My work brought me nearer and nearer to the great city where I was to
tackle one of the largest contracts yet. This was with a big department
store where, if successful, I would sell one hundred thousand. This
would take lots of time and as I was wholly on business bent, I chose to
go to a hotel rather than to any of my friends.
Why I chose to go to a hotel where they catered “to women only” and one
with a religious background, I can never attribute to anything but fate.
When I entered the office to engage a room I found a “fat (un)fair and
forty” female smugly sitting at the desk. She turned to me with a
typical “Christian” expression on her face, which could not hide the
uncompromising, cruel mouth. She may have had a heart, but it was so
well upholstered with adipose tissue that no trace of one was left in
her face. One could readily see that she could turn a young girl into
the streets of that great city, late at night, and a stranger, because
she was not of the faith which would entitle her to a bed and safe
refuge. I learned later this had been done many times in this Christian
hotel!
To me she was suave and smiling and had the expression which said “I am
drawing a big salary for having just this expression between the hours
of — and — daily.” She asked my wishes. As I stood waiting for the fat
one to wait on someone before me, I saw beyond her, over in the rather
hidden corner of the office, a youngish girl sitting on a low stool with
her head bowed and over her face the most beautiful hands I had ever
seen. She was weeping in suppressed sobs. The tears seemed to be coming
from the soul rather than from the eyes.
When asked what the fat one could do for me, I wanted to say “Please
comfort that girl.” But of course that wouldn’t do in such a holy place,
so I told her I would like a room. It was in July, and it hardly
surprised me to find my room very warm. I had plenty to think about. I
had answered with fidelity all the questions asked me, and had been
given a room. I looked about me and was greatly amused by the
expensively printed warnings hanging on the walls. I read the wonderful
words of Christ also printed and framed, and hung as a comfort to the
hearts of the selected, who were of the “right” faith. A plea for
charity! I fell to wondering about the young woman in tears. What
comfort could be found on or in the fat bosom, when the hard mouth
showed how hollow it was, where instead there should have been charity
for all.
Those beautiful hands were before me far into the night. The excessive
heat in that stuffy room also contributed toward keeping me awake. I
thought little of my discomfort, however, as my heart ached for that
girl, whose very hands showed she was out of her sphere. I wondered.
One was allowed to engage a room for only one day at a time but, in
spite of the heat, I was determined to try one more night, all on
account of the sobs of a stranger.
In the morning, I went to the office to see whether my moral status
still measured up to the required standard and—there at the desk—sat the
girl with the beautiful hands. The tears had been dried and she looked
up at me with eyes shining with love and human kindness.
Here was one who could not turn away a girl on account of her religion,
were she not bound by rules so stern she could not evade them. And even
in such a case I was sure she would suggest some way of protecting her.
Turning to me she asked sweetly what she could do for me, instead of
“what did I want.” I said I wished to engage my room for the following
night. When she found which room I had occupied, she turned to me in
astonishment and said: “You are the first woman occupying that room in
the summer who has not entered a violent protest in the morning about
the heat! I will see that you have a better one tonight.”
My business kept me out until quite late in the afternoon. In
acknowledgment of her courtesy in regard to the room, and remembering
her anguish when I first saw her, I brought her a bunch of lovely
violets when I returned.
She was just going “off duty” when I went to the office. As she had
given me a better room and had had my things moved, she said she would
show me where it was, as she was going to that floor. She was greatly
pleased with the flowers, and her lovely eyes thanked me more than
words. I found my room was directly across the hall from hers.
Something told me that here was the girl of my dreams. I wasn’t looking
for her; she just came into my life, and I knew. But how to convince her
that she was to be my mate was the question.
There must be no crude awakening. I knew at once that she was not in her
natural environment; that she had been gently reared, but that, through
some calamity, she was here making a brave and successful fight.
While I naturally hated the whole atmosphere of that whited sepulcher, I
did not hate this one human being connected with the conduct of its
business, so I stayed on, engaging my room day by day and never asking
to have it changed. Let us call my new friend Juno. We met frequently in
the hall, in going to and from our rooms. I had found out her schedule
quite by accident, and found I was making my business engagements fit
into ones which seemed now of more vital importance to me. John Drew was
about to open a new play, and I bought two tickets for the night when I
knew Juno was to be free. When I told her, at one of our chance meetings
in the corridor between our rooms, that I had the tickets, and asked her
to take pity on me, as I had no one with whom to go, she hesitated. She
said she had always observed a custom of the house never to accept an
invitation to go out with a guest. But she also said she longed to go
and, after a little urging, she consented.
She wore a charming, simple little gown which just suited her. I say
“little” simply as a term of endearment, for Juno was taller than I, and
had a magnificently proportioned figure. I dressed in my only change
from the day suit, in a handsome black tailored suit with a black hat
and white silk shirt. I called a hansom when we were away from the
hotel, for fear of hurting the feelings of the dames who did not smile
on this growing friendship.
I remember little of the play. By this time, I was madly in love with
Juno and longed to put my arms about her and tell her of it. It all
seemed so natural and right to me, I inwardly rebelled, of course,
against convention which said “it isn’t done.” Patience was my watchword
for success, as I knew more certainly each minute that we were made for
each other and that in time she would know it too.
On the way home, we stopped at a very conservative hotel, where it was
permissible and wholly respectable for two ladies to have supper without
a male escort. We had a delightful supper and talk, and lingered long,
as there had been no “time limit” for her that evening. She told me much
about her life before she took the position in which I found her. As I
had surmised, she had been brought up in very different surroundings, an
orphan. All her brothers and sisters had been married, she was engaged
to be herself, and was deeply in love with the man. It developed,
however, that there were reasons why she could not marry this man, and
she had decided to find solace in hard work. She had also decided that
she would never marry.
After this first evening, which she said she had enjoyed more than
anything she had done since she had left her home, we had many little
chats and walks together. I referred one day to the tears she was
shedding the first time I ever saw her hands. She laughingly said she
remembered that evening so well. She had heard my voice when I was going
through the awful questioning and longed to look up, even through her
tears, but she did not dare to with those eyes so red. However, she did
go to the register as soon as I had gone upstairs and found out my name.
Perhaps she, too, had that feeling that we were to mean more to each
other. She then told me why she was so silly that night. This was her
first experience in earning her living, as the rich relative who had
brought the children up in the most luxurious surroundings had cut them
off without a penny when he found that they were contemplating marriage.
The occasion of the tears was that some well meaning woman had left the
change of twenty-five cents on the desk and told Juno to keep it for
herself! She thought there could be no greater disgrace in life than to
have to receive a “tip” from a common woman. She had no time to refuse
it, and she dared not throw it after her—a woman with so little
discrimination.
Now my way was clear. I felt that if I could win her love, I might bring
to her even greater happiness than she had anticipated with the man whom
she thought she loved. Furthermore, I would not in any way be
interfering with any future marriage plans.
It was apparent that she thought I was different from any woman she had
ever known, and that she was both interested in and attracted by me. We
had many long walks together and went often to art galleries and to the
theater. Our tastes were much alike, and this comradeship was the
foundation upon which I was working.
My sexual passions were not aroused by my contact with her. I longed to
caress her and give some sign of my love, but I could not do so as yet.
The elderly dames, after the pattern of the one whom I had found in
charge of the hotel when I arrived, while they were always polite to me
and I feel liked me, were alert in their warnings to Juno about forming
a friendship which might interfere with her work. Juno was the only
young person on the “staff.” They were terrified that I might take her
away, for they, as well as everyone else with whom she came in contact,
loved her sincerely.
Juno was entirely out of her element in the place, yet she was doing her
work with a degree of enthusiasm sufficient to sap her vitality quickly.
The dames had no knowledge of me other than they gained by the questions
they asked when I applied for admission to the hotel. They told Juno
that, notwithstanding the fact that I was a charming woman, she should
be a little careful about succumbing to my charms. In after years we
often laughed at these precautions against losing her taken by the
dames.
Our friendship grew. She would often drop into my room on her way to
bed, after an evening on duty. I would leave my door slightly ajar so
she could see that I was lying on the bed and reading.
My personal appearance? If someone else were writing about that I
believe they would say: She had a wonderful complexion and smooth skin,
soft brown hair which curled in little ringlets about the forehead and
neck (it is now snowy white, wavy in front and cut in a “boyish bob”),
which were white and with correct lines; not too fat (as I am now),
artistic hands, also pronounced as capable ones; a figure true to form,
of about “size forty” at that time; graceful in all movements; a voice
soft and well modulated; speaking good English, enunciating her words
easily but clearly, and so on.
One evening I had loosened my necktie and the collar of my light blue
shirt—a color then quite in vogue—and was impatiently waiting for my
girl to be through with her work and to peep in to say good night and
give me the sweet little kiss, as we had progressed to that stage by
this time. Very proper little kisses, however.
My feelings for her at this time were not of an amorous nature. My heart
was calling for her as a mate. We were so in sympathy on every subject
we touched. We loved the same things in music, literature, and art. The
music we heard together stirred her as it did me, with a depth of
emotion we hardly understood. I occasionally got glimpses of her
passionate and hungry nature and longed to open the gates of pent-up
emotion.
During this rapturous period of wooing, I was occupied in a sort of a
desultory way with the large contract for my toy, but I must confess my
heart was somewhere else. There were orders enough ahead to keep the
home forces busy, so I could wait, as indeed it was in a measure
necessary for me to do, in dealing with so large a concern, with all its
complicated machinery.
My other two friends claimed a part of my time, but my heart and
thoughts were so wholly taken up with what I knew to be _the one_ whom I
had sought all my life, that I allowed no opportunity for a possible
resumption of former intimacies with either.
I was patiently waiting for the right time to declare my love—until a
beautiful foundation of sympathy and companionship should be firmly
established, as any wise and normal lover should do.
Hundreds of little ways came to my mind, day by day, in which to nourish
the perfect flower that waxed stronger, and grew and grew.
The time and opportunity came at last, when I was sure that she not only
loved me but was also “in love” with me (but did not realize it), for me
to tell her as gently as possible how deeply I was in love with her and
what I hoped would be the culmination of this great love—that we could
really belong to each other with a more intense love than she had ever
dreamed possible. Of course, she was mystified. My kiss that night was
more intense than ever before, and her lips willingly yielded to
mine....
She was truly worried. She said she loved me madly, but not as she had
ever supposed she could love a woman—even more than she had loved the
man whom she was engaged to marry. She wondered whether I really were a
woman. I assured her that I was, and a wholly normal one, telling her of
my two children, and so forth.
I talked about our possible marriage. Why not? I had thought the thing
out and I argued that a union of hearts and souls constituted a real
union, call it marriage if need be. My experience had shown me that to
most men, and very likely to some women, marriage merely meant a
legitimatized permission to cohabit for the relief of sexual desire.
To me it seemed that a union between two women could be of a higher
type, and creative of a more secure happiness and good than any other.
At this time I was convinced that I was the only woman who had ever
thought of matters in this way. I am sure my thoughts were far from
anything but the highest type of love in all its beauty.
We decided it would be best for both of us to think things over quietly,
before we finally decided to bind ourselves to each other in solemn
compact.
Having at last concluded the deal upon which I had been working, I found
it necessary to go to a city about twelve hours distant by rail. Of
course we were to write often. Juno’s decision would naturally have its
influence upon my future field of action, as she knew. I arranged for
flowers and fruits to be sent to her regularly during my absence, and
was quite the accepted “lover.”
She had much to consider, too, in making any change such as we had
pictured. It would become necessary for her to change or at least to
re-arrange her work, so that we could live together. We had planned to
have our own apartment, each to go on with some work through the day,
but to have our evenings and nights at home to ourselves.
The parting was hard, for we were very dear to each other and had been
together for quite a while, enjoying every minute of our companionship.
I waited twenty-four hours after arriving before I wrote to her. That
had given me time to reassure myself, and she too had been able to think
things over. The letter I wrote must have carried to her some idea of
the love I felt for her and probably gave her a vivid picture of what
our life would be, if lived as one. The following afternoon after I had
made a very good deal with a large firm in that city, and so kept the
home fires burning, I received a telegram from her: “Come, every bit of
me wants you,” signed with an initial.
I canceled business engagements for the next day and hustled about to
find that, by taking a night boat (a mode of travel I had always hated),
I could reach the city early in the morning of a day I knew Juno was to
be free. I wired her to be at our quiet and conservative hotel at a
certain hour in the morning, and to wait if I were late.
How it rained all night! I knew, for I walked the covered deck until
nearly morning. It was still pouring when, after a short sleep, I
resumed my impatient marathon with renewed vigor.