SELFISHNESS,” says that wise and happy and altogether radiant person,
Gloria Greene, “comes from lack of vitality. Most people haven’t enough
capital stock of vigor to live on comfortably. So you can’t expect them
to loan or give away any in the form of thoughtfulness for any one
else. They’re paupers, poor things! The bankruptest person I ever knew
had eighty thousand a year, and nothing else.”
Adroitly and by indirection the proponent of this doctrine had been
suggesting it to Darcy Cole, and that adaptable pupil had unconsciously
absorbed much of it. The new character that she had built up out of
discipline and abstinence as the weeks grew into months, the
solidifying confidence in herself, the burgeoning of vigor, and the
subtle development of that wondrous and mysterious quality which we
term personality and which is the touchstone between our inner and
outer worlds, had combined to open and broaden Darcy’s life. Andy Dunne
had long ago begun to take certain of his professional problems to her
and profit by her shrewd helpfulness. More than once she had, of her
own initiative, laid hold on some shrinking, draggled, disheartened
neophyte, such as she herself had been, who through mere helplessness
had reduced Andy to wrathful despair, and, by a forced loan of will
power and buoyancy, pulled her through the shallows to fair going
again. On one occasion she had gone to police court with Andy on behalf
of a girl who was “going wrong,” the sister of one Gillig, a promising
young pugilist under Andy’s guidance; where she had so impressed the
magistrate that (seeing her with Andy, whom he knew) he asked if she
was a trainer, and hinted that he would be glad of her help on some of
the border-line cases which reach our lower courts in a status of
suspended balance, and are either hauled back to safety or plunged into
the chasm of the underworld, according as they are handled with or
without tact and sympathy. After that visit, Darcy took to dropping in
at the court twice a week or so to act as unofficial counselor where
the judge mistrusted the mechanical rigidity of official intervention.
It gave her a fresh zest in life to find herself of some practical use
to others. As to the extra work, she took that upon her supple
shoulders without a quiver. Body and soul, Darcy had grown as fresh and
vigorous as ripening fruit and as sturdy as the tree that bears it.
Satisfying as was the compliment paid her by the magistrate, she had a
better one from Andy not long after. At the conclusion of one of their
five-minute boxing bouts, in the course of which she had landed once
with force and precision below the professional’s properly
cauliflowered ear, he said to her, with a somewhat hesitant air:
“Say, Miss Darcy; are yah rich?”
“I certainly am not.”
“But—excuse _me_ if I’m too nosey—yah got money, ain’t yah?”
“Only what I earn.”
“Earn? D’ yah work?”
“Of course. I’m the original Honest Working Girl you read about, Andy.”
“Pretty good job?”
“Fairly.”
“Yah wouldn’t wanta quit it, I guess,” surmised the trainer.
“For what?” asked the Wondering Darcy.
“Yah see,” explained Andy, nonchalantly juggling a medicine-ball the
while, “since the tight skirt come in I’m getting a lot of ladies to
train down to their skirts. More’n I can really handle right. Now, I
kinda thought if you’d come in as assistant—well, yah can name yahr own
terms, Miss Darcy.”
The girl looked at him with bright and affectionate eyes. “Andy, you’re
a dear. That’s the nicest thing that ever happened to me.”
“It ain’t a proposition I’d make to everybody, I can tell yah,” averred
the professional. “In fact, I dunno as there’s any one else I’d make it
to but you. Except Miss Greene,” he added loyally.
“I’m awfully sorry, Andy. But I couldn’t very well drop my other work.”
“No?” sighed Andy. “Well, I s’pose not. Well,” he added, palliating the
blow to his hopes, “yah’ll be gettin’ married one of these days, and
then it’d be all off, anyhow.”
“Married!” laughed his pupil. “Who’d marry a plain little stick like me
in a city full of pretty girls?”
“Go-wan!” retorted the other. Regarding her candid face, he perceived
that this was no bluff. “Go-wan!” he repeated fervidly. “Get onto
yahrself. Ain’t yah got a _mirrah_ in the house?”
“Oh, that’s just because you like me, Andy,” she returned.
Nevertheless she thrilled to the rough compliment. Holcomb Lee, with
his artistic sense, and now this expert of flesh and blood! Was her
dream really coming true already?
That very afternoon it was shattered.
The Fifth Avenue bus went sliding, slewing, and curving along the wet
pavement. Within sat a moist and bedraggled but cheerful Darcy,
returning from a highly encouraging consultation with Mr. B. Riegel and
the head of his color-room called in to meet the firm’s most promising
contributor of designs. Another advance in her rates had been
foreshadowed; so what did Darcy care, though forgotten umbrella and
overshoes had exposed her to a violent shower, now clearing? Her
Central Park jaunts had hardened her to a point where she disregarded
weather with contemptuous indifference. So now, instead of being
huddled in her seat, contemplative of her own discomfort, she sat alert
and interestedly watchful of the outside world that went sliding past
her window. At the corner of Fifteenth Street the bus skidded to a stop
at the signal of a frail, poorly dressed young woman who staggered out
from the curb, lugging a large suitcase in both hands. She tried to
lift it to the step and failed.
Now, it was nobody’s business how the chance fare got on the bus, or,
indeed, whether she got on at all or was left standing on the asphalt,
except the conductor’s and he was busy upstairs. Certainly it was no
affair of Darcy’s; and the old Darcy would have taken that view in the
improbable event of her having noticed the overweighted woman at all.
The new Darcy was up instinctively and out like a flash. She grabbed
the case and got a surprise. It weighed at least sixty pounds. Darcy
had the basis for a fairly accurate estimate, as she had been recently
occupying herself with a sixty-pound dumb-bell. Thanks to a persuasive
quality of muscle which this exercise had imparted to her, she whisked
the ponderous thing to the platform, and bore it victoriously inside.
The woman followed, panting out her gratitude. As Darcy was setting her
burden down, the bus gave an unexpected lurch and one end of the case
landed upon a slightly projecting shoe. The owner of the shoe gave
utterance to a startled and pained interjection.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” apologized Darcy, shifting the offending bag.
The injured one turned upon her a smile as unruffled and good-humored
as if his main enjoyment in life was having heavy things dropped on his
feet. But there was no recognition in the smile nor in the brief glance
which accompanied it. Yet the smiler was Mr. Jacob Remsen.
“Entirely my fault,” said he. “Teach me to keep my feet out of the
aisle.” Darcy murmured something muffled and incoherent.
“Let me stow that for you,” offered Remsen, and, finding a spot for it
beneath the steps, deposited it there, bowed in response to the thanks
of the two women, and resumed his seat. The newcomer slipped in beside
Darcy.
“You work, don’t you?” asked she, timidly.
“Yes. What makes you think so?”
“Because you’re so kind. And you’re awful strong.”
“That suitcase is much too heavy for you. You’ll injure yourself with
it,” said Darcy, who was no larger than the other, severely.
“Metal advertising cuts,” explained the other. “I only have to carry it
twice a week.”
“Where to?”
“Thirtieth over beyond Third Av’nyeh.”
“But that’s a terribly long way to carry that weight.”
The woman sighed. “Yes, I know. It’s nearer by the Fourth Av’nyeh line,
but I go this way because the bus conductors are so decent about
helpin’ you on and off,” said she, paying a merited compliment to the
most courteous and serviceable of New York’s transportation employees.
“It’s worth the extra nickel.”
“I’ll get off with you and give you a lift.” Different arrangements,
however, were in process. Nearing the corner of the prospective
debarkation Mr. Jacob Remsen arose, walked to the door, and vigorously
yanked the corpulent valise from its nook.
“I beg your pardon,” said he, dividing his impersonal and courteous
regard between the two occupants of the seat, “but I overheard your
conversation. It just happens that I’m bound for Third Avenue, myself.
So, if you will permit me—”
Darcy’s companion, abashed by the elegance of this obvious “swell,”
wriggled and fluttered and protested. Mr. Remsen paid no heed.
“Here we are,” he announced cheerily, stepping to the pavement. “Watch
your step.” Thus overruled, the woman followed. The assumer of burdens
not his own attained the sidewalk and all but dislocated his neck by
the jerk with which he turned it, as a voice from the departing bus
said clearly, and, as he thought, a shade maliciously:
“Thank you, Mr. Remsen.”
The malice was there. It was a reflex of Miss Darcy Cole’s resentment
in that, apart from any question of recognition, Mr. Jacob Remsen had
failed to see, in one casual glance at her face, anything which
impelled him to bestow a second glance. Genuine though they had been,
the testimonials of Messrs. Andy Dunne and Holcomb Lee were thereby
attainted and brought to naught.
No one, to hear Miss Cole’s lightsome subsequent report of the
occurrence for the benefit of Gloria Greene, would have dreamed that it
had left a sting.
“Now, what,” concluded the narrator of the episode, “do you suppose the
magnificent Mr. Remsen was doing in a scrubby Third Avenue locality?”
“Precisely what you were going to do,” opined Gloria. “Helping some one
who needed his help.”
“You mean that that combination of Adonis and Ananias had no real
business of his own there at all?”
“I can’t conceive what it would be.”
Darcy opened wide and luminous eyes. “Then it was just to be a good
fellow?”
“Probably. You wouldn’t think it of Jack Remsen, would you?”
“I don’t know that I wouldn’t. Why not?”
“Oh, he gives the impression to those who don’t know him of being so
particular about himself and so indifferent about all the rest of the
world that isn’t a Remsen,” said Gloria.
“D’you think so?” queried Darcy carelessly. “That wasn’t the impression
he gave me when I first met him.”
“What was your reading of his character, oh, wise and profound student
of human nature?”
“If you laugh at me I won’t tell you,” retorted Darcy, and, as Gloria
was openly laughing at her, proceeded to do it in the following
inventory:
“I thought that if I was a very old, plain woman with a lot of bundles,
or a sick cat, or a man in an awful mess, I’d look to him first in any
crowd.”
“Jack would like that,” commented Gloria, with her sunlit smile.
“But not if I were a plain, little, unnoticeable girl”
Gloria twinkled. “An afterthought,” she declared. “Meaning yourself?”
“Meaning myself.”
“Liar.”
“Well, aren’t I that kind of a girl? And if I aren’t, why didn’t he
recall me, or even look at me twice?”
“Perhaps he’s engrossed in his own troubles.”
“Didn’t look as if he had a trouble in the world.”
“No; Jack wouldn’t if he were to be shot at sunrise.”
“Is he?”
“Not that I know of. But he’s going to be exiled or forced into hiding
or something evasive and lonely. Some boresome family row that
threatens to burst into a lawsuit, and when it does, Jack has to take
cover and keep it until it’s over, so as not to be called as a witness.
So you needn’t feel insulted simply because he is brooding on his own
affairs to the neglect—”
“I’m not feeling insulted,” denied the girl vigorously. “It’s nothing
to me whether people remember me or not.” Suddenly her face sparkled
and her mobile lips quivered delicately with suppressed glee. “Oh, but
I _have_ been insulted. I’ve saved it up to tell you.”
“Business of listening eagerly,” said the actress. “Who did it?”
“A man.”
“Naturally. Hence the dimple.” She pointed an accusing finger at
Darcy’s cheek. “Where?”
“Mouseley’s restaurant, on the Circle.”
“Gracious, child! You _are_ peeking around the comers of life. Don’t
you know the Mouse-Trap isn’t respectable?”
“I do now. I didn’t then. Tea was all I wanted. The tea was respectable
enough. It was very good tea.”
“Never mind the tea. Tell me the rest.”
“He—the man—came over to my table. He wasn’t a bad-looking man at all;
so freshcolored and pinky-brown, and dressed like the back page of a
magazine. And he called me”—Darcy chuckled most reprehensibly at this
point—“he called me Miss Glad-Eyes.”
“Did you shoo him away?”
“I told him he’d made a mistake, and he said he’d like to make one like
it every day in the week and pulled out a chair and sat down. It was
awfully funny.”
“It sounds so. What did you do then?”
“I don’t know what I’d have done, but I didn’t have to do anything.
Another man came up—”
“Two!” murmured Gloria. “Shades of Circe! Well?”
“This one had a funny ear and short hair and he said, ‘You don’t know
me, miss. But I seen you workin’-out at Andy’s. My name’s Gillig. You
done a good turn for my kid sister once and I ain’t forgot it.’ So I
said, ‘How do you do, Mr. Gillig. I can’t introduce you to this other
gentleman because he helped himself to this chair without mentioning
his name.’ ‘That kind does,’ Mr. Gillig said. ‘He’d better take a run.’
My pinky-brown caller didn’t seem to take to the suggestion. ‘Maybe so;
maybe not,’ he said. ‘I belong to the Bouncers’ Union, myself.’ Then
Mr. Gillig looked at him hard and said, ‘I’m Spike Gillig, the
welter-weight. I don’t practice me art for me health’—Yes, he did,
Gloria; he spoke of it as his art!—‘And I ain’t strong for scrappin’
out of business hours,’ he said. ‘But I ain’t goin’ to sit by and see
any rough stuff pulled on this young lady.’ ‘Whad-dye mean, rough
stuff?’ said the other man, quite dignified and injured. ‘Lemme tell
you, I’m as much a gent as you are. And I ain’t duckin’ any muss,
professional or amachure. My weight is a hundred-and-eighty, stripped,
beggin’ Miss Peach’s pardon, and if you wanta know who I am, I’m Scrap
Gilfillan, shortstop of the Marvels, comin’ champions of the world. But
if you say this lady is a friend of yours—’
“For some reason, Gloria, that seemed to make Mr. Gillig awfully angry.
He got purple clear to his ears, and growled, ‘She ain’t no friend of
mine. See? This is a lady, this is.’ ‘I gotcha,’ the shortstop man
said. He turned to me. ‘Am I in wrong, miss? Was you ever to this joint
before?’ ‘Never,’ I told him. ‘Apologies all round,’ he said, quite
handsomely. ‘And if no offense is taken where none’s meant, would the
two of you kindly have one little one with me just to prove it?”
“Lovely!” cried the entranced Gloria. “What did you do? This is
important. Oh, this is most awfully important!”
“Do?” rippled the girl. “I took sarsaparilla.”
“Darcy Cole, formerly Amanda Darcy Cole,” said Gloria solemnly. “Come
to my arms. I hereby declare you a full Fellow of the Institute of
Life, free of its brotherhood, equipped to come and go in all its ways
unafraid and unembarrassed by any complication. Blessed are those who
are not too meek, for they shall take their own share of the earth
without waiting forever to inherit it. Go forth and take yours. You’ll
like it.”
“I love it! And I’m not afraid of it any more.”
“It’d better be afraid of you,” commented Gloria, regarding the vivid,
youth-flushed creature before her. “Wait till I get you dressed up to
your looks! Are you ready to gird on your armor for the campaign?”
“I’m dying with impatience!”
“We’ll have a taxi by the hour and go forth to wallow in clothing. Oh,
my blessed young protégée, but you’re going to make some trouble for
this neglectful old world of ours before you wither, or I miss my
guess.”
“I shan’t,” returned the girl demurely, but with dancing eyes, “unless
it calls me ‘Poor Darcy.’”