"Been meaning to do it right along," she jerked out. "Couldn't pull it
off. To-night's my chance. Nothing to do. Fell down on my story.
Hurrah! Give you a Bohemian dinner. Show you life outside the
cloister. Purple pasts. Crimson presents. All the rest of it. Make
your hair curl and your eyes stick out. Come on!"
Her words gave me a thrill, on which I immediately put down the stern
brake of conscience. As a student of life I wanted to see and learn
all I could--especially as I intended to be a nun in three years and
would have no further chances. But was I justified in deliberately
turning aside to seek such knowledge, when in the broad path of my
daily duty I was already acquiring more than one person could
understand? Also, would it be right to accept Mollie Merk's
hospitality when I did not approve of her? I decided that it would
not; and I tried to think of some polite and gracious way of declining
her invitation, but the right words did not come. I had no social
engagements, for I was still a stranger in New York, and Mollie Merk
knew it; and I had not learned to tell lies with unstudied ease.
Finally an inspiration came to me. I could make an engagement and then
keep it. I thanked Miss Merk and told her I intended to dine with my
classmates Maudie Joyce and Kittie James. They had come to New York
the day before with Kittie's sister, Mrs. George Morgan; and as they
were only to stay a week, I felt that I must see all I could of them.
As a matter of fact, I had dined with them the previous night, but
that did not matter. I knew they would be glad to see me, even two
nights in succession.
Mollie Merk was interested as soon as I spoke of them. "Classmates?"
she yelped. "Two more convent kids?"
I admitted coldly that Maudie and Kittie had been graduated with me
from St. Catharine's the month before.
"All right," said Mollie Merk. "Have 'em with us. Great. More convent
kids the merrier. Invite their chaperon, too. I'll get Mrs. Hoppen.
Hen-party of six."
I hesitated. Mrs. George Morgan would hardly approve of Mollie Merk,
but she would find her a new type. Mrs. Morgan liked new types and
strange experiences, and had seen many of them, for her husband was a
wealthy Chicago man who wrote plays. Moreover, Mrs. Hoppen would be
with us, and Mrs. Morgan would surely like her. Mrs. Hoppen was the
city editor's star woman reporter, and very old--older even than
Mollie Merk, who was at least twenty-five. Mrs. Hoppen, I had heard,
was over thirty. She was rather bitter and blasé at times, but usually
she had charming manners. I told Miss Merk I would get Mrs. Morgan on
the telephone and ask if she and the girls could come, and within five
minutes I was in the _Searchlight's_ telephone-booth calling up her
hotel.
It was Maudie Joyce who answered, and she uttered a cry of joy when I
told her of Mollie Merk's invitation. She said Mrs. Morgan had gone to
bed with a sick-headache, and that she and Kittie James had been just
about sick, too, over the prospect of a whole evening shut up alone in
hotel rooms when so much Life was going to waste in the outer world.
Then she turned from the telephone and repeated Mollie's message. I
observed that she did not say anything about the dinner being Bohemian
and making our eyes stick out, though I had faithfully repeated our
hostess's words. Almost immediately her voice, breathless with joy,
came over the wire again, telling me that she and Kittie could dine
with us, and that Mrs. Morgan was very grateful to Miss Merk for
saving her young friends from a lonely evening.
The girls were waiting when we three reached the hotel, and my heart
swelled with pride as I introduced them. Mrs. Hoppen and Mollie Merk
and I were, of course, in our office clothes, as we had not gone home
to dress; but Kittie and Maudie were beautifully gowned for the
evening. They were both as charming as Helleu drawings, and in the
same exquisitely finished way; and their manners were so perfect that
I could almost hear Mollie Merk trying to climb up to them. By the
time the five of us had crowded into the taxi-cab, with the little
bustle and confusion the effort caused, everybody liked everybody
else. Maudie and Kittie were very proud of being with three newspaper
women, and showed it; and they were so fascinated by Mollie Merk that
they could not keep their eyes off her.
Of course, too, they were quivering with delight over the throngs, the
noise, the brilliant electric signs, the excitement on every side, and
the feeling that they were in the midst of it. Even I, though I had
been in New York for a whole month and was a reporter at that, felt an
occasional thrill. But as I leaned back and watched the faces of my
two friends, I realized that, though we three were about the same age,
in experience I was already a thousand years in advance of them. So
many things had happened in the past month--things we girls at St.
Catharine's had never heard of--things I could not even mention to
Kittie and Maudie. I felt that I had lost a great deal which they
still retained, and I expected a deep sadness to settle upon my soul.
But someway it did not.
The cab stopped at a restaurant ornamented by a huge electric sign,
and we got out and walked into a marble-lined vestibule. Mollie Merk
and Mrs. Hoppen led the way, and I followed them with an easy,
accustomed step. To dine at a great New York restaurant was just as
novel to me as it was to Maudie and Kittie, but they did not know
this, and I sincerely hoped they would not find it out.
A maid took our wraps in the anteroom, and sent us in single file
along a narrow hall to enter a huge room at the end of it, ablaze with
electric light, and full of smoke and music and little tables with
people sitting at them. All the tables were clustered close together
around the four sides of the room, leaving a big square space in the
center, roped off by a heavy red cord. It was empty, and I wondered
what it was for. Above there was a balcony with more tables and people
at them. There was laughter everywhere, some of it quite loud, and
many voices were speaking in many tongues. Above it all the band at
the head of the room poured forth gay music. I could hear Maudie and
Kittie draw quick breaths of delight, and my own feet hardly touched
the ground as we followed the head waiter to the table reserved for
us.
There were bottles and glasses on most of the tables, and even the
women were helping to empty them. But I knew that many good people
drink wine in moderation, so I was not greatly shocked. After all,
this was New York--Bohemia, a new world. We were in it, and I at least
was of it. The reflection sent a thrill down my spine--the kind that
goes all the way. I felt almost wicked, and strangely happy.
When we were seated at our table Mollie Merk asked if we would have
cocktails. She spoke with a very casual air, and we tried to decline
in the same manner, though I am sure that Maudie and Kittie felt their
hair rise then and there. Even my own scalp prickled. I explained in
an offhand way that we never drank anything but water, so Mollie Merk
ordered some Apollinaris for us, and two cocktails "with a dash of
absinthe in them" for Mrs. Hoppen and herself. For five minutes
afterward Kittie and Maudie and I did not speak. We were stunned by
the mere sound of that fatal word.
Mollie Merk seemed to understand our emotions, for she began to tell
us about her first experience with absinthe, years ago, in Paris, when
she drank a large gobletful as if it had been a glass of lemonade. She
said it was the amount a Frenchman would spend an entire afternoon
over, sipping it a few drops at a time at a little sidewalk table in
front of some cafe; but that she gulped it down in a few swallows, and
then had just enough intelligence left to get into a cab and tell the
_cocher_ to drive her around for three hours. She said she had
ordered the man to keep to the Boulevards, but that he had taken her
through the Milky Way and to the places where the morning stars sang
together, and that she had distinctly heard them sing. Afterward, she
added, she had traveled for centuries through space, visiting the most
important objects in the universe and admiring color effects, for
everything was pulsing with purple and gold and amethyst lights.
As a student of Life I admired the unerring instinct with which Mollie
Merk had chosen her subject when she started in to make our eyes stick
out. But if this was the beginning, what would be the end? At last
Maudie Joyce, who had always had the manner of a woman of the world,
even when she was a school-girl, pulled herself together and asked
smilingly if Miss Merk's cocktail had swept her into space this time.
Mollie Merk sighed and said, alas, no; those were the joys of
yesteryear, and that the most a cocktail could do for her at present
was to make her forget her depression after she had received a letter
from home. Then a calcium light blazed from above, making a brilliant
circle on the floor inside the red ropes. The musicians struck into
wild Oriental music, and two mulattoes came into the limelight and
began to dance.
They were a man and a woman, very young, and in evening dress. They
padded into the ring like two black panthers, the woman first,
circling slowly around in time to the music, which was soft and
rather monotonous, and the man revolving slowly after her. At first
she seemed not to see him, but to be dancing by herself, for the love
of it, and there was beauty in every movement she made. I forgot all
about the dinner, the people, my friends and my hostess, and leaned
forward, watching.
Suddenly she looked over her shoulder and discovered the man. She
quickened her steps a little, and the musicians played faster, while
she circled in and out, as if through the tangled growths of some
dense jungle. I could almost see it springing up around her and hear
the sound of animals moving near her--wild things like herself. She
was very sure of herself as she writhed and twisted, and she had
reason to be; for, however fast the man came toward her, she was
always a little in advance of him. The music swelled into a sudden
crash of sound as he gave a leap and caught her. But she dipped and
slipped out of his hands and whirled away again, sometimes crouching
close to the ground, sometimes revolving around him with a mocking
smile. Once, as he leaped, she bent and let him go over her; again he
caught her, but a second time she slipped away.
At last the violins sent forth only a queer, muted, barbaric hum,
broken by a crash of cymbals as the man made his final spring and
captured the woman, this time holding her fast. There was a delirious
whirl of sound and motion while he held her up and performed a kind
of jungle _pas seule_ before he carried her away. The music grew
slower and slower and finally stopped; but for an instant or two after
the dancers had disappeared it seemed to me that I could still see the
man bearing his burden steadily through strange tropical growths and
under trees whose poisonous branches caught at him as he passed.
I turned and looked at Maudie and Kittie. They were sitting very
still, with their eyes fixed on the spot where the dancers had been. I
knew what they were thinking, and they knew I knew; but when they
caught my glance they both began to speak at once, and eagerly, as if
to reassure me. Maudie said the woman's clothes were in excellent
taste, and Kittie murmured that such violent exercise must be very
reducing. Kittie is extremely plump, and she loves good food so much
that she is growing plumper all the time. In her interest in the dance
she had forgotten her dinner, and now the waiter was taking away a
portion of salmon with a delicious green sauce before she had eaten
even a mouthful of it. That agonizing sight immediately diverted
Kittie's mind, and I was glad.
Mollie Merk met my startled eyes and grinned. "Cheer up, Iverson!" she
exclaimed. "Worst's yet to come, you know."
I managed to smile back at her. This was Life, and we were seeing it,
but I began to feel that we had seen enough for an evening. I tried to
remind myself again that we were in Bohemia, but under the look in
Maudie's eyes I felt my face grow hot. It was I who had brought her
and Kittie here--I and my new friends. What would Sister Irmingarde
think of me if she knew?
I had little time for such mournful reflections. There was a stir on
the musicians' platform as all the players but one laid aside their
instruments and filed out through a side door. This one, the first
violin, came down on the floor and walked about among the diners,
stopping at different tables. Every time he stopped, I discovered, it
was to play to some particular woman who had caught his eye. He was
tall and good-looking in his gipsy costume, with a wide red sash
around his waist, a white-silk shirt open at the neck, short velvet
trousers, and a black-velvet coat. Under his dark mustache his teeth
looked very white as he smiled, and he smiled often, or sighed and
made eyes at the women as he played to them.
I glanced at Kittie and Maudie. They were watching the gipsy with
absorbed interest.
He must have caught Maudie's eye, for suddenly he crossed to our table
and began to play to her--turning occasionally to Kittie and me for a
second only, while his violin shrieked and moaned and sighed and sang
in a way that made our hearts turn over. I could see by their faces,
which were pink with excitement, and by their shining eyes, what
emotions the moment held for my young friends, and certainly it was
thrilling enough for three girls just out of school to have a genius
playing to them alone in one of the gayest restaurants in New York.
For a few moments I was delighted with the gipsy and his music. Then I
began to notice the way he looked at us, alternately half-closing and
slowly opening his eyes as he put his soul into his music. He seemed
to be immensely interested in Maudie, and played to her much longer
than he did to any one else. Several times he came so close to her
that I was afraid he would touch her.
The other musicians had returned by this time, and were playing an
accompaniment to the violinist, who had swung into a Brahms waltz.
When he had finished the first movement he stopped playing, tucked his
violin under his arm, and held out his hand to Maudie, with his most
brilliant smile. She turned first red, then white, and shrank away
from him in her chair, while instinctively I, too, threw out my hands
to ward him off. He turned to me and took them at once, holding them
tight and trying to pull me to my feet. My heart stopped beating as I
resisted his drag on my wrists, and I looked at Mollie Merk and Mrs.
Hoppen, expecting them to spring up and interfere. But for a moment
they both sat regarding the scene as indifferently as if they were at
a play.
At last Mrs. Hoppen shook her head at the musician with her bored
little smile, and he bowed and shrugged his shoulders and went off to
a table some distance away, where he began to play to another woman.
Mollie Merk leaned toward me. "Say, Iverson," she exclaimed, in a tone
that must have reached the diners in the balcony, "what's up? You're
as white as your copy-paper. Which is it--indigestion or cold feet?"
Her words pulled me together. It was natural that I should look pale,
for by this time I was frightened--not for myself, but for Kittie and
Maudie. They, I could see, though embarrassed and ill at ease, were
not yet frightened. I knew why. _I_ was there, and they trusted me.
They were sure that nothing could harm them while I was with them. I
set my teeth in the determination that nothing should.
More entertainers came into the space shut off by the red cords. Every
moment the room grew closer and hotter, the smoke around us became
thicker, the atmosphere of excitement increased. The faces of Kittie
and Maudie began to float before me in a kind of mist. I decided that
if I ever got them out into a clean world again I would have nothing
left to pray for. But I knew I could not wipe the evening and its
incidents from their memories, and that knowledge was the hardest
thing I had to bear.
In desperation I turned from the dancers and began to watch the
diners. The way these accepted the dancing and the actions of the
gipsy had shown me at once what they were, and now they were becoming
gayer every minute and more noisy. Some of them got up occasionally
and whirled about together on the dancing-floor. Many sang
accompaniments to the violins. These men and women were moths, I
reflected, whirling about a lurid flame of life. There were dozens of
young girls in the room--many without chaperons.
Directly opposite me two persons--a man, and a girl in a white
dress--sat at a table alone, absorbed in each other. At first I
glanced at them only occasionally and idly, then with growing interest
and at last with horror, for I began to understand. The girl had a
sweet, good face, but a brief study of the man showed me what he was.
He was short and stout, with a bald head and a round, pleasure-loving
face. It was not so much his appearance, however, as the way he
watched the girl which betrayed him to me. He hardly took his eyes
from her face. Whatever was going on in the dancing-place, he looked
at her; and she, leaning a little forward in her chair, listened to
him as he talked, and swayed toward him. I saw him tap her hand, which
lay on the table, with his fat forefinger. The sight revolted me, but
she did not draw her hand away.
As I watched her I thought of all the dreadful things I had heard and
read and seen since I had been in New York, and wondered if the time
would ever come when I would be old enough and wise enough to rise
and go to a girl in such a situation and ask her if she needed help.
It seemed impossible that women experienced enough to do this with
dignity and courage should sit around to-night, all unheeding, and let
such things go on. Then looking at them again, table by table, I read
the answer. They were themselves the lost and strayed--callous,
indifferent, with faces and hearts hardened by the lives they had led.
I began to feel sick and faint, and for a moment I closed my eyes.
When I opened them, coming toward us slowly through the crowd was
Godfrey Morris, the assistant of Nestor Hurd, my chief on the
_Searchlight_. It was plain that he had just entered, for he was
looking around in search of a table. I shall never forget the feeling
that came over me when I recognized him. Now that he was there, I felt
absolutely safe. I had almost a vision of him picking up Maudie and
Kittie and me and taking us bodily away, and the relief and gratitude
I felt showed me how great my inward panic had been. I kept my eyes on
him, hoping he would turn and see me, but he was looking in another
direction. Still, he was drawing nearer, and I sat tight and waited in
silence, though I wanted to call out to him above the uproar around
us.
It did not surprise me to see the girl in white put out her hand as he
passed her table and touch him on the arm. He stopped at once, looking
a little surprised, and then stood for a moment beside her and the
stout man, talking quietly to them both. I waited breathlessly. Now
he was speaking to the man alone, probably urging him to leave the
place. And then--I heard a sound as unexpected in that place as an
altar-bell. Mr. Morris had thrown back his head and laughed, and as he
laughed he smote the stout man heavily on the shoulder and dropped
into a chair beside him. The stout man filled a glass. I saw Mr.
Morris lift it, bow to the girl in white, and drink its contents.
I lived a long, long time during the next minute. I cannot describe my
emotions. I only knew that in that instant life seemed unbearable and
New York became a city I could not remain in any longer. Surely
nothing could be right in a place where even Godfrey Morris came to
resorts like this, not as a knight to the rescue of helplessness, but
as a familiar patron, who was there because he enjoyed it and found
congenial friends.
It was impossible to take my eyes from the horrible group at that
table. I kept on staring, and, as if he felt my gaze, Mr. Morris
turned around and saw me. The next instant he was on his feet, and a
second after that he was shaking hands with Mrs. Hoppen and Mollie
Merk and me. Evidently, he was neither surprised to find us there nor
ashamed to be found there himself. When he was presented to Kittie and
Maudie his manner was exactly as it might have been if he were meeting
them at an afternoon tea, and he settled down comfortably into the
sixth place at our table, which Mrs. Morgan had been invited to fill,
and chatted as if he had known the girls all his life.
I have no idea what he said. It did not matter. After the first few
moments Maudie and Kittie were able to talk to him. I heard their
voices, but not their words. I sat with my eyes on the table-cloth and
my cheeks burning. I wanted to get away that minute. I wanted to go to
my home, out West. Most of all, I wanted to return to the convent and
never, never leave it.
The gipsy was playing among the tables again, and now he was quite
near us. But I had reached the point where I was not even interested
when he turned, caught sight of our new companion, and crossed quickly
to our table, his hand outstretched to Mr. Morris, his face shining
like an electric globe when the light has been turned on inside of it.
Mr. Morris greeted him like a long-lost brother. "Hello, Fritz!" he
exclaimed, taking his hand in a most friendly grasp. "Business good?
How are the kids?"
The gipsy revealed the widest smile of the evening as he answered.
"_Ach_, Herr Morris," he cried, in a guttural German voice that simply
dripped affection, "you remember dose kids? T'ree we had--_aber_ now,
_now_ we got anoder one--since Tuesday!"
"Good!" cried Mr. Morris, looking around as if he expected us all to
share his joy over the glad tidings. "Girl or boy?"
"Girl," the gipsy player told him. "T'ree boys we had. Now we haf
girl for change. We t'ink, my wife and I, we make her noospaper woman.
Goot idea, _nicht wahr_?"
He laughed, and Mr. Morris laughed with him. "Fine," he declared.
"Send her down to the _Searchlight_ office in a week or two. We'll
give her Miss Merk's job."
Everybody laughed again, Mollie Merk, of course, loudest of all. The
musician bade us good night, beginning to play again at the tables. I
had forgotten about Kittie and Maudie, but now I knew they had been
listening, too, for I heard Kittie speak.
"Why, that gipsy isn't a gipsy at all, is he?" she gasped.
"No more than I am," Mollie Merk told her. "Wears the rig because it
pays--pleases romantic girls." She grinned at us, while Mrs. Hoppen
leaned forward.
"I'm afraid you hurt his feelings," she told Maudie and me, "by
refusing his invitation to dance a little while ago. That was the
greatest compliment he could pay you, you know."
Mr. Morris looked amused. "Did he invite them to dance?" he inquired,
with interest. "Good old Fritz. He doesn't often do that, this
season."
Maudie and I exchanged a long glance. "I thought--" Maudie began, and
then stopped. I was glad she said no more. I looked again at the
gipsy, and, as if something had been stripped from my eyes, I saw him
as he was--no reckless and desperate adventurer, but a matter-of-fact
German, his silk shirt rather grimy, his black hair oily, his absurd
red sash and shabby velvet coat rebukes to the imagination that had
pictured a wild gipsy heart beating under them.
Mr. Morris was smiling at the girl in white. Now he turned to me and
nodded toward her. "That's Miss Hastings and George Brook," he said.
"Have you met them yet?" I was able to shake my head. "Well, it's high
time you did," were his next words. "I'll bring them over."
He rose, but I caught his arm and gasped out something that stopped
him. I don't remember what I said, but I succeeded in making him
understand that I did not want that particular man to meet my friends.
Mr. Morris stared at me hard for a moment. Then he sat down again and
looked me straight in the eyes.
"Miss Iverson," he said, quietly, "what have you against Brook? He's
the foreign editor of the _Searchlight_, and one of the best fellows
alive."