'Why, I don't know,' said Eunice, flushing.
'Oh, well,' went on Mabel good-naturedly, 'I do think you look nice in
pink with your dark hair. Harry always tells me to stick to blue. It's
the color for blondes. Don't you want to show me your things? I won't
mind if the ribbons aren't all run in yet.'
'I'd like to show them to you, of course. Come upstairs. They'll look
nicer though when they are all pressed out,' said Eunice, laying the
sack carefully back in its paper wrappings. She carried it on
outstretched palms.
'Do you know when you're going to be married?' asked Mabel as she
reached the top of the narrow stairs.
'We haven't made plans yet. Probably Stephen won't want to for another
year. It depends on so many things.'
'I suppose so,' said Mabel, following Eunice into her bedroom. It was a
small room but pretty. Eunice had recently put four coats of white paint
on her oak set. 'Lawyers,' continued Mabel sympathetically, 'have to
wait so much longer. Now Harry knew to a cent what salary he was getting
when he proposed to me, and he knew what his raise would probably be for
the next two years. The Wire Company is a square concern. There's your
Glory-Box! It looks awfully nice. You made it, didn't you?'
'Stephen made it when he was on for his vacation last summer. We
happened to have the cretonne in the house. Mother wanted me to buy a
cedar chest but I thought this would do.'
'Oh, one doesn't really need a cedar chest,' said Mabel cheerfully, 'and
they're terribly expensive, you know.'
'Yes, I do know.' Eunice's face twinkled. 'I'll lay this sack on the bed
so it won't get mussed while I'm showing you the things.'
She raised the lid of the Glory-Box, then glanced shyly at the other
girl. 'You're the first person I've shown them to. I hope you'll think
they're dainty. There isn't much lace on them, but mother put in a lot
of handwork--feather-stitching.'
'Lace is a bother to do up,' Mabel said amiably. 'I've been almost
distracted doing up mine.'
'Your things were beautiful, though.' Eunice was laying piles of
carefully folded garments on the edge of the box.
'There, I've got it now,' she said, getting up from the floor. 'This is
my prettiest set. I've kept it wrapped in dark blue paper. Mother said
it would keep white longer.'
'Why, they are sweet, Eunice!' Mabel touched the soft white stuff with
appraising fingers. 'And all made by hand. My, what a lot of work! Your
mother must have spent hours on them.'
'She did. She said she wanted to do it, though. The other things are
plainer.' Eunice took them up one by one and showed them. 'I won't let
you see the table linen to-day. I've done a lot of initialing, but they
don't look really well until they have been washed.'
'No, they don't. Anyway I have to be going. You certainly have nice
things, Eunice. That kimono is awfully pretty.'
'I like it,' said Eunice simply.
'Well, I can't stay another minute. Don't you come down to the door now.
You have to put away everything. I'll just run along. Come and see me.
I've got the flat all settled.'
'I shall love to, Mabel. Just a moment! You must let me go to the door
with you. The Glory-Box can wait.'
Eunice found her mother standing by the bed when she came back. She was
a meagre-looking woman with a thin mouth. Her eyes had once been soft
and dark like Eunice's, but the glow had gone out of them, leaving them
a little hard.
'I've been looking at the sack Mabel brought you. It's a nice pattern.
That sort of lace looks almost like real val. What did she say to your
things?'
'She said they were sweet, mother.'
'Well, I suppose they are as nice as any one could have without spending
money. You didn't show her the tablecloth I gave you?'
'No, I thought I'd wait to show the linen until it was all done up.'
Her mother fingered the lace on the sack.
'I don't believe she has a much better tablecloth than that one, Eunice.
Do you suppose so?'
'No,' answered Eunice, 'probably not. It's very beautiful.' She laid
down the garment she was folding and looked up, troubled, into her
mother's face. 'Oh, it seems so selfish for me to have it all. You've
always wanted nice fine linen, mother.'
'I've given up wanting, I guess. I don't care as long as you have them.
You had better lay tissue paper in that sleeve, Eunice, the way I showed
you. I'll start supper so that you can put these things away. They won't
look like anything if you leave them about.'
When her mother was gone, Eunice took up the pink kimono and spread it
out on the bed. She could fold it more carefully that way. She touched
it with caressing fingers. 'Dawn and apple-blossoms,' she repeated
softly. Then she smiled, remembering Mabel's remark: 'Stephen has a
funny way of saying things.'
Stephen was different somehow from Harry, from any of the men whom her
friends had married. They were nice young men, of course, all of them.
One was superintendent of the Sunday School, besides getting a good
salary in the Cash Register Company; another had gone to college, had
been in Stephen's class at the Ohio State University in fact, and was
now doing well as part owner of the garage on Main Street; still another
was paying-teller in the bank next to the garage; he wore very
'good-looking' suits, usually with a tiny line of white at the edge of
the waistcoat. Still Stephen was different.
When he had got his B.A. degree at Ohio, he decided that he wanted to be
a lawyer, and that he would go to one of the best schools in the
country. He chose Columbia. He had worked his way through college, but
he considered that it would not pay to work his way through Law School.
He wanted the time to get something out of New York. His father was
unable to advance the money, so Stephen went to a friend of his
father's, a prosperous coal-dealer in the town, and asked that he lend
him enough to put him through economically, but not, he plainly said,
too economically. He would give the coal-dealer notes, payable with
interest four years after he was admitted to the bar.
The coal-dealer, taking into consideration the fact that the young man
had broken every record at the university in scholarship, and two other
facts, the young man's forehead and mouth, lent him the money. He said
that the interest need not begin until he was admitted.
Stephen thanked him and went to Columbia. One of the professors there
took a great fancy to him. He introduced him to his sister, a maiden
lady living in Washington Square, who, finding him very likable,
introduced him to other people living in the Square.
Stephen was very happy. He wrote to Eunice,--he had been engaged to her
since the end of his second year at the Law School,--'Washington Square
is rather terrifying from the outside, but once inside you feel
beautifully at home. I think it's the perfect breeding you find there.
I've met women more intellectual, greater perhaps, than Professor
Lansing's sister, but never one who gives such an impression of
completion. There are no loose ends. You will like her, Eunice.'
In another letter he said, 'We won't have much money to start with, of
course, but if we put a little dignity into our kitchenette apartment,
it will be a home that people will love to come to. It's partly the
dignity of their living that makes these Washington Square people so
worth while to be with.'
And last week he had written, 'You won't find New York lonely. They will
love you, dear. You belong. You have not only charm but the dignity that
belongs. I wonder if I'm foolish to care so much for that word dignity.
Perhaps it's because I associate it with you, or perhaps--I love you
because you have it.'
And Eunice too was happy and proud: happy that Stephen was coming into
his own, and proud that he should think her equal to the occasion. It
would not be an easy task, being equal to Stephen. Stephen was a great
man, or would be a great man. She knew it and Stephen knew it. 'We are
going to be great, you and I,' he had said more than once. And yet one
day when she had answered, 'You and I, Stephen?' his eyes, which had
been alight with the glorious vision of the future, softened, and he had
come and knelt beside her and had laid his head down. 'Oh, Eunice,' he
had whispered, 'I've got brains; I'm pretty sure to be successful; but
if I'm worth while, it will be because of you. You are a great woman,
dear.'
And Eunice had mothered him and had hoped--so fervently that the hope
was a prayer--that she would really be great enough to meet his needs.
Sometimes she doubted. She had dignity; Stephen had said so; but inside
she was deprecating and shy. People like Mabel Ashley made her shy, and
most of the people she knew were like Mabel. They thought Stephen's way
of saying and thinking things 'funny.' There was only one woman whom she
could talk with, a High-School teacher who had come to board next door.
She and the High-School teacher took long walks together.
The High-School teacher had been to Europe twice. She knew how people
lived outside of this little Ohio town--outside of the United States
even. She was full of shrewd comment. Eunice talked to her about the
books that she and Stephen were reading, and sometimes about Stephen
himself. Several times the High-School teacher had said, 'He is
splendid, Eunice.'
Eunice thought about her this afternoon as she put the last things away
in the Glory-Box. She hoped that, if the Washington Square people were
like this teacher, she would get along. And there came another
encouraging thought. The people in the Square were sure of themselves of
course, but perhaps they were sure because they had things and had
always had things. She would one day have the things in her Glory-Box,
and she would have Stephen. After she was quite used to having them and
to having a person like Stephen, she would be sure of herself too.
'Supper will be ready in five minutes, Eunice.'
'I'm coming in a moment.'
The room had grown quite dark. Eunice lighted two candles standing on
her bureau. They were in common glass candlesticks which she had bought
at the Ten Cent store: she had wanted to have brass; but then, Stephen
and she were going to have brass candlesticks in every room of their
house. They both loved candle-light.
Eunice smoothed her dark hair. Then she washed her hands very carefully.
Stephen had said once that they were not wonderfully pretty hands, but
that they had distinction. He had kissed them.
'I guess I'm all right now,' said Eunice, glancing into the mirror. She
picked up a photograph of Stephen from the bureau and laid her face
against it. Then she blew out the candles and went downstairs.