Many patterns of carpet lay rolled out before them on the floor--two of
Brussels showed the beginning of their quest, and its ending in that
direction; while a score of ingrains lured their eyes and prolonged the
debate between desire pocket-book. The head of the department did them
the honor of waiting upon them himself--or did Joe the honor, as she well
knew, for she had noted the open-mouthed awe of the elevator boy who
brought them up. Nor had she been blind to the marked respect shown Joe
by the urchins and groups of young fellows on corners, when she walked
with him in their own neighborhood down at the west end of the town.
But the head of the department was called away to the telephone, and in
her mind the splendid promise of the carpets and the irk of the pocket-
book were thrust aside by a greater doubt and anxiety.
"But I don't see what you find to like in it, Joe," she said softly, the
note of insistence in her words betraying recent and unsatisfactory
discussion.
For a fleeting moment a shadow darkened his boyish face, to be replaced
by the glow of tenderness. He was only a boy, as she was only a girl--two
young things on the threshold of life, house-renting and buying carpets
together.
"What's the good of worrying?" he questioned. "It's the last go, the
very last."
He smiled at her, but she saw on his lips the unconscious and all but
breathed sigh of renunciation, and with the instinctive monopoly of woman
for her mate, she feared this thing she did not understand and which
gripped his life so strongly.
"You know the go with O'Neil cleared the last payment on mother's house,"
he went on. "And that's off my mind. Now this last with Ponta will give
me a hundred dollars in bank--an even hundred, that's the purse--for you
and me to start on, a nest-egg."
She disregarded the money appeal. "But you like it, this--this 'game'
you call it. Why?"
He lacked speech-expression. He expressed himself with his hands, at his
work, and with his body and the play of his muscles in the squared ring;
but to tell with his own lips the charm of the squared ring was beyond
him. Yet he essayed, and haltingly at first, to express what he felt and
analyzed when playing the Game at the supreme summit of existence.
"All I know, Genevieve, is that you feel good in the ring when you've got
the man where you want him, when he's had a punch up both sleeves waiting
for you and you've never given him an opening to land 'em, when you've
landed your own little punch an' he's goin' groggy, an' holdin' on, an'
the referee's dragging him off so's you can go in an' finish 'm, an' all
the house is shouting an' tearin' itself loose, an' you know you're the
best man, an' that you played m' fair an' won out because you're the best
man. I tell you--"
He ceased brokenly, alarmed by his own volubility and by Genevieve's look
of alarm. As he talked she had watched his face while fear dawned in her
own. As he described the moment of moments to her, on his inward vision
were lined the tottering man, the lights, the shouting house, and he
swept out and away from her on this tide of life that was beyond her
comprehension, menacing, irresistible, making her love pitiful and weak.
The Joe she knew receded, faded, became lost. The fresh boyish face was
gone, the tenderness of the eyes, the sweetness of the mouth with its
curves and pictured corners. It was a man's face she saw, a face of
steel, tense and immobile; a mouth of steel, the lips like the jaws of a
trap; eyes of steel, dilated, intent, and the light in them and the
glitter were the light and glitter of steel. The face of a man, and she
had known only his boy face. This face she did not know at all.
And yet, while it frightened her, she was vaguely stirred with pride in
him. His masculinity, the masculinity of the fighting male, made its
inevitable appeal to her, a female, moulded by all her heredity to seek
out the strong man for mate, and to lean against the wall of his
strength. She did not understand this force of his being that rose
mightier than her love and laid its compulsion upon him; and yet, in her
woman's heart she was aware of the sweet pang which told her that for her
sake, for Love's own sake, he had surrendered to her, abandoned all that
portion of his life, and with this one last fight would never fight
again.
"Mrs. Silverstein doesn't like prize-fighting," she said. "She's down on
it, and she knows something, too."
He smiled indulgently, concealing a hurt, not altogether new, at her
persistent inappreciation of this side of his nature and life in which he
took the greatest pride. It was to him power and achievement, earned by
his own effort and hard work; and in the moment when he had offered
himself and all that he was to Genevieve, it was this, and this alone,
that he was proudly conscious of laying at her feet. It was the merit of
work performed, a guerdon of manhood finer and greater than any other man
could offer, and it had been to him his justification and right to
possess her. And she had not understood it then, as she did not
understand it now, and he might well have wondered what else she found in
him to make him worthy.
"Mrs. Silverstein is a dub, and a softy, and a knocker," he said good-
humoredly. "What's she know about such things, anyway? I tell you it
_is_ good, and healthy, too,"--this last as an afterthought. "Look at
me. I tell you I have to live clean to be in condition like this. I
live cleaner than she does, or her old man, or anybody you know--baths,
rub-downs, exercise, regular hours, good food and no makin' a pig of
myself, no drinking, no smoking, nothing that'll hurt me. Why, I live
cleaner than you, Genevieve--"
"Honest, I do," he hastened to add at sight of her shocked face. "I
don't mean water an' soap, but look there." His hand closed reverently
but firmly on her arm. "Soft, you're all soft, all over. Not like mine.
Here, feel this."
He pressed the ends of her fingers into his hard arm-muscles until she
winced from the hurt.
"Hard all over just like that," he went on. "Now that's what I call
clean. Every bit of flesh an' blood an' muscle is clean right down to
the bones--and they're clean, too. No soap and water only on the skin,
but clean all the way in. I tell you it feels clean. It knows it's
clean itself. When I wake up in the morning an' go to work, every drop
of blood and bit of meat is shouting right out that it is clean. Oh, I
tell you--"
He paused with swift awkwardness, again confounded by his unwonted flow
of speech. Never in his life had he been stirred to such utterance, and
never in his life had there been cause to be so stirred. For it was the
Game that had been questioned, its verity and worth, the Game itself, the
biggest thing in the world--or what had been the biggest thing in the
world until that chance afternoon and that chance purchase in
Silverstein's candy store, when Genevieve loomed suddenly colossal in his
life, overshadowing all other things. He was beginning to see, though
vaguely, the sharp conflict between woman and career, between a man's
work in the world and woman's need of the man. But he was not capable of
generalization. He saw only the antagonism between the concrete, flesh-
and-blood Genevieve and the great, abstract, living Game. Each resented
the other, each claimed him; he was torn with the strife, and yet drifted
helpless on the currents of their contention.
His words had drawn Genevieve's gaze to his face, and she had pleasured
in the clear skin, the clear eyes, the cheek soft and smooth as a girl's.
She saw the force of his argument and disliked it accordingly. She
revolted instinctively against this Game which drew him away from her,
robbed her of part of him. It was a rival she did not understand. Nor
could she understand its seductions. Had it been a woman rival, another
girl, knowledge and light and sight would have been hers. As it was, she
grappled in the dark with an intangible adversary about which she knew
nothing. What truth she felt in his speech made the Game but the more
formidable.
A sudden conception of her weakness came to her. She felt pity for
herself, and sorrow. She wanted him, all of him, her woman's need would
not be satisfied with less; and he eluded her, slipped away here and
there from the embrace with which she tried to clasp him. Tears swam
into her eyes, and her lips trembled, turning defeat into victory,
routing the all-potent Game with the strength of her weakness.
"Don't, Genevieve, don't," the boy pleaded, all contrition, though he was
confused and dazed. To his masculine mind there was nothing relevant
about her break-down; yet all else was forgotten at sight of her tears.
She smiled forgiveness through her wet eyes, and though he knew of
nothing for which to be forgiven, he melted utterly. His hand went out
impulsively to hers, but she avoided the clasp by a sort of bodily
stiffening and chill, the while the eyes smiled still more gloriously.
"Here comes Mr. Clausen," she said, at the same time, by some
transforming alchemy of woman, presenting to the newcomer eyes that
showed no hint of moistness.
"Think I was never coming back, Joe?" queried the head of the department,
a pink-and-white-faced man, whose austere side-whiskers were belied by
genial little eyes.
"Now let me see--hum, yes, we was discussing ingrains," he continued
briskly. "That tasty little pattern there catches your eye, don't it
now, eh? Yes, yes, I know all about it. I set up housekeeping when I
was getting fourteen a week. But nothing's too good for the little nest,
eh? Of course I know, and it's only seven cents more, and the dearest is
the cheapest, I say. Tell you what I'll do, Joe,"--this with a burst of
philanthropic impulsiveness and a confidential lowering of
voice,--"seein's it's you, and I wouldn't do it for anybody else, I'll
reduce it to five cents. Only,"--here his voice became impressively
solemn,--"only you mustn't ever tell how much you really did pay."
"Sewed, lined, and laid--of course that's included," he said, after Joe
and Genevieve had conferred together and announced their decision.
"And the little nest, eh?" he queried. "When do you spread your wings
and fly away? To-morrow! So soon? Beautiful! Beautiful!"
He rolled his eyes ecstatically for a moment, then beamed upon them with
a fatherly air.
Joe had replied sturdily enough, and Genevieve had blushed prettily; but
both felt that it was not exactly proper. Not alone because of the
privacy and holiness of the subject, but because of what might have been
prudery in the middle class, but which in them was the modesty and
reticence found in individuals of the working class when they strive
after clean living and morality.
Mr. Clausen accompanied them to the elevator, all smiles, patronage, and
beneficence, while the clerks turned their heads to follow Joe's
retreating figure.
"And to-night, Joe?" Mr. Clausen asked anxiously, as they waited at the
shaft. "How do you feel? Think you'll do him?"
"Sure," Joe answered. "Never felt better in my life."
"You feel all right, eh? Good! Good! You see, I was just
a-wonderin'--you know, ha! ha!--goin' to get married and the rest--thought
you might be unstrung, eh, a trifle?--nerves just a bit off, you know.
Know how gettin' married is myself. But you're all right, eh? Of course
you are. No use asking _you_ that. Ha! ha! Well, good luck, my boy! I
know you'll win. Never had the least doubt, of course, of course."
"And good-by, Miss Pritchard," he said to Genevieve, gallantly handing
her into the elevator. "Hope you call often. Will be charmed--charmed--I
assure you."
"Everybody calls you 'Joe'," she said reproachfully, as the car dropped
downward. "Why don't they call you 'Mr. Fleming'? That's no more than
proper."
But he was staring moodily at the elevator boy and did not seem to hear.
"What's the matter, Joe?" she asked, with a tenderness the power of which
to thrill him she knew full well.
"Oh, nothing," he said. "I was only thinking--and wishing."
"Wishing?--what?" Her voice was seduction itself, and her eyes would
have melted stronger than he, though they failed in calling his up to
them.
Then, deliberately, his eyes lifted to hers. "I was wishing you could
see me fight just once."
She made a gesture of disgust, and his face fell. It came to her sharply
that the rival had thrust between and was bearing him away.
"I--I'd like to," she said hastily with an effort, striving after that
sympathy which weakens the strongest men and draws their heads to women's
breasts.
"Will you?"
Again his eyes lifted and looked into hers. He meant it--she knew that.
It seemed a challenge to the greatness of her love.
"It would be the proudest moment of my life," he said simply.
It may have been the apprehensiveness of love, the wish to meet his need
for her sympathy, and the desire to see the Game face to face for
wisdom's sake,--and it may have been the clarion call of adventure
ringing through the narrow confines of uneventful existence; for a great
daring thrilled through her, and she said, just as simply, "I will."
"I didn't think you would, or I wouldn't have asked," he confessed, as
they walked out to the sidewalk.
"But can't it be done?" she asked anxiously, before her resolution could
cool.
"Oh, I can fix that; but I didn't think you would."
"I didn't think you would," he repeated, still amazed, as he helped her
upon the electric car and felt in his pocket for the fare.