|THE familiar person of the Worm came in through the bar, stood in the
doorway, looked about with quiet keen eyes--tall, carelessly dressed,
sandy of hair but mild and reflective of countenance.
The Worm's eyes rested on Peter. He came across the room.
“Sit down,” said Peter, smiling, his mouth a curving crack in a ghastly
face.
“Oh,” said the Worm, “you've heard?”
“Heard what?”
The Worm studied him a moment; then said, not without a touch of grave
sympathy, “Tell me, Pete--do you happen to know where Sue is?”
Peter heard this; tried to steady himself and speak in the properly
casual tone. He swallowed. Then the words rushed out--low, trembling,
all bitterness: “She's up-stairs--with Zanin!”
The Worm turned away. Peter caught his arm. “For God's sake!” he said.
“What is it? What do you want of her? If anybody's got to tell her
anything, it'll be me!” And he pushed back his chair.
The Worm laid a strong hand on his shoulder, held him firmly down in the
chair.
“Pete,” he said--quiet, deliberate--“if you try to go up those stairs I
myself will throw you down.”
Peter struggled a little. “But--but--good God! Who do you think you are!
You mean to say--” He stopped short, stared up at the Worm, swallowed
again. Then, “I get you!” he said. “I get you! Like the damn fool I am,
I never dreamed. So you're after her, too. You, with your books,
your fine disinterestedness, your easy friendly ways--you're out for
yourself, behind that bluff, just like the rest of us!”
The Worm glanced about the room. Neither had raised his voice. No one
was giving them any particular attention. He relaxed his grip of Peter's
arm; dropped into the chair opposite; leaned over the table on folded
arms; fixed his rather compelling eyes on Peter's ashen face.
“Pete,” he said, very quiet, very steady, “listen to me carefully. And
don't spill any paranoia tonight. If you do--if you start anything like
that crazy fight at the Muscovy--I'll take a hand myself. Now sit quiet
and try to hear what I say.”
Peter was still swallowing. The Worm went steadily on. “A neighbor of
the Wilde's just now called up the apartment. They thought they might
get Hy Lowe to find Sue and fetch her home. But Hy-”
“He's--” began Peter.
“Yes, I saw him. He's outside here. He wants to sit on the curbstone and
read the evening paper. A couple of chauffeurs were reasoning with him
when I came in. I'm going to find her myself.”
“But what's happened! You--”
“Her father has taken poison. They think he is dying. His wife went
right to pieces. Everything a mess--and two young children. They hadn't
even got the doctor in when this man telephoned. He thinks the old boy
is gone.”
“But--but--that's absurd! It couldn't act so quickly!”
The Worm stared; his face set perceptibly. “It has acted. He didn't take
the bichloride route. He drank carbolic.”
“But that--that's awful!”
“Yes, it's awful. There's a newspaper man there, raising hell. They
can't get him out--or couldn't. Now keep this straight--if you go one
step up those stairs or if you try to come out and speak to Sue before I
get her away, I'll break your head.”
“She'll send for me,” said Peter, sputtering.
“Perhaps,” observed Henry Bates; and swiftly left the room.
Sue Wilde returned from her brief interview with Peter. Two or three
groups of early diners greeted her as she passed.
Jacob Zanin watched her--her brisk little nod and quiet smile for these
acquaintances, her curiously boylike grace, the fresh tint of her olive
skin. She was a bit thin, he thought; her hard work as principal actress
in the Nature Film, coupled with the confusion he knew she had passed
through during that brief wild engagement to Peter Mann, had worn her
down.
She had always puzzled him. She puzzled him now, as she resumed her
seat, met his gaze, said: “Jacob, give me a cigarette.”
“Sue--you're off them.”
“While the film job was on. Breaking training now, Jacob.”
“Well,” he mused aloud, “I made you stop for good reason enough. But
now I'm not sure that you're not wise.” And he tossed his box across the
table.
While she lighted the cigarette, he studied her.
None knew better than he the interesting variety of girls who came to
the Village to seek freedom--some on intense feministic principles (Sue
among these), others in search of the nearly mythical country called
Buhemia, still others in the knowledge that there they might walk
unquestioned without the cap of good repute. There were cliques and
cliques in the Village; but all were in agreement regarding a freedom
for woman equal to the experimental freedom of man. Love was admitted as
a need. The human race was frankly a welter of animals struggling upward
in the long process of evolution--struggling wonderfully. Conventional
morality was hypocrisy and therefore a vice. Frankness regarding all
things, an open mind toward any astonishing new theory in the psychology
of the human creature, the divine right of the ego to realize itself
at all costs, a fine scorn for all proverbial wisdom, something near
a horror of the home, the church, and the practical business world--a
blend of these was the Village, to be summed up, perhaps, in Waters
Coryell's languid remark: “I find it impossible to talk with any one who
was born before 1880.”
Zanin had known many women. In his own way he had loved not a few. With
these he had been hard, but not dishonest. He was a materialist, an
anarchist, a self-exploiter, ambitious and unrestrained, torn within by
the overmastering restlessness that was at once the great gift and the
curse of his blood. He wanted always something else, something more. He
was strong, fertile of mind, able. He had vision and could suffer. The
companionship of a woman--here and there, now and then--meant much to
him; but he demanded of her that she give as he would give, without
sacrifice of work or self, without obligation. Nothing but what the
Village terms “the free relation” was possible for Zanin. Within his
peculiar emotional range he had never wanted a woman as he had wanted
Sue. He had never given himself to another woman, in energy and
companionship, as he had given himself to her.
She had eluded him. She had also eluded Peter. Zanin was capable of
despising young women who talked freedom but were afraid to live it.
There were such; right here in the Village there were such. But he did
not think Sue's case so simple as that. He spoke out now:
“Been thinking you over, Sue.”
She deposited the ash of her cigarette on a plate, glanced gravely up at
him, then lowered her eyes again.
“Any result, Jacob?”
“You haven't found yourself.”
“That's right,” said she, “I haven't. Have you found me?”
He slowly shook his head. “I think you're doomed to grope for a while
longer. I believe you have a good deal to find--more than some. You
remember a while back when I urged you to take a trip with me?”
She did not lift her eyes at this; merely gazed thoughtfully down at her
cigarette. He went on:
“I thought I could help you. I thought you needed love. It seemed to be
the next thing for you.”
“Yes,” said she rather shortly--“you told me that.”
“Well, I was wrong. Or my methods were. Something, I or some force,
stirred you and to a bad result. You turned from me toward marriage.
That plan was worse.”
She seemed about to protest; looked up now, threw out her hands.
“At least,” he pressed on, “as a plan, it didn't carry.”
Her fine brows drew together perceptibly. “That's over, Jacob.”
“All right.” He settled back in his chair and looked about the lung
room. It was filling rapidly. There were long hair and flowing ties,
evening suits, smart gowns, bright lights, gay talk in two tongues, and
just now, music. “Tell me this much, Sue. What are you up to? There's no
more Crossroads, no more Nature Film--lord, but that was a job! No more
of that absurd engagement. This is why I dragged you out to-night. I'm
wondering about you. What are you doing?”
“Jacob,” she said, “I'm drifting.”
“I heard you were trying to write.”
“Trying--yes! A girl has to appear to be doing something.”
“No plans at all, eh?”
She met this with silent assent.
Again he looked about the sprightly room; deliberately thinking. Once
she glanced up at him; then waited.
“Sue,” he said, “I think I see you a little more clearly. If I'm wrong,
correct me. You have an unusual amount of strength--or something. I
don't know what it is. I'll fall back on the safe old word, personality.
You've got plenty of intelligence. And your stage work, your
dancing--you're gifted as all get-out. But you're like clockwork, you're
no good unless your mainspring is working. You have to be wound up.”
For the first time in this talk Sue's green-brown eyes lighted. She
leaned over the table now and spoke with a flash of feeling.
“That's it, I believe,” she said. “I've got to feel deeply--about
something. I've got to have a religion.”
“Exactly, Sue. There's a fanatical strain in you. You came into
the Village life fresh from college with a whole set of brand-new
enthusiasms. Fanatical enthusiasms. The attitude toward life that most
of us take for granted--like it, feel it, just because it is us--you
came at us like a wild young Columbus. You hadn't always believed it.”
“I always resented parental authority,” said she. “Yes, I know. I'm not
sure your revolt wasn't more a personal reaction than a social theory.
They tried to tie you down. Your father--well, the less said about him
the letter. Preaching that old, old, false stuff, commercializing it,
stifling your growth.”
“Don't let's discuss him, Jacob.”
“Very good. But the home was a conspiracy against you. His present wife
isn't your mother, you told me once.”
“No, she isn't my mother.”
“Well”--he paused, thinking hard--“look here, Sue, what in thunder are
you to do! You're no good without that mainspring, that faith.”
She was silent, studying the table between them--silent, sober, not
hostile. Life was not a joyous crusade; it was a grim dilemma. And an
insistent pressure. She knew this now. The very admiration she felt for
this strong man disarmed her in resisting him. He told the bald
truth. She had fought him away once, only to involve herself with the
impossible Peter; an experience that now left her the weaker before
him. He knew this, of course. And he was a man to use every resource
in getting what he wanted. There was little to object to in him, if you
accepted him at all. And she had accepted him. As in a former crisis
between them, he made her feel a coward.
“It brings me back to the old topic, Sue. I could help you, if you could
let me. You have fought love down. You tried to compromise on marriage.
Nothing in that. Better live your life, girl! You've got to keep on. You
can't conceivably marry Peter; you can't drift along here without a
spark alight in you, fighting life; you can't go back home, licked. God
knows you can't do that! Give me a chance Sue. Try me. Stop this crazy
resistance to your own vital needs. Damn it, be human!”
Sue, lips compressed, eyes misty, color rising a little, looked up,
avoided Zanin's eyes; gazed as he had been doing, about the room. And
coming in through the wide door she saw the long figure of Henry Bates,
whom friends called the Worm. She watched him, compressing her lips a
little more, knitting her brows, while he stood looking from table to
table. His calm face, unassertive, reflective, whimsical in the slight
squint of the eyes, was deeply reassuring. She was fond of Henry Bates.
He came across the room; greeted Zanin briefly; gripped Sue's hand.
“Sit down, Henry,” said she.
He stood a moment, considering the two of them, then took the chair a
waiter slid forward.
“I'm here on a curious mission, Sue,” he said. She felt the touch of
solemnity in his voice and gave him a quick glance. “I've been sent to
find you.”
“What”--said she, all nerves--“what has happened?”
“An accident At your home, Sue. They believe that your father is dying.
He has asked for you. It was a neighbor who called--a Mr. Deems--and
from what little he could tell me I should say that you are needed
there.”
Her hands moved nervously; she threw them out in the quick way she had
and started to speak; then giving it up let them drop and pushed back
her chair. For the moment she seemed to see neither man: her gaze went
past them; her mouth twitched.
Zanin sat back, smoked, looked from one to the other. He was suddenly
out of it. He had never known a home, in Russia or America. There was
something between Henry Rates and Sue Wilde, a common race memory, a
strain in their spiritual fiber that he did not share; something he
could not even guess at. Whatever it was he could see it gripping her,
touching and rousing hidden depths. So much her face told him. He kept
silent.
She turned to him now. “You'll excuse me, Jacob?” she said, very quiet.
“You're going, then?” said he. He was true to his creed. There was no
touch of conventional sentiment in his voice. He had despised everything
her father's life meant; he despised it now.
“Yes,” she said, and nodded with sudden nervous energy--a rising
color in her cheeks, her head erect, shoulders stiffened, a flash in her
eyes--such a flash as no one had seen there for a long time--“Yes, I'm
going--home.”
Zanin sat alone, looking after them as they walked quietly out of the
restaurant. He lighted a fresh cigarette, deliberately blew out the
match, stared at it as if it had been a live thing, then flicked it over
his shoulder with a snap of his thumb.