Romance left us with the sentimental tradition that a woman's
sex was a complete, indeed a glorious, justification of her
existence (_v._ F. Dell: "Women as World Builders"). Because
she some day would be, or might possibly be, a mother of
children, she was set upon a pedestal and left there, exempt
from further responsibilities meanwhile. The potentiality of
motherhood became a claim to life-long support in idleness,
etc., etc.--
Now, we have long understood that the controlling fact in the
life of every man is the way in which he gets his living. We
have long understood that the essential immorality is to get
something for nothing. But only lately have we come to see how
these two general laws apply, have always applied, to women.
Only late--
But there the pencil, which had been dragging, came again to a halt.
This writing went forward in an old exercise-book, on the label of which
a fine trembling hand had written "_French Composition_." It was seen
that firmer fingers had overwritten that inscription with another:
"NOTES ON WOMEN." Here, in brief, the authority was reducing certain
views to essay form, according to a plan he had: squeezing out the meat
of his mind into the exercise-book, as the moral basis of a great new
novel, nothing less. And the truth was that he had no sooner begun the
stock-taking process than difficulties appeared, and the present want of
ardor made itself felt. Faint doubts and questionings, indeed, knocked
at Charles Garrott's mind in these days; not touching Woman, of course,
but certainly seeming to touch his last year's formula for her. "I'm an
ultra-modern with conservative reactions," he had thought to himself,
with a sense of important discovery, but a night or two ago. And on the
whole, he felt that that had explained him scientifically into the best
company in the world.
The reference was to the one other existing person who, it was conceded,
might possibly know as much about Woman as he, Charles, did. That one
was a lady in Sweden. And, reassuringly enough, he had long since noted
in the Swedish lady's bold modernism, also, this precise same tendency
toward judicious reconsideration.
Suddenly the young man put away his writing, shut his table-drawer with
a click, and said:--
"I'm going out for awhile, Judge--to a meeting of the Redmantle Club.
Think I need a little stimulus."
He went away to the bedroom, thinking, but not of the Redmantle Club,
for which, to say truth, he cared little. Nor were his thoughts in line
with the swingeing sentences he had just been writing in the
exercise-book. On the contrary, the young authority was openly inquiring
of himself: _Was_ economic independence the complete solution of the
Unrest? _Were_ there no Values in the world but Utilitarian Values?
The bedroom door shut, and Judge Blenso, who had replied with a mere
busy nod to Charles's announcement, desisted from his clacking, and
produced a late copy of "The Rider and Driver" from the little drawer of
his typewriter-table. He began to look at pictures with a happy
expression upon his striking face.
Why was Mr. Blenso called the Judge? An interesting point, on which I,
for one, unluckily can shed no light. But if he has also been called a
relative and secretary, that was for the sake of peace only. To say
outright that this fine large gentleman was Charles Garrott's nephew
(his half-nephew, to be exact) would necessitate a vast deal of
explanatory genealogy. That was a fact, as the family Bibles of the
Blensos and Minters clearly proved, but it is a fact that had better be
quietly ceded. Judge Blenso was a relative, and it is quite true that
his young half-uncle had been reared from infancy to address him as
Uncle George. Garrott, who had no other nephew in the world, had always
thought it a little unfair.
The Judge's disaster had come upon him in the prime of a gallant
widowerhood. He had dived from an unfamiliar pier, one luckless day, in
the interests of a stout young woman, who flattered herself that she was
drowning. Diving too close to avoid her bulk, Charles's relative had
struck his head upon a submerged beam which should not have been there;
and the stout young woman, so far from drowning, had promptly proved
that she could float enough for two. She had saved her rescuer's life,
in short.
But the beam had had the last word in the encounter, after all. When
Uncle George Blenso got well of his concussion, it was early discovered
that he was just a little "different"; also that his nominal Real Estate
and Loans business downtown was far, far from solvent. It was
accordingly proposed in the family that Uncle George should go to the
Garrott place in Prince William County; but this proposal had been
rejected at once by Uncle George, who protested indignantly that he was
a city man. The upshot was that Charles, being the only city relative
extant, had invited the Judge to share his third floor here, turning out
his young friend and room-mate, Donald Manford, for that express
purpose. That had seemed to settle the issue. But no; very soon the
lively kinsman was pointing out that he would need money, of course, for
clothes, club-dues, and so on, and accordingly it was arranged that he
should become Charles's literary assistant on a regular salaried basis.
It happened that Charles had as yet had occasion to publish but a single
fiction ("The Truth About Jennie"; see "Favorite Magazine," for August,
1910). He had, indeed, as much need of a private chaplain as of a
secretary. The peculiarities of the case, thus, often struck and amused
him; and they did so now as, opening the door of the bedroom, hatted and
coated, he saw his secretary's still youthful head bowed pleasantly over
the magazine.
"Ah, my dear fellow, there you are!" said the secretary, with just a
little jump.
And putting down his reading-matter in a manner suggesting that, of
course, he had had to kill time somehow while waiting for Charles, he
went on at once in an agreeable confidential voice:--
"By the by, I intended to ask you--you've heard about this Miss
Trevenna? Gad, you know, Charles! Her father won't let her name be
mentioned!"
The employer eyed him gravely, pulling on his gloves. The story alluded
to was not unknown to him: how one modern girl, claiming more Freedom
than existed, had too rashly crossed the great gulf, and how, her
enterprise proving fatally unsuccessful, she had lately come home again.
He felt very sorry for Miss Trevenna.
"Fact!--her mother visits her in secret, in lodgings," said his
secretary, dropping his eager voice further. "A sad case--sad, yes--but,
my dear fellow, can we allow our girls to run off with other people's
husbands? No! Morals," said Judge Blenso, sternly, "are the bulwark of
the nation!--that's what _I_ say! Am I right, Charles?"
[Illustration: "NO! MORALS ARE THE BULWARK OF THE NATION!"]
Charles said that he was perfectly right. He then proposed that the
Judge should knock off work for the night, forthwith. But the Judge
looked rather shocked at the suggestion, and began to clack vigorously
at Dionysius.
"There's really no hurry about this short stuff, you know. Why not go
down and cheer Mrs. Herman up a bit? She always appreciates a call from
you."
The relative's hand irresistibly rose to his mustache.
"A fine woman, a charmin' fine widow-woman," said he, in his rich voice.
"But!--business _before_ pleasure, Charles. That's _my_ way, my boy."
However, the ringing motto seemed a little too good to live up to.
Hardly had the front door shut on Charles when Judge Blenso--he rather
insisted on the official title, now that he was secretary--hooded his
old typewriter for the night, turned down the light in the green-domed
lamp on the table, and descended to visit his landlady. That he had
small reverence for his half-uncle's New Thinking now became clear. The
Judge left the Studio (as he himself had christened it), chuckling
silently to himself, and on the steps began to chant aloud a sort
of gay recitative of his own composition. The chant went a beat
to every step, thus: "Cracking--piffle--walnuts--piffle--in a--sort
of--piffle--sadness!"