A young woman hurried out of one of the apartments to greet Howard. She
was a vivacious brunette of medium height, intelligent looking, with
good features and fine teeth. It was not a doll face, but the face of a
woman who had experienced early the hard knocks of the world, yet in
whom adversity had not succeeded in wholly subduing a naturally buoyant,
amiable disposition. There was determination in the lines above her
mouth. It was a face full of character, the face of a woman who by sheer
dint of dogged perseverance might accomplish any task she cared to set
herself. A smile of welcome gleamed in her eyes as she inquired eagerly:
"Well, dear, anything doing?"
Howard shook his head for all response and a look of disappointment
crossed the young wife's face.
"Say, that's tough, ain't it?" she exclaimed. "The janitor was here
again for the rent. He says they'll serve us with a dispossess. I told
him to chase himself, I was that mad."
Annie's vocabulary was emphatic, rather than choice. Entirely without
education, she made no pretense at being what she was not and therein
perhaps lay her chief charm. As Howard stooped to kiss her, she said
reproachfully:
"You've been drinking again, Howard. You promised me you wouldn't."
The young man made no reply. With an impatient gesture he passed on into
the flat and flung himself down in a chair in the dining room. From the
adjoining kitchen came a welcome odor of cooking.
"Dinner ready?" he demanded. "I'm devilish hungry."
"Yes, dear, just a minute," replied his wife from the kitchen. "There's
some nice Irish stew, just what you like."
The box-like hole where Howard sat awaiting his meal was the largest
room in a flat which boasted of "five and bath." There was a bedroom of
equally diminutive proportions and a parlor with wall paper so loud that
it talked. There was scarcely enough room to swing a cat around. The
thin walls were cracked, the rooms were carpetless. Yet it showed the
care of a good housekeeper. Floors and windows were clean, the cover on
the table spotless. The furnishings were as meagre as they were
ingenious. With their slender purse they had been able to purchase only
the bare necessities--a bed, a chair or two, a dining-room table, a few
kitchen utensils. When they wanted to sit in the parlor they had to
carry a chair from the dining room; when meal times came the chairs had
to travel back again. A soap box turned upside down and neatly covered
with chintz did duty as a dresser in the bedroom, and with a few
photographs and tacks they had managed to impart an æsthetic appearance
to the parlor. This place cost the huge sum of $25 a month. It might
just as well have cost $100 for all Howard's ability to pay it. The past
month's rent was long overdue and the janitor looked more insolent every
day. But they did not care. They were young and life was still before
them.
Presently Annie came in carrying a steaming dish of stew, which she laid
on the table. As she helped Howard to a plate full she said: "So you had
no luck again this morning?"
Howard was too busy eating to answer. As he gulped down a huge piece of
bread, he growled:
"Nothing, as usual--same old story, nothing doing."
Annie sighed. She had been given this answer so often that it would have
surprised her to hear anything else. It meant that their hard
hand-to-mouth struggle must go on. She said nothing. What was the use?
It would never do to discourage Howard. She tried to make light of it.
"Of course it isn't easy, I quite understand that. Never mind, dear.
Something will turn up soon. Where did you go? Whom did you see? Why
didn't you let drink alone when you promised me you would?"
"That was Coxe's fault," blurted out Howard, always ready to blame
others for his own shortcomings. "You remember Coxe! He was at Yale when
I was. A big, fair fellow with blue eyes. He pulled stroke in the
'varsity boat race, you remember?"
"I think I do," replied his wife, indifferently, as she helped him to
more stew. "What did he want? What's he doing in New York?"
"He's got a fine place in a broker's office in Wall Street. I felt
ashamed to let him see me low down like this. He said that I could make
a good deal of money if only I had a little capital. He knows everything
going on in Wall Street. If I went in with him I'd be on Easy Street."
"How much would it require?"
"Two thousand dollars."
The young wife gave a sigh as she answered:
"I'm afraid that's a day dream. Only your father could give you such an
amount and you wouldn't go to him, would you?"
"Not if we hadn't another crust in the house," snapped Howard savagely.
"You don't want me to, do you?" he asked looking up at her quickly.
"No, dear," she answered calmly. "I have certainly no wish that you
should humble yourself. At the same time I am not selfish enough to want
to stand in the way of your future. Your father and stepmother hate me,
I know that. I am the cause of your separation from your folks. No doubt
your father would be very willing to help you if you would consent to
leave me."
Howard laughed as he replied:
"Well, if that's the price for the $2,000 I guess I'll go without it. I
wouldn't give you up for a million times $2,000!"
Annie stretched her hand across the table.
"Really," she said.
"You know I wouldn't Annie," he said earnestly. "Not one second have I
ever regretted marrying you--that's honest to God!"
A faint flush of pleasure lit up the young wife's face. For all her
assumed lightheartedness she was badly in need of this reassurance. If
she thought Howard nourished secret regrets it would break her heart.
She could stand anything, any hardship, but not that. She would leave
him at once.
In a way she held herself responsible for his present predicament. She
had felt a deep sense of guilt ever since that afternoon in New Haven
when, listening to Howard's importunities and obeying an impulse she
was powerless to resist, she had flung aside her waitress's apron,
furtively left the restaurant and hurried with him to the minister who
declared them man and wife.
Their marriage was a mistake, of course. Howard was in no position to
marry. They should have waited. They both realized their folly now. But
what was done could not be undone. She realized, too, that it was worse
for Howard than it was for her. It had ruined his prospects at the
outset of his career and threatened to be an irreparable blight on his
entire life. She realized that she was largely to blame. She had done
wrong to marry him and at times she reproached herself bitterly. There
were days when their union assumed in her eyes the enormity of a crime.
She should have seen what a social gulf lay between them. All these
taunts and insults from his family which she now endured she had
foolishly brought upon her own head. But she had not been able to resist
the temptation. Howard came into her life when the outlook was dreary
and hopeless. He had offered to her what seemed a haven against the
cruelty and selfishness of the world. Happiness for the first time in
her life seemed within reach and she had not the moral courage to say
"No."
If Annie had no education she was not without brains. She had sense
enough to realize that her bringing up or the lack of it was an
unsurmountable barrier to her ever being admitted to the inner circle of
Howard's family. If her husband's father had not married again the
breach might have been crossed in time, but his new wife was a prominent
member of the smart set, a woman full of aristocratic notions who
recoiled with horror at having anything to do with a girl guilty of the
enormity of earning her own living. Individual merit, inherent nobility
of character, amiability of disposition, and a personal reputation
untouched by scandal--all this went for nothing--because unaccompanied
by wealth or social position. Annie had neither wealth or position. She
had not even education. They considered her common, impossible. They
were even ready to lend an ear to certain ugly stories regarding her
past, none of which were true. After their marriage, Mr. Jeffries, Sr.,
and his wife absolutely refused to receive her or have any communication
with her whatsoever. As long, therefore, as Howard remained faithful to
her, the breach with his family could never be healed.
"Have some more stew, dear," she said, extending her hand for her
husband's plate.
Howard shook his head and threw down his knife and fork.
"I've had enough," he said despondently. "I haven't much appetite."
She looked at him with concern.
"Poor boy, you're tired out!"
As she noted how pale and dejected he appeared, her eyes filled with
sympathetic tears. She forgot the appalling number of cigarettes he
smoked a day, nor did she realize how abuse of alcohol had spoiled his
stomach for solid food.
"I wish I knew where to go and get that $2,000," muttered Howard, his
mind still preoccupied with Coxe's proposition. Lighting another
cigarette, he leaned back in his chair and lapsed into silence.
Annie sat and watched him, wishing she could suggest some way to solve
the problem that troubled him. She loved her husband with all her heart
and soul. His very weakness of character endeared him the more to her.
She was not blind to his faults, but she excused them. His vices, his
drinking, cigarette smoking and general shiftlessness were, she argued,
the result of bad associates. He was self-indulgent. He made good
resolutions and broke them. But he was not really vicious. He had a good
heart. With some one to watch him and keep him in the straight path, he
would still give a good account of himself to the world. She was
confident of that. She recognized many excellent qualities in him. They
only wanted fostering and bringing out. That was why she married him.
She was a few years his senior; she felt that she was the stronger
mentally. She considered it was her duty to devote her life to him, to
protect him from himself and make a man of him.
It was not her fault, she mused, if she were not a lady. Literally
brought up in the gutter, what advantages had she had? Her mother died
in childbirth and her father, a professional gambler, abandoned the
little girl to the tender mercies of an indifferent neighbor. When she
was about eight years old her father was arrested. He refused to pay
police blackmail, was indicted, railroaded to prison and died soon after
in convict stripes. There was no provision for Annie's maintenance, so
at the age of nine she found herself toiling in a factory, a helpless
victim of the brutalizing system of child slavery which in spite of
prohibiting laws still disgraces the United States. Ever since that time
she had earned her own living. The road had often been hard, there were
times when she thought she would have to give up the fight, other girls
she had met had hinted at an easier way of earning one's living, but she
had kept her courage, refused to listen to evil counsel and always
managed to keep her name unsullied. She left the factory to work behind
the counter in a New York dry goods store. Then about a year ago she
drifted to New Haven and took the position of waitress at the restaurant
which the college boys patronized.
Robert Underwood was among the students who came almost every day. He
made love to her from the start, and one day attempted liberties which
she was prompt to resent in a way he did not relish. After that he let
her alone. She never liked the man. She knew him to be unprincipled as
well as vicious. One night he brought Howard Jeffries to the restaurant.
They seemed the closest of cronies and she was sorry to see what bad
influence the elder sophomore had over the young freshman, to whom she
was at once attracted. Every time they came she watched them and she
noticed how under his mentor Howard became more hardened. He drank more
and more and became a reckless gambler. Underwood seemed to exercise a
baneful spell over him. She saw that he would soon be ruined with such a
man as Underwood for a constant companion. Her interest in the young
student grew. They became acquainted and Howard, not realizing that she
was older than he, was immediately captivated by her vivacious charm and
her common-sense views. They saw each other more frequently and their
friendship grew until one day Howard asked her to marry him.
While she sometimes blamed herself for having listened too willingly to
Howard's pleadings, she did not altogether regret the step she had
taken. It was most unfortunate that there must be this rupture with his
family, yet something within told her that she was doing God's
work--saving a man's soul. Without her, Howard would have gone swiftly
to ruin, there was little doubt of that. His affection for her had
partly, if not wholly, redeemed him and was keeping him straight. He had
been good to her ever since their marriage and done everything to make
her comfortable. Once he took a position as guard on the elevated road,
but caught cold and was forced to give it up. She wanted to go to work
again, but he angrily refused. That alone showed that he was not
entirely devoid of character. He was unfortunate at present and they
were poor, but by dint of perseverance he would win out and make a
position for himself without his father's help. These were their darkest
days, but light was ahead. As long as they loved each other and had
their health what more was necessary?
"Say, Annie, I have an idea," suddenly blurted out Howard.
"What is it, dear?" she asked, her reveries thus abruptly interrupted.
"I mean regarding that $2,000. You know all about that $250 which I once
lent Underwood. I never got it back, although I've been after him many
times for it. He's a slippery customer. But under the circumstances I
think it's worth another determined effort. He seems to be better fixed
now than he ever was. He's living at the Astruria, making a social
splurge and all that sort of thing. He must have money. I'll try to
borrow the $2,000 from him."
"He certainly appears to be prosperous," replied Annie. "I see his name
in the newspapers all the time. There is hardly an affair at which he is
not present."
"Yes," growled Howard; "I don't see how he does it. He travels on his
cheek, principally, I guess. His name was among those present at my
stepmother's musicale the other night." Bitterly he added: "That's how
the world goes. There is no place for me under my father's roof, but
that blackguard is welcomed with open arms!"
"I thought your father was such a proud man," interrupted Annie. "How
does he come to associate with people like Underwood?"
"Oh, pater's an old dolt!" exclaimed Howard impatiently. "There's no
fool like an old fool. Of course, he's sensible enough in business
matters. He wouldn't be where he is to-day if he weren't. But when it
comes to the woman question he's as blind as a bat. What right had a
man of his age to go and marry a woman twenty years his junior? Of
course she only married him for his money. Everybody knows that except
he. People laugh at him behind his back. Instead of enjoying a quiet,
peaceful home in the declining years of his life, he is compelled to
keep open house and entertain people who are personally obnoxious to
him, simply because that sort of life pleases his young wife."
"Who was she, anyway, before their marriage?" interrupted Annie.
"Oh, a nobody," he replied. "She was very attractive looking, dressed
well and was clever enough to get introductions to good people. She
managed to make herself popular in the smart set and she needed money to
carry out her social ambitions. Dad--wealthy widower--came along and she
caught him in her net, that's all!"
Annie listened with interest. She was human enough to feel a certain
sense of satisfaction on hearing that this woman who treated her with
such contempt was herself something of an intriguer.
"How did your stepmother come to know Robert Underwood?" she asked. "He
was never in society."
"No," replied Howard with a grin. "It was my stepmother who gave him the
entrée. You know she was once engaged to him, but broke it off so she
could marry Dad. He felt very sore over it at the time, but after her
marriage he was seemingly as friendly with her as ever--to serve his own
ends, of course. It is simply wonderful what influence he has with her.
He exercises over her the same fascination that he did over me at
college. He has sort of hypnotized her. I don't think it's a case of
love or anything like that, but he simply holds her under his thumb and
gets her to do anything he wants. She invites him to her house,
introduces him right and left, got people to take him up. Everybody
laughs about it in society. Underwood is known as Mrs. Howard Jeffries'
pet. Such a thing soon gets talked about. That is the secret of his
successful career in New York. As far as I know, she's as much
infatuated with him as ever."
A look of surprise came into Annie's face. To this young woman, whose
one idea of matrimony was steadfast loyalty to the man whose life she
shared and whose name she bore, there was something repellent and
nauseating in a woman permitting herself to be talked about in that way.
"Doesn't your father object?" she asked.
"Pshaw!" laughed Howard. "He doesn't see what's going on under his very
nose. He's too proud a man, too sure of his own good judgment, to
believe for a moment that the woman to whom he gave his name would be
guilty of the slightest indiscretion of that kind."
Annie was silent for a minute. Then she said:
"What makes you think that Underwood would let you have the money?"
"Because I think he's got it. I obliged him once in the same way myself.
I would explain to him what I want it for. He will see at once that it
is a good thing. I'll offer him a good rate of interest, and he might be
very glad to let me have it. Anyhow, there's no harm trying."
Annie said nothing. She did not entirely approve this idea of her
husband trying to borrow money of a man in whom his stepmother was so
much interested. On the other hand starvation stared them in the face.
If Howard could get hold of this $2,000 and start in the brokerage
business it might be the beginning of a new life for them.
"Well, do as you like, dear," she said. "When will you go to him?"
"The best time to catch him would be in the evening," replied Howard.
"Well, then, go to-night," she suggested.
Howard shook his head.
"No, not to-night. I don't think I should find him in. He's out every
night somewhere. To-night there's another big reception at my father's
house. He'll probably be there. I think I'll wait till to-morrow night.
I'm nearly sure to catch him at home then."
Annie rose and began to remove the dishes from the table. Howard
nonchalantly lighted another cigarette and, leaving the table, took up
the evening newspaper. Sitting down comfortably in a rocker by the
window, he blew a cloud of blue smoke up in the air and said:
"Yes, that's it--I'll go to-morrow night to the Astruria and strike Bob
Underwood for that $2,000."