"The girl he's with," Morris went on, "is Marion Hastings--Mrs.
Cartwell's social secretary. She and Brook are going to be married
next week."
He waited for me to reply. I muttered something about not wanting my
friends to meet any one in this place. That was all I said. My
self-control, my poise, had deserted me, but perhaps my burning face
was more eloquent than my tongue. Mr. Morris looked from me to
Maudie, and then at Kittie, and finally back at me.
"I see," he said at last, very slowly. "You three actually think you
are in a den of iniquity!"
He turned to Mollie Merk and addressed her as crisply and with as much
authority as if they were in the _Searchlight_ office.
"How did you come to give Miss Iverson that impression?" he demanded.
Mollie Merk looked guilty. "Didn't realize she had it till within the
last half-hour," she muttered.
"I see," said Morris again, in the same tone. "And then it was such
fun for you that you let it go on!"
For a moment Miss Merk seemed inclined to sulk. Then she threw herself
back in her chair and laughed. "Oh, well," she admitted, "'twas fun.
Know what started her. Said something about showing her Life--making
her eyes stick out. Adding her friends to the party changed the
program. Brought 'em here instead. Seeing us drink cocktails started
her panic. Harlem tango did the rest. Her imagination got busy."
I listened to her as one listens to a strange tongue in which one
hears an occasional familiar word. She turned to me. "What that dance
represents," she said, "is a suburbanite catching a cook. Least,
that's what the inventor says."
"It's very graceful. My nieces dance it charmingly," Mrs. Hoppen
added, mildly.
Mr. Morris smiled, but not as if he really wanted to. Then he turned
to me. There was a beautiful, understanding look in his gray eyes.
"Do you realize what has happened, Miss Iverson?" he asked. "You've
been having a bad dream. You expected something lurid, so you have
seen something lurid in everything you have looked at to-night. In
reality you are in one of the most eminently correct restaurants in
New York. Of course it has its _cabaret_--most of them have, this
season--but it's an extremely well-conducted and conservative one,
with no objectionable features whatever. Now look around you and try
to see things as they are."
He made a gesture with his hand, and I followed it slowly around the
room. At most of the tables ordinary-looking couples sat contentedly
munching food. A German woman near us was telling a friend how she
cooked _Wiener Schnitzel_. A tired-looking girl was doing an acrobatic
dance in the ring, but it was not vulgar. It was merely foolish and
dull. Three men on our left were arguing over some business question
and adding up penciled columns on the table-cloth. Our wild-hearted
gipsy, Fritz, was having a glass of beer with some friends off in a
corner. The musicians were playing "The Rosary," and several fat women
were lost in mournful memories. Not far away a waiter dropped a tray
and broke some glasses, and the head waiter hastened to him and swore
under his breath. That was the only lurid thing in the room, and it
was mild indeed to ears familiar with the daily conversation of Mr.
Hurd and Colonel Cartwell. Everything else suddenly, unmistakably, was
simple, cheerful, entirely proper, and rather commonplace.
"So much for the restaurant," remarked Mr. Morris, smiling as if he
had observed my change of expression. "Now for the people. That's the
editor of the _Argus_ over there"--he pointed to a thin, blond
man--"with his daughters. At the table next to them is Miss Blinn, the
artist. The stout old lady who is eating too much is her mother. The
chap with the white hair is the leading editorial-writer of the
_Modern Review_, and the lady opposite is his sister. Almost every one
prominent in New York drops into this place at one time or another.
Many worthy citizens come regularly. It's quite the thing, though
dull!"
"I know," I stammered. "I know." I did know, but I was humiliated to
the soul. "Please don't say any more."
It is true that I form impressions quickly. It is also true that I can
change them just as quickly when I am shown that I am wrong. Mr.
Morris looked at my face, from which the blood now seemed to be
bursting, and took pity on me.
"All I want," he ended, "is to make you realize that you're visiting a
legitimate place of amusement and that the performers are honest,
hard-working people, though I think myself they're going a bit stale."
"Been doing the same thing too long," corroborated Mollie Merk.
"Garroti ought to change his program. Just the same," she added,
cheerfully, as she called the waiter and paid the bill, "they give you
the best _table d'hôte_ dinner in town. If you hadn't been too scared
to eat, Iverson, you'd have realized that much, anyway!"
At this, Kittie James broke into the conversation. Here was something
Kittie understood, though, like myself, she had been somewhat mixed as
to the place and the performers. Kittie told Mollie Merk with
impassioned earnestness that the dinner was one of the best she had
ever eaten, and that she would never forget the flavor of the
artichoke hearts with the mushrooms on them. Mollie Merk seemed
pleased and patted Kittie's hand.
"You see," she went on, addressing the others as if I were not there,
"Iverson's had a pretty hard time since she struck this town. It's
jolted her sense of values. Thought everything was white. Had some
unpleasant experiences. Decided everything was black. Been seeing
black to-night. Take another month or two," she added, kindly, turning
to me, "to discover most things are merely gray."
Those were her words. It was a moment of agony for me. I had now gone
down into the abyss of humiliation and struck the bottom hard. Mr.
Morris spoke to me, though at first I did not hear him.
"Don't forget one thing, Miss Iverson," he said, gently. "An
imagination like yours is the greatest asset a writer can have.
You'll appreciate it when you begin work on your novels and plays in a
year or two."
I felt a little better. I could see that Maudie and Kittie were
impressed.
We drifted out into the street, toward a row of waiting taxi-cabs.
There Mrs. Hoppen and Mollie Merk bade us good night, and Mr. Morris
put Maudie and Kittie and me into a taxi-cab and got in after us. His
manner was beautiful--serious, sympathetic, and deeply respectful. On
the way to the hotel he told them what good work I was doing, and
about the "model story" I had written two weeks before. I was glad he
spoke of those things. I was afraid they had discovered that, after
all, there were still many lessons in life I had not learned.
After I had gone up to my room I went to one of the windows facing
Madison Square and looked out. It was not late--hardly eleven o'clock,
and the big city below was wide awake and hard at play. Many sad and
terrible things were happening in it, but I knew that many kind and
beautiful things were happening, too. I felt sure that hereafter I
would always be able to tell them apart.
Later, when I closed my eyes, all sorts of pictures crowded upon me. I
saw the mulatto dancer pursuing the Harlem cook. I heard again Fritz's
wild gipsy music and saw him wandering among the tables. I saw the
stout man and the girl in white, and felt my face burn as I recalled
what I had thought of them. But the thing I saw most clearly, the
thing that followed me into the land of dreams and drifted about there
till morning, was the face of Godfrey Morris, with a look of sympathy
and understanding in his gray eyes.
V