Her arms fell and she said, in another voice: "No, I don't think I'm
going to land it, you see!"
"Not going to--! Why, I thought you were practically sure!"
"That's the worst of it--I _was_, for a few wild weeks. Now I'm positive
I'm not."
"Why!--but what's happened?"
"Oh," said she, light and calm again, "merely reading between the lines
of Dr. Ames's letters. I hear from him all the time about the State
work--once a week, at least. But he's never referred at all to the talk
we had--about my being Secretary--from the first. Of course, I've
wondered. And then yesterday--no, day before--I had a letter asking if I
expected to be in New York any time before fall. He said he'd like to
talk with me about my work here."
The straightforward sentences carried a painful conviction. Charles's
eyes fell from his friend's face. For this crowning disappointment of
hers he was distressed enough, indeed; and yet he was perfectly
conscious that there was a side of him which could not lament at all.
Publicly speaking, he had not honestly viewed the secretaryship as a
"revenge"; since to get Mary out of the schools, by hook or crook, was
the exact object in life of her adversary, Mysinger, who so earnestly
held that woman's place was the Home. And then, there were those more
personal and secret reactions in him, which had somehow recoiled from
this development of the Career from the start.
"How long have you felt this way--that you weren't going to get it?"
"Oh--for two months now, at least."
"Two months! Why, you've never said anything about it to me!"
"Well, I don't remember your asking anything about it."
"No, because I supposed it was virtually settled--"
"Oh, no, indeed. In fact--oh, it was just a mad dream for me, of course!
I'll live and die a Grammar School teacher."
"No! I swear you'll not!" And, seeing the way cleared of all
extra-complications now, the young man flung out with unwonted
exuberance: "You trust _me_! You'll come back here so quickly you'll
not remember you ever went!"
But the male protectorship, he should have known well, scarcely thrived
in this atmosphere. Mary tied a package of papers, gave him a look and
smile, and dropped it efficiently into the suitcase at her feet.
"Well, that's on the knees of the gods as yet. Meanwhile--there's no use
crying over spilt milk."
"My point is, don't you see, this milk shan't stay spilt! _I'm_ not
going to wait till May to have you back here."
It was on the tip of his tongue to confide to her then, for her comfort,
the third plan he had for her, a plan more circuitous and elaborate than
either of his others, but yet, given time, his personal favorite from
the beginning. However, Mary's little laugh checked him. The laugh may
have been the best cover she had for feelings deeply bruised, after all,
perhaps: but the breath of it chilled the young man's ardors
effectually.
"I'm afraid you must, though! This milk--"
"I decline. Trust me, I say. I intend to help you here."
But her reply was to put into words of one syllable, at last, what her
manner had been saying plainly from the beginning:--
"My dear friend, you _can't_ help me, in this."
She added, quietly snapping on a light: "Don't worry your head about it
any more, please. Whatever, can be done,--I can and will do it, you may
be sure."
It was odd how completely this silenced the young man. It was as if she
had suddenly blown up the whole line of their communication.
And it seemed to Charles, all at once, that Mary had accidentally stated
exactly what was the matter with her, as a woman and a friend. It seemed
to him suddenly that ever since he had known this girl he had been going
to her and saying, "Look here, I'll help you do such and such," and she,
in one way or another, had always been replying, "Why, _you_ couldn't
help ME!"
The conversation between the two old friends thus abruptly thinned out.
It became almost desultory on his part, not untouched with dignity. And
as they so chatted of Lee Grammar School and its unfavorable location,
he, the authority, was eyeing Mary Wing askance, unmistakably
reacting.... Was hardness, then, the necessary corollary of
"independence"? Was it true, exactly as Old Tories said, that a woman
could not grapple long with actuality without rubbing away that natural
sweetness and charm of hers which, it might be, the grim world needed
more than duplicate Careers? Certainly there was no charm for him in
this slip of a girl's self-assertion: "I'm a better man than you, don't
you know it?" Splendid, indeed, was her Spartan calm in a defeat serious
in every way, and with the peculiar sting conferred by Miss Trevenna's
fame. Why was it that he would have warmed to her so infinitely more,
have felt quite a new depth of affection for her, if, rather, she had
turned to him helpless and wildly weeping, "Help me! Help me, friend, or
I perish!"
"And at least you'll get out much earlier in the afternoons," he was
observing courteously....
But his secret thought continued to engross him, this fantastic thought
of Mary weeping. Now he remembered Miss Angela's girlish outburst last
night, after the bridge-party; and he saw that there was something
subtly fitting, engaging on the whole, in a woman's weeping over her
troubles. But Mary, of course, could not weep; she simply didn't have
the plant, as you might put it. No--you could picture Mary asking you to
sit on the sofa and look at her ring, more easily than weeping.
And then, becoming aware of a teacher hovering about in the corridor
near the door,--a fellow named Hartwell it was, who had long seemed
rather attentive to Mary,--Charles Garrott rose to go, a mere polite
caller.
"Isn't it time you were knocking off?"
"I think I'd better clear up a little more of this, now that I'm at it."
"I wonder if I couldn't help you with some of that?"
"Oh, no, thank you." (Why, of course he couldn't help HER, even to tear
up old papers.) "Nobody could understand it but me. But
I've--appreciated your visit."
He wished her a good-afternoon. In a stately silence, he traversed the
spacious corridor, stalked down the handsome stairways. For the moment,
he could not get his thought back to the concrete; the sting of defeat
possessed him, the bitterness that is the portion of the friend of
women. And then, in this mood, shaking the dust of the High School from
his feet, he encountered, of all inopportune people under the sun, Miss
Flora Trevenna.
He came upon the unhappy girl standing in a corner of the outer
vestibule, beyond the great bronze doors; she stood alone, looking off
down the twilight street. Her head turned at the sound of Charles's
feet; recognition came hesitatingly into her glance, and she bowed,
smiling remotely in the absent or reserved way which seemed to be
characteristic of her. It was clearly on a second thought that she spoke
suddenly, in her fluty voice:--
"Oh!--could you tell me whether Miss Wing is still in the building?"
Pausing, his hat stiffly raised, the young man said that Miss Wing was.
"You'll find her in her office--on the third floor at the front, you
know."
"Thank you."
But, as he bowed and passed on, the Badwoman made no move to enter and
ascend. She stood as he had found her, waiting, aside: a solitary and
withdrawn figure, for the moment to the perceiving eye not untouched
with pathos.
But Charles, proceeding, could see in this figure only the witting cause
of all the trouble. He had spoken kindly enough to Miss Trevenna: now
suddenly all his accumulated and complex resentment seemed to gather and
pour out. Couldn't the woman leave Mary alone, even on this day? But
no--of course she couldn't! She who had claimed her Happiness over her
mother's heart would see nothing amiss in seeking to scramble back to
good repute by the same general route. It was her Higher Law to throw
her blight over all who might assist her: over her friend, Mary Wing, no
more than over her own young sisters, from whom (Judge Blenso said)
people were already silently dropping away, now that it was known that
the "free" Miss Flora came sometimes to the house.
_Free!..._ Was not here, indeed, that underside of "Freedom," that true
reverse of Taking My Happiness, which the New speakers never mentioned?
This girl conceived freedom just as a Developed Ego would conceive it,
as an order of things in which she should be "free," while everyone
else, going on as usual, sacrificed and denied to uphold her comfort and
support her illimitable selfishness. In her goings out and comings in,
she would take no thought but for her Self. And there she stood, no
leader of a new dawn, but a true enemy of the common good: a female
Anti-Social, a lawless Egoette, who maintained that the world was
ordered and the sun set in the heavens, that she only might indulge
herself where her whim led....
On the corner the young man halted, shook himself slightly, and glanced
up and down. A brief anxiousness crossed his face, followed by an air
of irresolution.
This street, Albemarle, was three blocks from Washington, and certainly
not a street that a pleasure-walker, like Miss Angela, would be likely
to pick out. Charles's legs seemed to thirst for exercise. But it was
clear to him that it would not do to run any superfluous risks;
especially just now, when it was all so fresh and new. Therefore, after
a moment of struggle, the authority once more set his face ingloriously
toward the street-cars.
And as he went he began to think again, more intently than he had
thought in all the thoughtful day. He had taken that challenge of Mary's
full in the face, as it were. She had said, as if in final summary of
their relations, that he was incapable of helping her. Very well; he had
a clear field now to show her, once and for all, whether or not that was
true.
That third plan of his (of which she should hear no inkling now till the
thing was done) was nothing less than to roll up such a body of Public
Opinion as would overwhelm the School Board--a body somewhat sensitive
to Opinion--forcing it to reverse itself. This could not be done in a
day, of course. To gather momentum enough to rouse the local papers
would mean to start far back. So Charles's mind had fastened at once on
his old idea of a thoroughgoing eulogistic "write-up" of Mary, to begin
with, in some national magazine of the highest standing. Only now his
soaring ambition was to "plant" three such write-ups at least--cunningly
differentiated in matter and manner, and signed with different names.
Nor did this seem by any means a dream. From the periodicals themselves,
he saw that there was a demand for just such "stuff" nowadays, just such
little smartly-written sketches of "people who were doing things." Mary
did things, without a doubt. And once he got the write-ups in
print,--even two write-ups, or one,--he had a powerful bludgeon to
swing at the local editors. "Look here," he would say to them, "why do
we have to go away from home to learn the news? Are you fellows going to
sit still and say nothing while some live city gets this woman for
Superintendent of Schools? Why don't you ..."
The imaginary exhortation ended there. Round the corner ahead of Charles
a man came swinging just then, rapidly drawing near. And all small
plottings were catapulted from the mind of Mary's friend as he looked
into the face of Mr. Mysinger.
The principal of the High School approached with a native swagger, on
much "shined" shoes. He was what is called a careful dresser; a heavily
built man, fair and not ill-looking. Ten steps away, his eye fell on
Charles, and, while his lips assumed a gracious smile, the eye in
question seemed to lighten with a flash of triumph. And the sight of
Miss Trevenna was nothing to that sight. All the blood in the young
man's body seemed suddenly to be pounding in his head.
"Well, Garrott! How goes it to-day?"
It had not occurred to him to "cut" Mysinger, but so the matter seemed
to be written in the stars. In silence, the passing author looked the
principal through and through. And his head grew hotter, and the pit of
his stomach icier, as he saw Mysinger's smile become fixed, saw it waver
doubtfully and die, saw open hostility slide into the hated eye. So Mary
Wing's conqueror and her unhelpful friend went by at half a foot.
"By George! I'll beat up that rascal yet for this!"
The unliterary words were ejected, it seemed, by a demon within. But no
sooner had they fallen on the ear of Charles than all the rest of him
leapt upon and seized them, as one recognizing a long-felt want, an
unconquerable need. And thus his writer's imagination was off upon yet
another plan, the last and the best.
Yes, that was what he wanted, needed now, more than anything else. He
would humiliate this swaggering Teuton past all endurance; he would go
and kick him till his weary legs refused the office; he would batter him
till his own wife passed him by for a stranger. Lord, what a plan! And
then, the moment he could leave the hospital, Mysinger would crawl
around to Olive Street, hat in hand. "Miss Wing, I'm petitioning the
Board to invite you back to the High School at once," he would say. "I
humbly beg you to come, and try to forgive me for my contemptible
conduct in the past. I don't know why I've always acted like such a
dirty dog" (Mysinger would say). "It's just my low, base nature, I
guess." And Mary, starting up in surprise (but, perhaps, already
half-suspecting the truth), would say: "But this is astounding, Mr.
Mysinger! How come you here, saying these things to me?" And that
insolent fellow, whiter than death, would mumble through swollen lips,
"It's Mr. Garrott's orders, miss."
_Then_ Mary would, perhaps, understand a little better whether or not a
_man_ could help her....
The author turned suddenly on the darkling street, moved by an instinct
to look after his retiring enemy. By an odd coincidence, Principal
Mysinger had been moved by an instinct to turn and look after him,
Charles. Both men turned hastily round again.
So Charles, halting on the corner for his car, shook himself once again,
reined in his imagination, and remembered that he was a modern and
civilized being. For the moment, the reminder seemed to accomplish
little. The blood continued to pound in the sedentary temples, redly.
Charles saw that the idea of primitive male combat, over a manly
woman's Career, was unmodern and grotesque. But the idea lingered all
the same.
* * * * *
He spent the evening upon the first of his write-ups, scenarios shut
fast in the drawer. This piece concerned Mary Wing the Educator, and the
intention was to have Mary's friend, Hartwell, read, sign, and father
it. Every precaution must be taken, of course, to give the whole thing a
spontaneous air, avoiding the appearance of a concerted boom. By
midnight, the first draft of the Educator write-up was finished, and,
wearied, the young man picked up the "Post," where he had had eyes but
for one story that morning.