"What OUTRAGEOUS things you do say!" cried Martha.
"I envy that black Jewess--that--what's her name?--that Selma Gordon."
"You don't even know them," said Martha.
Jane wheeled round with a strange laugh. "Don't I?" cried she.
"I don't know anyone else."
She strode to her sister and tapped her lightly on the shoulder with
the riding stick.
"Be careful," cautioned Martha. "You know how easily my flesh
mars--and I'm going to wear my low neck to-night."
Jane did not heed. "David Hull is a bore--and a fraud," she said. "I
tell you I'd rather marry Victor Dorn."
"Do be careful about my skin, dear," pleaded Martha. "Hugo'll be SO
put out if there's a mark on it. He's very proud of my skin."
Jane looked at her quizzically. "What a dear, fat old rotter of a
respectability it is, to be sure," said she--and strode from the room,
and from the house.
Her mood of perversity and defiance did not yield to a ten mile gallop
over the gentle hills of that lovely part of Indiana, but held on
through the afternoon and controlled her toilet for the ball. She knew
that every girl in town would appear at that most fashionable party of
the summer season in the best clothing she could get together. As she
had several dresses from Paris which she not without reason regarded as
notable works of art, the opportunity to outshine was hers--the sort of
opportunity she took pleasure in using to the uttermost, as a rule.
But to be the best dressed woman at Mrs. Bertram's party was too easy
and too commonplace. To be the worst dressed would call for
courage--of just the sort she prided herself on having. Also, it would
look original, would cause talk--would give her the coveted sense of
achievement.
When she descended to show herself to her father and say good night to
him, she was certainly dressed by the same pattern that caused him to
be talked about throughout that region. Her gown was mussed, had been
mended obviously in several places, had not been in its best day
becoming. But this was not all. Her hair looked stringy and
dishevelled. She was delighted with herself. Except during an illness
two years before never had she come so near to being downright homely.
"Martha will die of shame," said she to herself. "And Mrs. Bertram
will spend the evening explaining me to everybody." She did not
definitely formulate the thought, "And I shall be the most talked about
person of the evening"; but it was in her mind none the less.
Her father always smoked his after-dinner cigar in a little room just
off the library. It was filled up with the plain cheap furniture and
the chromos and mottoes which he and his wife had bought when they
first went to housekeeping--in their early days of poverty and
struggle. On the south wall was a crude and cheap, but startlingly
large enlargement of an old daguerreotype of Letitia Hastings at
twenty-four--the year after her marriage and the year before the birth
of the oldest child, Robert, called Dock, now piling up a fortune as an
insider in the Chicago "brave" game of wheat and pork, which it is
absurd to call gambling because gambling involves chance. To smoke the
one cigar the doctor allowed him, old Martin Hastings always seated
himself before this picture. He found it and his thoughts the best
company in the world, just as he had found her silent self and her
thoughts the best company in their twenty-one years of married life.
As he sat there, sometimes he thought of her--of what they had been
through together, of the various advances in his fortune--how this one
had been made near such and such anniversary, and that one between two
other anniversaries--and what he had said to her and what she had said
to him. Again--perhaps oftener--he did not think of her directly, any
more than he had thought of her when they sat together evening after
evening, year in and year out, through those twenty-one years of
contented and prosperous life.
As Jane entered he, seated back to the door, said:
"About that there Dorn damage suit----"
Jane started, caught her breath. Really, it was uncanny, this
continual thrusting of Victor Dorn at her.
"It wasn't so bad as it looked," continued her father. He was speaking
in the quiet voice--quiet and old and sad--he always used when seated
before the picture.
"You see, Jenny, in them days"--also, in presence of the picture he
lapsed completely into the dialect of his youth--"in them days the
railroad was teetering and I couldn't tell which way things'd jump.
Every cent counted."
"I understand perfectly, father," said Jane, her hands on his shoulders
from behind. She felt immensely relieved. She did not realize that
every doer of a mean act always has an excellent excuse for it.
"Then afterwards," the old man went on, "the family was getting along
so well--the boy was working steady and making good money and pushing
ahead--and I was afeared I'd do harm instead of good. It's mighty
dangerous, Jen, to give money sudden to folks that ain't used to it.
I've seen many a smash-up come that way. And your ma--she thought so,
too--kind of."
The "kind of" was advanced hesitatingly, with an apologetic side glance
at the big crayon portrait. But Jane was entirely convinced. She was
average human; therefore, she believed what she wished to believe.
"You were quite right, father," said she. "I knew you couldn't do a
bad thing--wouldn't deliberately strike at weak, helpless people. And
now, it can be straightened out and the Dorns will be all the better
for not having been tempted in the days when it might have ruined them."
She had walked round where her father could see her, as she delivered
herself of this speech so redolent of the fumes of collegiate smugness.
He proceeded to examine her--with an expression of growing
dissatisfaction. Said he fretfully:
"You don't calculate to go out, looking like that?"
"Out to the swellest blow-out of the year, popsy," said she.
The big heavy looking head wobbled about uneasily. "You look too much
like your old pappy's daughter," said he.
"I can afford to," replied she.
The head shook positively. "You ma wouldn't 'a liked it. She was
mighty partic'lar how she dressed."
Jane laughed gayly. "Why, when did you become a critic of women's
dress?" cried she.
"I always used to buy yer ma dresses and hats when I went to the city,"
said he. "And she looked as good as the best--not for these days, but
for them times." He looked critically at the portrait. "I bought them
clothes and awful dear they seemed to me." His glance returned to his
daughter. "Go get yourself up proper," said he, between request and
command. "SHE wouldn't 'a liked it."
Jane gazed at the common old crayon, suddenly flung her arms round the
old man's neck. "Yes--father," she murmured. "To please HER."
She fled; the old man wiped his eyes, blew his nose and resumed the
careful smoking of the cheap, smelly cigar. He said he preferred that
brand of his days of poverty; and it was probably true, as he would
refuse better cigars offered him by fastidious men who hoped to save
themselves from the horrors of his. He waited restlessly, though it
was long past his bedtime; he yawned and pretended to listen while Davy
Hull, who had called for Jane in the Hull brougham, tried to make a
favorable impression upon him. At last Jane reappeared--and certainly
Letitia Hastings would have been more than satisfied.
"Sorry to keep you waiting," said she to Hull, who was speechless and
tremulous before her voluptuous radiance. "But father didn't like the
way I was rigged out. Maybe I'll have to change again."
"Take her along, Davy," said Hastings, his big head wagging with
delight. "She's a caution--SHE is!"
Hull could not control himself to speak. As they sat in the carriage,
she finishing the pulling on of her gloves, he stared out into the
heavy rain that was deluging the earth and bending low the boughs.
Said she, half way down the hill:
"Well--can't you talk about anything but Victor Dorn?"
"I saw him this afternoon," said Hull, glad that the tension of the
silence was broken.
"Then you've got something to talk about."
"The big street car strike is on."
"So father said at dinner. I suppose Victor Dorn caused it."
"No--he's opposed to it. He's queer. I don't exactly understand his
ideas. He says strikes are ridiculous--that it's like trying to cure
smallpox by healing up one single sore."
Jane gave a shiver of lady-like disgust. "How--nasty," said she.
"I'm telling you what he said. But he says that the only way human
beings learn how to do things right is by doing them wrong--so while
he's opposed to strikes he's also in favor of them."
"Even _I_ understand that," said Jane. "I don't think it's difficult."
"Doesn't it strike you as--as inconsistent?"
"Oh--bother consistency!" scoffed the girl. "That's another middle
class virtue that sensible people loathe as a vice. Anyhow, he's
helping the strikers all he can--and fighting US. You know, your father
and my father's estate are the two biggest owners of the street
railways."
"I must get his paper," said Jane. "I'll have a lot of fun reading the
truth about us."
But David wasn't listening. He was deep in thought. After a while he
said: "It's amazing--and splendid--and terrible, what power he's
getting in our town. Victor Dorn, I mean."
"Always Victor Dorn," mocked Jane.
"When he started--twelve years ago as a boy of twenty, just out of
college and working as a carpenter--when he started, he was alone and
poor, and without friends or anything. He built up little by little,
winning one man at a time--the fellow working next him on his right,
then the chap working on his left--in the shop--and so on, one man
after another. And whenever he got a man he held him--made him as
devoted--as--as fanatical as he is himself. Now he's got a band of
nearly a thousand. There are ten thousand voters in this town. So,
he's got only one in ten. But what a thousand!"
Jane was gazing out into the rain, her eyes bright, her lips parted.
"Are you listening?" asked Hull. "Or, am I boring you?"
"Go on," said she.
"They're a thousand missionaries--apostles--yes, apostle is the name
for them. They live and breathe and think and talk only the ideas
Victor Dorn believes and fights for. And whenever he wants anything
done--anything for the cause--why, there are a thousand men ready to do
it."
"Why?" said Jane.
"Victor Dorn," said Hull. "Do you wonder that he interests me? For
instance, to-night: you see how it's raining. Well, Victor Dorn had
them print to-day fifty thousand leaflets about this strike--what it
means to his cause. And he has asked five hundred of his men to stand
on the corners and patrol the streets and distribute those dodgers.
I'll bet not a man will be missing."
"But why?" repeated Jane. "What for?"
"He wants to conquer this town. He says the world has to be
conquered--and that the way to begin is to begin--and that he has
begun."
"Conquer it for what?"
"For himself, I guess," said Hull. "Of course, he professes that it's
for the public good. They all do. But what's the truth?"
"If I saw him I could tell you," said Jane in the full pride of her
belief in her woman's power of divination in character.
"However, he can't succeed," observed Hull.
"Oh, yes, he can," replied Jane. "And will. Even if every idea he had
were foolish and wrong. And it isn't--is it?"
David laughed peculiarly. "He's infernally uncomfortably right in most
of the things he charges and proposes. I don't like to think about
it." He shut his teeth together. "I WON'T think about it," he
muttered.
"No--you'd better stick to your own road, Davy," said Jane with
irritating mockery. "You were born to be thoroughly conventional and
respectable. As a reformer you're ideal. As a--an imitator of Victor
Dorn, you'd be a joke."
"There's one of his men now," exclaimed Hull, leaning forward excitedly.
Jane looked. A working man, a commonplace enough object, was standing
under the corner street lamp, the water running off his hat, his
shoulders, his coat tail. His package of dodgers was carefully
shielded by an oilcloth from the wet which had full swing at the man.
To every passer-by he presented a dodger, accompanying the polite
gesture with some phrase which seemed to move the man or woman to take
what was offered and to put it away instead of dropping it.
Jane sank back in the carriage, disappointed. "Is that all?" said she
disdainfully.
"ALL?" cried Hull. "Use your imagination, Jen. But I forgot--you're a
woman. They see only surfaces."
"And are snared into marrying by complexions and pretty features and
dresses and silly flirting tricks," retorted the girl sarcastically.
Hull laughed. "I spoke too quick that time," said he. "I suppose you
expected to see something out of a fifteenth century Italian old
master! Well--it was there, all right."
Jane shrugged her shoulders. "And your Victor Dorn," said she, "no
doubt he's seated in some dry, comfortable place enjoying the thought
of his men making fools of themselves for him."
They were drawing up to the curb before the Opera House where were the
assembly rooms. "There he is now," cried Hull.
Jane, startled, leaned eagerly forward. In the rain beyond the edge of
the awning stood a dripping figure not unlike that other which had so
disappointed her. Underneath the brim of the hat she could see a
smooth-shaven youngish face--almost boyish. But the rain streaming
from the brim made satisfactory scrutiny impossible.
Jane again sank back. "How many carriages before us?" she said.
"You're disappointed in him, too, I suppose," said Hull. "I knew you
would be."
"I thought he was tall," said Jane.
"Only middling," replied Hull, curiously delighted.
"I thought he was serious," said Jane.
"On the contrary, he's always laughing. He's the best natured man I
know."
As they descended and started along the carpet under the middle of the
awning, Jane halted. She glanced toward the dripping figure whom the
police would not permit under the shelter. Said she: "I want one of
those papers."
Davy moved toward the drenched distributor of strike literature. "Give
me one, Dorn," he said in his most elegant manner.
"Sure, Davy," said Dorn in a tone that was a subtle commentary on
Hull's aristocratic tone and manner. As he spoke he glanced at Jane;
she was looking at him. Both smiled--at Davy's expense.
Davy and Jane passed on in, Jane folding the dodger to tuck it away for
future reading. She said to him: "But you didn't tell me about his
eyes."
"What's the matter with them?"
"Everything," replied she--and said no more.