Jane's emotions, as she turned her attention to Isabelle, were
compounded of amusement and sympathy for Jerry. She sensed how he, of
all men, would hate being made ridiculous. She was destined to hear the
whole story before she went to sleep, for Isabelle's pent passion had
reached a climax where a confidante was a necessity.
She described the yachting party most cleverly. She enlarged on Mrs.
Brendon's attempts to isolate Althea and Jerry, with her own
introduction into the picture. She described her growing love for the
hero, her determination to join him when he came north. She even
admitted that she had wired the head mistress of the school not to meet
them, because she thought that Jerry would then have to marry her to
"protect her good name."
Jane struggled not to laugh; it was so poignant to the girl, and so
absurd to her. She tried to soothe her, to change the subject, but in
vain.
"Do you think he will marry me?" she demanded.
"I doubt it."
"Don't you think he loves me?"
"I'm afraid you're too young for this kind of thing."
"I'm not young. I'm nearly seventeen, and lots of girls love and marry
before that."
"Lots of other women are in love with Mr. Paxton, too," said Jane.
"You just say that to scare me!" cried Isabelle, and followed it up with
much weeping.
Poor Jane endured a bad night, but as is the way with afflictions, it
was finally over. Jerry arrived at nine, full of thanks to her, and
carried the _enfant terrible_ off to her school.
Jane hurried home, for this was to be a momentous day to her. Martin
Christiansen had written that he was coming to see her at three o'clock
in the afternoon, to talk over her work.
"Let me come to you in your own quarters, where you write and live, will
you, my friend?" he had written her.
She had sent for him to come, and this was the day. She was not ashamed
of the little room in the tenement house, where she had spent so many
hours. She looked about it as she let herself in, trying to see it with
his eyes--eyes used to beauty and comfort.
It was a square room, on the corner with two windows, west and south,
hung with white curtains. It was small, but not cramped. The walls were
calcimined white. The bed and dresser were white, as were the few
chairs. A table, by one window, had on it a student lamp and neat piles
of manuscript, while a dozen books were supported by book ends, against
the wall. The rug was inexpensive, but dull in colour. It was
scrupulously clean, and its bareness suggested deliberate asceticism
rather than poverty.
"We aren't ashamed of it, Milly," she said to the cat. "It certainly is
not beautiful, but it's clean, and sort of self-respecting, and those
are the virtues of our class. He will understand that. I do hope you
will like him, Milly," she added.
She hurried with her luncheon, gave Milly a bath, made a careful toilet
herself. The same dark dress to be sure, but little fine collars and
cuffs were added, to take away its austerity. She let her hair coil
itself loosely instead of screwing it back as she usually did. She made
these preparations, not at the dictation of vanity, for she was
singularly free from it, but from an instinct to make herself fit for
what she felt to be a crisis in her life. Whether Martin Christiansen
said good or bad really did not matter so much as the fact that she had
come to this point of testing--this day of judgment.
While she waited for his coming she let her mind return to Jerry and his
latest difficulty. She laughed aloud at the memory of the girl's
passionate absurdity. She thought back to her own first romance, a mad
infatuation for the little town beau, to whom she never spoke. Yet how
he had filled her dreams, how she had planned her marriage to him, under
romantic circumstances, just as Isabelle had planned hers with Jerry.
Artist-like, she appraised this self-revelation of youth, in its
pitiful, lovable folly, and made it her own. As for poor Jerry, he was
evidently doomed to stumble from one love affair to another, until death
withered his charms. Too much love; too little love; so life goes
grinding on, like an endless film of the sated and the hungry.
Milly jumped into her lap, purring.
"Milly, you're one of the Jerrys; you get nothing but affection. Is it
because you demand it, or just because you are beautiful and people give
it to you?"
She heard voices on the stairs, and opened the door wide, the big cat in
her arms. Billy Biggs came first.
"Gen'l'mum to see yu, Miss Judd," he announced.
"Thank you, Billy. Welcome," she added simply to her guest. He took her
hand in his cordial clasp, and looked his pleasure. He gave Billy a
small tribute.
"You're a most excellent guide, my son," he remarked.
"I seen right away he didn't know this neighbourhood, Miss Judd, so I
sez to him: 'What ye lookin' fer?'"
"Thank you much, Billy," she smiled, closing the door on his monologue.
"Is this your family?" he asked, laying his hand on Milly's head.
"Yes. Her name is Militant, but we call her Milly, as a sort of tactful
evasion. Protects her with the neighbours, who are, on the whole,
conservatives."
He smiled, laid his coat aside, and turned to look at her closely. She
met his glance, flushing slightly.
"I have to get used to you at home."
He looked about him frankly.
"Yes, this is you--virginal, cloistered. Where did you get that Salome?"
he inquired.
"I don't know. I understand Salome."
She sat by the window, where the afternoon sun came in, the big cat
asleep in her lap. He drew a chair near her.
"I'm enormously curious about you. Where did you come from? Who were
your people? How did you get here?"
"It isn't a bit interesting. I was born in a little town named
Warburton, in New Jersey. My father was John Judd. He had a grocery
store and was a leading citizen. My mother was an actress."
"Ah!" said Christiansen.
"The company she was with went broke in our town, and she stayed on as
cashier in Judd's store. He married her and I was the only child. She
died when I was twenty; my father followed when I was twenty-two. I sold
the grocery, paid the debts, and came to New York to be an author."
She paused and turned her slow, rare smile on him. She had the ability
to sit perfectly still, her hands quiet in her lap. Christiansen marked
the trait; valued it.
"What made you want to write?"
"I had always been a reader. I read everything in the Warburton Public
Library, I think. When I was in High School I wrote some stories which
the local editor published, under an assumed name. My mother thought I
had great talent, and I was tempted to agree with her," she smiled.
"How long did your funds last, in New York?"
"Not long. I did not have much in the first place. I realized before the
money was gone that I must take any job I could find. I was not prepared
to do anything."
"Same old story. How did you get work in the studios?"
"Answered Mr. Paxton's advertisement. I've been there ever since. I
didn't care what I did, just so I made a living. My real life is here,
with my true work."
"Just what do you do in the studios?"
"Anything--everything. Mend their clothes, clean palettes, sweep the
studios, make curtains, look after them when they're sick, cook for them
when they're busy."
"No wonder you know them so well."
It was his first reference to her work. She waited breathlessly, but he
returned to her past again.
"Were you never tempted to take up your mother's profession?"
"No. You see, I had always been told how hard that life was, and I
suppose I rather shared my father's belief that it wasn't respectable.
Warburton found my mother its most interesting citizen, while it
disapproved of her entirely. She was just a simple, frail woman, but to
Warburton she was a brand plucked from the burning, and her past was
never to be forgotten."
"Was your father in love with her, or was it the romance of her
profession which attracted him?"
"Father was very religious. I think he married her to save her soul. He
was as kind to her as he knew how to be, but he never understood her."
"And you?"
"I loved her and took care of her. She was my child from the time I was
a baby. I acted as interpreter to my father, whom I understood, too, in
a way. He was a dour, silent man, but just."
"I get the picture of both of them," he nodded.
"Can I write?" she demanded bluntly.
"How long have you been working at that desk?"
"Five years."
She drew a big packing box from under the bed. It was full of
manuscripts. He looked at it with deep interest.
"You've told nobody, offered nothing for sale in those years?"
"Not since my first editor, who gave me such good advice."
"It is incredible."
"Is the time wasted?" she asked.
"No. Work is never wasted, and of course you are destined to write."
"Am I?" she cried. The quality in her voice, of rapture and strain, made
him look at her.
"My child, how you care!" he said, laying his hand on hers.
She nodded, with wet eyes.
"I have been profoundly interested in the things you gave me to read. I
want more, much more. There are certain undoubted qualities--an
astonishing vocabulary, a fine sense of words. You are a _gourmet_ for
choice words, rich words, words fat with meaning. You've a pretty good
sense of form. I can fairly analyze your literary diet. 'Ha, now she's
devouring Moliere,' I would say to myself, or, 'she's overeating the
Russians.'"
Jane laughed happily.
"As a specialist, I must say that you are overfed and undernourished.
You read too much and live too little. You look out on life from this
white cell. Do you see what I mean?"
"Yes, yes; but what can I do?"
"We must do something. The true artist speaks for the age in which he
lives. There is no room for the ascetic point of view in our world
to-day--this is a world of the senses. Like it or not, it's true. We
measure all pleasure, all experience, by their aesthetic or emotional
value. We go back to the very sources of art to find a fiercer reaction.
We have Piccabia, Matisse crudity gone stark; we have dissonance in
harmony--DeBussey and Strauss; the Russians with their barbaric dances.
We have the Irish renaissance in drama, going back to the peasant for
primitive emotions. We have the bloodiest war in all times; we are
primitive savages in our greed for lust and power, just as we are
supermen in devising ways of exquisite, torturing death for our enemies.
We are the age of the senses, my friend; we brook no denial of the flesh
and its appetites."
"I understand what you mean; I know it to be true; but how can I have a
part in life, when perforce, I am just an onlooker?" she asked
earnestly.
"We will find a way. We must open the door of the nunnery, and lead
Sister Jane into the world of deeds, of fight and lose, heartache and
some rare joys. Do you want to come, Sister Jane?"
She turned her head and looked into space beyond her window before she
answered.
"I shall miss the sanctuary, the quiet, and my holy saints," she said,
her hand sweeping the books, "but I want to come out; for a long time,
Mr. Christiansen, I've wanted so to come out."
"Good. We will begin with your worldly education to-night, dear saint.
We'll go to Polly's for dinner, and thence to a meeting at Cooper Union,
where I am to speak. Will you come?"
"Oh, yes," she cried excitedly. "It is so wonderful to have a friend and
go off for dinner and talk. You're the first friend I've ever had," she
added shyly.
"That's a responsibility," he answered, "but I like it. I must set you a
high standard."
"You have. I wish I could give you something to make you happy, in
exchange."
"I am a _gourmet_ of people, as you are of words, Jane Judd. You give me
a rare treat, a new flavour. Come, get your hat, child, and let's be
about your living!"