the woman I loved. Then--I'd MAKE her love me. She simply
couldn't help it."
Jane Hastings shuddered. "Thank heaven, I don't have to marry!" Her
eyes flashed. "But I wouldn't, even if I were poor. I'd rather go to
work. Why shouldn't a woman work, anyhow?"
"At what?" inquired Hull. "Except the men who do manual labor, there
are precious few men who can make a living honestly and
self-respectingly. It's fortunate the women can hold aloof and remain
pure."
Jane laughed unpleasantly. "I'm not so sure that the women who live
with men just for shelter are pure," said she.
"Jen," the young man burst out, "you're ambitious--aren't you?"
"Rather," replied she.
"And you like the sort of thing I'm trying to do--like it and approve
of it?"
"I believe a man ought to succeed--get to the top."
"So do I--if he can do it honorably."
Jane hesitated--dared. "To be quite frank," said she, "I worship
success and I despise failure. Success means strength. Failure means
weakness--and I abominate weakness."
He looked quietly disapproving. "You don't mean that. You don't
understand what you're saying."
"Perfectly," she assured him. "I'm not a bit good. Education has
taken all the namby-pamby nonsense out of me."
But he was not really hearing; besides, what had women to do with the
realities of life? They were made to be the property of men--that was
the truth, though he would never have confessed it to any woman. They
were made to be possessed. "And I must possess this woman," he
thought, his blood running hot. He said:
"Why not help me to make a career? I can do it, Jen, with you to help."
She had thought of this before--of making a career for herself, of
doing the "something" her intense energy craved, through a man. The
"something" must be big if it were to satisfy her; and what that was
big could a woman do except through a man? But--this man. Her eyes
turned thoughtfully upon him--a look that encouraged him to go on:
"Politics interest you, Jen. I've seen that in the way you listen and
in the questions you ask."
She smiled--but not at the surface. In fact, his political talk had
bored her. She knew nothing about the subject, and, so, had been as
one listening to an unknown language. But, like all women, having only
the narrowest range of interests herself and the things that would
enable her to show off to advantage, she was used to being bored by the
conversational efforts of men and to concealing her boredom. She had
listened patiently and had led the conversation by slow, imperceptible
stages round to the interesting personal--to the struggle for dominion
over this difficult male.
"Anyhow," he went on, "no intelligent person could fail to be
interested in politics, once he or she appreciated what it meant. And
people of our class owe it to society to take part in politics. Victor
Dorn is a crank, but he's right about some things--and he's right in
saying that we of the upper class are parasites upon the masses. They
earn all the wealth, and we take a large part of it away from them.
And it's plain stealing unless we give some service in return. For
instance, you and I--what have we done, what are we doing that entitles
us to draw so much? Somebody must earn by hard labor all that is
produced. We are not earning. So"--he was looking handsome now in his
manly earnestness--"Jen, it's up to us to do our share--to stop
stealing--isn't it?"
She was genuinely interested. "I hadn't thought of these things," said
she.
"Victor Dorn says we ought to go to work like laborers," pursued David.
"But that's where he's a crank. The truth is, we ought to give the
service of leadership--especially in politics. And I'm going to do it,
Jane Hastings!"
For the first time she had an interest in him other than that of
conquest. "Just what are you going to do?" she asked.
"Not upset everything and tear everything to pieces, as Victor Dorn
wants to do," replied he. "But reform the abuses and wrongs--make it
so that every one shall have a fair chance--make politics straight and
honest."
This sounded hazy to her. "And what will you get out of it?" asked she.
He colored and was a little uneasy as he thus faced a direct demand for
his innermost secret--the secret of selfishness he tried to hide even
from himself. But there was no evading; if he would interest her he
must show her the practical advantages of his proposal. "If I'm to do
any good," said he, putting the best face, and really not a bad face,
upon a difficult and delicate matter--"if I'm to do any good I must win
a commanding position--must get to be a popular leader--must hold high
offices--and--and--all that."
"I understand," said she. "That sounds attractive. Yes, David, you
ought to make a career. If I were a man that's the career I'd choose."
"You can choose it, though you're a woman," rejoined he. "Marry me, and
we'll go up together. You've no idea how exciting campaigns and
elections are. A little while, and you'll be crazy about it all. The
women are taking part, more and more."
"Who's Victor Dorn?" she suddenly asked.
"You must remember him. It was his father that was killed by the
railway the day we all went on that excursion to Indianapolis."
"Dorn the carpenter," said Jane. "Yes--I remember." Her face grew
dreamy with the effort of memory. "I see it all again. And there was
a boy with a very white face who knelt and held his head."
"That was Victor," said Hull.
"Yes--I remember him. He was a bad boy--always fighting and robbing
orchards and getting kept after school."
"And he's still a bad boy--but in a different way. He's out against
everything civilized and everybody that's got money."
"What does he do? Keep a saloon?"
"No, but he spends a lot of time at them. I must say for him that he
doesn't drink--and professes not to believe in drink. When I pointed
out to him what a bad example he set, loafing round saloons, he laughed
at me and said he was spending his spare time exactly as Jesus Christ
did. 'You'll find, Davy, old man,' he said, 'if you'll take the
trouble to read your Bible, that Jesus traveled with publicans and
sinners--and a publican is in plain English a saloonkeeper.'"
"That was very original--wasn't it?" said Jane. "I'm interested in
this man. He's--different. I like people who are different."
"I don't think you'd like him, Victor Dorn," said David.
"Don't you?"
"Oh, yes--in a way. I admire him," graciously. "He's really a
remarkable fellow, considering his opportunities."
"He calls you 'Davy, old man,'" suggested Jane.
Hull flushed. "That's his way. He's free and easy with every one. He
thinks conventionality is a joke."
"And it is," cried Miss Hastings.
"You'd not think so," laughed Hull, "if he called you Jane or Jenny or
my dear Jenny half an hour after he met you."
"He wouldn't," said Miss Hastings in a peculiar tone.
"He would if he felt like it," replied Hull. "And if you resented it,
he'd laugh at you and walk away. I suspect him of being a good deal of
a poseur and a fakir. All those revolutionary chaps are. But I
honestly think that he really doesn't care a rap for classes--or for
money--or for any of the substantial things."
"He sounds common," said Miss Hastings. "I've lost interest in him."
Then in the same breath: "How does he live? Is he a carpenter?"
"He was--for several years. You see, he and his mother together
brought up the Dorn family after the father was killed. They didn't
get a cent of damages from the railroad. It was an outrage----"
"But my father was the largest owner of the railroad."
Hull colored violently. "You don't understand about business, Jen.
The railroad is a corporation. It fought the case--and the Dorns had
no money--and the railway owned the judge and bribed several jurors at
each trial. Dorn says that was what started him to thinking--to being
a revolutionist--though he doesn't call himself that."
"I should think it would!" cried Miss Hastings. "If my father had
known----" She caught her breath. "But he MUST have known! He was on
the train that day."
"You don't understand business, Jen. Your father wouldn't interfere
with the management of the corporation ."
"He makes money out of it--doesn't he?"
"So do we all get money out of corporations that are compelled to do
all sorts of queer things. But we can't abolish the system--we've got
to reform it. That's why I'm in politics--and want you----"
"Something must be done about that," interrupted Jane. "I shall talk
to father----"
"For heaven's sake, Jen," cried David in alarm, "don't tell your father
I'VE been stirring you up. He's one of the powers in politics in this
State, and----"
"I'll not give you away, Davy," said Miss Hastings a little
contemptuously. "I want to hear more about this Victor Dorn. I'll get
that money for him and his mother. Is he very poor?"
"Well--you'd call him poor. But he says he has plenty. He runs a
small paper. I think he makes about twenty-five dollars a week out of
it--and a little more out of lecturing. Then--every once in a while he
goes back to his trade--to keep his hand in and enjoy the luxury of
earning honest money, as he puts it."
"How queer!" exclaimed Miss Hastings. "I would like to meet him. Is
he--very ignorant?"
"Oh, no--no, indeed. He's worked his way through college--and law
school afterward. Supported the family all the time."
"He must be tremendously clever."
"I've given you an exaggerated idea of him," Davy hastened to say.
"He's really an ordinary sort of chap."
"I should think he'd get rich," said Miss Hastings. "Most of the men
that do--so far as I've met them--seem ordinary enough."
"He says he could get rich, but that he wouldn't waste time that way.
But he's fond of boasting."
"You don't think he could make money--after all he did--going to
college and everything?"
"Yes--I guess he could," reluctantly admitted Davy. Then in a burst of
candor: "Perhaps I'm a little jealous of him. If _I_ were thrown on
my own resources, I'm afraid I'd make a pretty wretched showing.
But--don't get an exaggerated idea of him. The things I've told you
sound romantic and unusual. If you met him--saw him every day--you'd
realize he's not at all--at least, not much--out of the ordinary."
"Perhaps," said Miss Hastings shrewdly, "perhaps I'm getting a better
idea of him than you who see him so often."
"Oh, you'll run across him sometime," said Davy, who was bearing up no
better than would the next man under the strain of a woman's interest
in and excitement about another man. "When you do, you'll get enough
in about five minutes. You see, he's not a gentleman ."
"I'm not sure that I'm wildly crazy about gentlemen--AS gentlemen,"
replied the girl. "Very few of the interesting people I've read about
in history and biography have been gentlemen."
"And very few of them would have been pleasant to associate with,"
rejoined Hull. "You'll admire Victor as I do. But you'll feel--as I
do--that there's small excuse for a man who has been educated, who has
associated with upper class people, turning round and inciting the
lower classes against everything that's fine and improving."
It was now apparent to the girl that David Hull was irritatedly jealous
of this queer Victor Dorn--was jealous of her interest in him. Her
obvious cue was to fan this flame. In no other way could she get any
amusement out of Davy's society; for his tendency was to be heavily
serious--and she wanted no more of the too strenuous love making, yet
wanted to keep him "on the string." This jealousy was just the means
for her end. Said she innocently: "If it irritates you, Davy, we
won't talk about him."
"Not at all--not at all," cried Hull. "I simply thought you'd be
getting tired of hearing so much about a man you'd never known."
"But I feel as if I did know him," replied she. "Your account of him
was so vivid. I thought of asking you to bring him to call."