So there went on that relation for which this age has no name of its
own: the relation of the man, as worker, and the "out-family" woman who
is his helper. It is a new thing, for a new day. There has never been a
time when its need was not recognized; but usually, if this need was
filled at all, it had to be filled clandestinely. It used to be the
courtezans who had the brains, or, at any rate, who used them. The
"protected" woman, sunk in domestic drudgery, or in fashion and folly,
or exquisitely absorbed in the rearing of her children, could not often
share in her husband's work. And, too, in the new order, she is not
necessary to share in her husband's work, for she is to have work of her
own, sometimes like his and sometimes quite other. The function of the
"out-family" woman is clearly defined. And the relationship will be
nothing that the wife of the future will fear.
It happened that I loved this man to whom I assumed the relationship of
helper, and that I had loved him before I began to share his work. But
it is true that, as the days went on, I began to dwell more on our work
and less on my loving him. It was not that I loved him less. As I worked
near him, and came to know him better, mind and heart, I loved him more
but there was no time to think about that! All day we worked at his
proof, his lectures, his correspondence with men and women, bent, as he
was bent, on great issues. Gradually our hours of work lengthened, began
earlier, lasted into the dusk; and I had the sense of definite service
to a great end. Most of all I had this when I answered the letters from
the workers themselves, for then it seemed to me that I went close to
the moving of great tides.
"You speak for us--you say the thing we are too dumb to say. Maybe
you are the one who is going to make people listen while we
breathe down here under their feet, when we can breathe at all."
Letters like this, misspelled, half in a foreign tongue, delivered by
hand or coming across the continent, were a part of the work which had
become my life. And all the breathlessness, the tremor, the delicious
currents of those first days were less real than this new relation,
deeper than anything which those first days had dreamed.
One day I had forgotten to go to luncheon and, some time after two,
Torchido being absent to lecture at a young ladies' seminary, Mr. Ember
came bringing me a tray himself.
"If any one was to do that you ought to have let me," I cried.
"Why?" he demanded. "Now, why? You mean because you're a woman!"
"Yes," I admitted, "I suppose that's what I did mean."
"You ought to be ashamed of that," he said, "you cave-woman. I don't
believe you can cook, anyway."
"No," I owned, "I can't cook. And I don't want to cook."
"Yet you automatically assume the rôle the moment it presents itself,"
he charged. "It's always amazing. A man will pick up a woman's
handkerchief, help her up a step which she can get up as well as he,
walk on the outside of the walk to protect her from lord knows what--and
yet the minute that a dish rattles anywhere, he retires, in content and
lets her do the whole thing. We're a wondrous lot."
"Give us another million years," I begged. "We're coming along."
He served me, and ate something himself. And this was the first time
that we had broken bread together since that morning at the Dew Drop
Inn, when I had ordered salt pork and a piece of pie. Obviously, this
was the time to tell him.... My heart began to beat. I played with the
moment, thinking as I had thought a hundred times, how I would tell him.
Suppose I said: "Do you imagine that this is the first time we have
eaten together?" Or, "Do you remember the last time we sat at table?"
Or, "Have you ever wondered what became of Cosma Wakely?" I discarded
them all, and just then I heard him saying:
"I like very well to see you eat, Mademoiselle Secretary. You do it with
the tips of your fingers."
"Truly?" I cried. And suddenly my eyes brimmed with tears. I remembered
Cossy Wakely and her peaches.
"What is it?" he asked quickly.
But I only said: "Oh, I was just thinking about the 'infinite
improvability of the human race'!"
Then Lena was summoned home, and she begged me to go with her.
She had been for three months at Mrs. Bingy's, and a drawer of my bureau
was filled with dainty clothes that, with Mrs. Bingy's help, she had
made. We had contributed what we could, and all day long and for long
evenings, she had sat contentedly at her work. But she kept putting off
home-going, and one night she had told me the reason.
"Cossy," she said, "you remember how it is there to Luke's folks'
house--everybody scolding and jawing. And I know I'll be just like 'em.
And it kind of seems as if, if I could stay here, where it's still and
decent and good-natured, it might make some difference--to _it_."
On the morning that the message came to her, Mrs. Carney had come into
Mr. Ember's workroom. Mr. Ember was out. A small portrait exhibit was
being made at one of the galleries and, having promised, he had gone off
savagely to see it on the exhibit's last day. It was then that Mrs.
Bingy telephoned, in spasms of excitement over the telegram. Luke's
mother had fallen and hurt her hip. Lena must come home.
"And, Cossy!" Mrs. Bingy shouted, "Lena thought--Lena wondered--Lena
wants you should go with her."
I understood. Lena dreaded to face that household after her absence,
even though she was returning with her precious work.
"I'll go," I told her; "I'll be there in an hour."
When I turned, Mrs. Carney sat leaning a little toward me, with an
expression in her face that I did not know.
"Cosma," she said, "I want to tell you something--while John Ember is
away. I have wanted you to know."
She had beautifully colored, and she was intensely grave.
"I've taken it for granted, dear," she said, "that you must know that I
love him."
I stood staring down at her. "Mr. Ember?" I said, "Why, no! No!"
"Well, neither does he know," she said, "and I do not mean that he ever
shall. I should of course be ashamed of loving Mr. Carney."
"Then why--why--" I began and stopped.
"Why do we keep on living together?" she asked. "I haven't the courage.
And I have no property. And I have no way to earn my living--now.
Cosma--I'm caught, bound. To love John Ember has made life bearable to
me. Can you understand?"
Then she kissed me. "Cosma!" she said, "I'm glad that you know. I've
wanted you to know. For I was afraid that you had guessed, and that it
might make a difference to you ... when he tells you."
"Tells me...." I repeated. "Tells me...."
The blood came beating in my face and in my throat. Seeing this, she
spoke on quietly about herself. We were sitting so when Mr. Ember came
home. And I was struck by the exquisite dignity and beauty of her manner
to him. She was like some one looking at him from some near-by plane,
knowing that she might not touch him or speak to him--not because it was
forbidden, but because they themselves were the law.
Then I looked at him, and I saw that he was looking at me strangely.
There was a curious searching, meditative quality in his look which
somehow terrified me. I sprang up.
"Mr. Ember," I said, "they want me to go home--there has been a telegram
to a friend. I want to go with her. She needs me...."
"Where is 'home'?" he asked only.
"In the country," I answered, and had on my wraps and was at the door,
"I'll be back to-morrow," I told him.
Mrs. Carney had risen.
"Cosma!" she said clearly. "Wait. I'll drive you home."
As she spoke my name, my eyes flew to his. He was looking at me with a
kind of soft brilliance in his face, and the surprise of some certainty.
Then I knew that something had happened to make him know, and that now
he remembered.
I ran out and down the walk before Mrs. Carney.