Statira and 'Manda Grier had given up their plan of getting places in a
summer hotel when Lemuel absolutely refused to take part in it, and
were working through the summer in the box-factory. Lemuel came less
regularly to see them now, for his Sunday nights had to be at Mr.
Corey's disposition; but Statira was always happy in his coming, and
made him more excuses than he had thought of, if he had let a longer
interval than usual pass. He could not help feeling the loveliness of
her patience, the sweetness of her constancy; but he disliked 'Manda
Grier more and more, and she grew stiffer and sharper with him.
Sometimes the aimlessness of his relation to Statira hung round him
like a cloud, which he could not see beyond. When he was with her he
contented himself with the pleasure he felt in her devotion, and the
tenderness this awakened in his own heart; but when he was away from her
there was a strange disgust and bitterness in these.
Sometimes, when Statira and 'Manda Grier took a Saturday afternoon off,
he went with them into the country on one of the horse-car lines, or
else to some matinee at a garden-theatre in the suburbs. Statira liked
the theatre better than anything else; and she used to meet other girls
whom she knew there, and had a gay time. She introduced Lemuel to them,
and after a few moments of high civility and distance they treated him
familiarly, as Statira's beau. Their talk, after that he was now used
to, was flat and foolish, and their pert ease incensed him. He came away
bruised and burning, and feeling himself unfit to breathe the refined
and gentle air to which he returned in Mr. Corey's presence. Then he
would vow in his heart never to expose himself to such things again;
but he could not tell Statira that he despised the friends she was happy
with; he could only go with a reluctance it was not easy to hide, and
atone by greater tenderness for a manner that wounded her. One day
toward the end of August, when they were together at a suburban theatre,
Statira wandered off to a pond there was in the grounds with some other
girls, who had asked him to go and row them, and had called him a bear
for refusing, and told him to look out for Barnum. They left him sitting
alone with 'Manda Grier, at a table where they had all been having
ice-cream at his expense; and though it was no longer any pleasure to be
with her, it was better than to be with them, for she was not a fool, at
any rate. Statira turned round at a little distance to mock them with
a gesture and a laugh, and the laugh ended in a cough, long and
shattering, so that one of her companions had to stop with her, and put
her arm round her till she could recover herself and go on.
It sent a cold thrill through Lemuel, and then he turned angry. “What is
it Statira does to keep taking more cold?”
“Oh, I guess 'tain't 'ny _more_ cold,” said 'Manda Grier.
“What do you mean?”
“I guess 'f you cared a great deal you'd noticed that cough 'f hers
before now. 'Tain't done it any too much good workin' in that arsenic
paper all summer long.”
'Manda Grier talked with her face turned away from him.
It provoked him more and more. “I _do_ care,” he retorted, eager to
quarrel, “and you know it. Who got her into the box-factory, I should
like to know?”
“_I_ did!” said 'Manda Grier, turning sharply on him, “and you _kept_
her there; and between us we've killed her.”
“How have I kept her there, I should like to know?”
“'F you'd done's she wanted you should, she might 'a' been at some
pleasant place in the country--the mount'ns, or somewhere 't she'd been
ov'r her cough by this time. But no! You was too nasty proud for that,
Lemuel Barker!”
A heavy load of guilt dropped upon Lemuel's heart, but he flung it off,
and he retorted furiously,
“You ought to have been ashamed of yourself to ever want her to take a
servant's place.”
“Oh, a servant's place! If she'd been ashamed of a servant when you came
meechin' round her, where'd you been, I sh'd like to know? And now I
wish she had; 'n' if she wa'n't such a little fool, 'n' all wrapped
in you, the way 't she is, I could wish 't she'd never set eyes on you
again, servant or no servant. But I presume it's too late now, and I
presume she's got to go on suff'rin' for you and wonderin' what she's
done to offend you when you don't come, and what she's done when you
do, with your stuck-up, masterful airs, and your double-faced ways. But
don't you try to pretend to me, Lemuel Barker, 't you care the least
mite for her any more, 'f you ever did, because it won't go down! 'N'
if S'tira wa'n't such a perfect little blind fool, she could see 't
you didn't care for her any more than the ground 't you walk on, 'n' 't
you'd be glad enough if she was under it, if you couldn't be rid of her
any other way!” 'Manda Grier pulled her handkerchief out and began to
cry into it.
Lemuel was powerfully shaken by this attack; he did feel responsible for
Statira's staying in town all summer; but the spectacle of 'Manda Grier
publicly crying at his side in a place like that helped to counteract
the effect of her words. “'Sh! Don't cry!” he began, looking fearfully
round him. “Everybody 'll see you!”
“I don't care! Let them!” sobbed the girl. “If they knowed what I know,
and could see you _not_ cryin', I guess they'd think you looked worse
than I do!”
“You don't understand--I can explain--”
“No, you can't explain, Mr. Barker!” said 'Manda Grier, whipping down
her handkerchief, and fiercely confronting him across the table. “You
can't explain anything so 's to blind me any longer! I was a big fool to
ever suppose you had any heart in you; but when you came round at first,
and was so meek you couldn't say your soul was your own, and was so
glad if S'tira spoke to you, or looked at you, that you was ready to
go crazy, I _did_ suppose there was some _little_ something to you! And
yes, I helped you on all I could, and helped you to fool that poor thing
that you ain't worthy to kiss the ground she walks on, Lord forgive me
_for_ it! But it's all changed now! You seem to think it's the greatest
favour if you come round once a fortnight, and set and let her talk to
you, and show you how she dotes upon you, the poor little silly coot!
And if you ever speak a word, it's like the Lord unto Moses, it's so
grand! But I understand! You've got other friends now! _You after that
art-student_? Oh, you can blush and try to turn it off! I've seen you
blush before, and I know you! And I know you're in love with that girl,
and you're just waitin' to break off with S'tira; but you hain't got
the spirit to up and do it like a man! You want to let it lag along,
and _lag_ along, and see 'f something won't happen to get you out of it!
_You waitin' for her to die_? Well, you won't have to wait long! But if
I was a man, I'd spoil your beauty for you first.”
The torrent of her words rolled him on, bruising and tearing his soul,
which their truth pierced like jagged points. From time to time he
opened his lips to protest or deny, but no words came, and in his
silence a fury of scorn for the poor, faithful, scolding thing, so just,
so wildly unjust, gathered head in him.
“Be still!” he ground between his teeth. “Be still, you--” He stopped
for the word, and that saved him from the outrage he had meant to pay
her back with. He rose from the table. “You can tell Statira what you've
said to me. I'm going home.”
He rushed away; the anger was like strong drink in his brain; he was
like one drunk all the way back to the city in the car.
He could not go to Mr. Corey's at once; he felt as if physically
besmeared with shame; he could not go to his boarding-house; it
would have been as if he had shown himself there in a coat of tar and
feathers. Those insolent, true, degrading words hissed in his ears,
and stung him incessantly. They accused, they condemned with pitiless
iteration; and yet there were instants when he knew himself guiltless of
all the wrong of which in another sense he knew himself guilty. In his
room he renewed the battle within himself that he had fought so long in
his wanderings up and down the street, and he conquered himself at last
into the theory that Statira had authorised or permitted 'Manda Grier
to talk to him in that way. This simplified the whole affair; it offered
him the release which he now knew he had longed for. As he stretched
himself in the sheets at daybreak, he told himself that he need never
see either of them again. He was free.