but I gave it to him back, straight from the shoulder. I ain't going to
have him call me down; not much. I know my business, don't I? I don't
need no little snip of a red-headed Irishman to tell me what to do. I
was born here, I was, and I'm not taking any back talk from him, even if
he has a front like the court-house!"
The second girl, whose voice was gentler, then remarked: "Well, I
wouldn't be too hard on Mr. Maguire to-day. I guess he's got troubles of
his own."
"What's that?" cried the first of the three, whose voice was the
sharpest. "Has Sadie Jones thrown him down again?"
"I didn't know a thing about it till this mornin', when I saw the ring
on her other finger," the second saleslady explained, delighted to be
the purveyor of important information. "Mazie says Sadie didn't break it
off again till last night after he'd brought her back from the Lady
Dazzlers' Mask and Civic. And she waited till they got into the trolley
comin' home. An' he'd taken her in to supper, too."
"That's so," the third girl said, "and Mr. Maguire's takin' it terrible.
He came across the street this morning just before me, and he had his
skates on. I was waitin' to see him go in the mud-gutter. Then he saw
the copper on the beat, and he made an awful brace. Gee, but I thought
he was pinched sure!"
"Mr. Smith caught on to him," said the first, with her sharp voice, "and
Willy heard him say he'd be all right again, and he had only the fill of
a pitcher."
"And Sadie's going to keep the ring, too. She says she earned it trying
to keep him straight," the third girl went on. "It's a dead ringer for a
diamond, even if it ain't the real thing. He says it is."
Two customers came up at this juncture, and the group of salesladies had
to dissolve. A series of shrill whistles came in swift succession and a
fire-engine rushed down the avenue, followed by a hook-and-ladder truck;
and the girl with the kindly voice went over toward the door to look at
them, leaving Minnie Henryson again to her own thoughts.
She asked herself if she was really getting interested in Addison
Wyngard. And she could not answer her own question. Of course it had
been very pleasant to feel that he was interested in her. And she
thought he really was interested. He had told her that he did not like
his position with Smyth, Mackellar & Hubbard, and a classmate at
Columbia had offered him a place with a railroad company down in Texas.
But he had said that he hated to give up the law and to leave New
York--and all his friends. And as he said that, he looked at her. She
had felt that he was implying that she was the reason why he was
unwilling to go. She remembered that she had laughed lightly as she
rejoined that she would feel homesick herself if she went out of sight
of the Madison Square Tower. He had answered that there were other
things in New York besides the Diana, things just as distant and just as
unattainable. And to that she had made no response.
Then he had told her that he had another classmate in the office of the
Corporation Counsel, Judge McKinley; there was a vacancy there, and his
name had been suggested to the judge. She had smiled and expressed the
hope that he might get the appointment. And now, as she sat there alone,
with the stir and bustle of the department-store all about her, she felt
certain as never before that if he did get the place he would be
assured that he had at last money enough to marry on, and that he would
ask her to be his wife. If she accepted him she would have a husband and
a home of her own. She would have her chance for the fuller life that
can come to a woman only when she is able to fulfil her destiny.
Later he had found a chance to say that he was going to stick it out in
New York a little longer--and then, if the Texas offer was still open,
he'd have to take it. He had paused to hear what she would say to that.
And all she had said was that Texas did seem a long way off. She had
given him no encouragement; she had been polite--nothing more. If he did
ever propose, and if she should refuse him, he could never reproach her
for having lured him on.
Suddenly it seemed to her that this chilly attitude of hers was
contemptible. The man wanted her--and for the first time she began to
suspect that all the woman in her wanted him to want her. She hated
herself for having been so unresponsive, so discouraging, so cold. She
knew that he was a man of character and of ability, a clean man, a man
his wife might be proud of. And she had looked ahead sharply and
realized how desolate the Cotillion of One Hundred and the Thursday
Theater Club would be for her if Addison Wyngard should go to Texas,
after all. She began to fear that, if he did decide to leave New York,
he would never dare to ask her to marry him.
Then she looked around her and began to wonder what could be keeping
her mother so long. She happened to see the door of the store open, as a
tall girl came in with a high pompadour and an immense black hat adorned
with three aggressive silver feathers.
The new-comer advanced toward the ribbon-counter, where she was greeted
effusively by two of the salesladies.
"For pity's sake," cried one of them, "I ain't seen you for a month of
Sundays!"
"Addie Brown!" said the other. "And you haven't been back here to see us
old friends since I don't know when."
"Addie Cameron now, if you please," and the new-comer bridled a little
as she gave herself her married name. "An' I was comin' in last
Saturday, but I had to have my teeth fixed first, and I went to dentist
after dentist and they were all full, and I was tired out."
"Well, it's Addie, any way you fix it," responded one of the
salesladies, "and we're glad to see you back, even if we did think you'd
shook us for keeps. Is this gettin' married all it's cracked up to be?"
"It's fine," the bride replied, "an' I wouldn't never come back here on
no account. Not but what things ain't what I'd like altogether. I went
to the Girls' Friendly last night, and there was that Miss Van Antwerp
that runs our class, and she was so interested, for all she's one of the
Four Hundred. An' she wanted to know about Sam, an' I told her he was a
good man an' none better, an' I was perfectly satisfied. 'But, Miss Van
Antwerp,' I says to her, I says, 'don't you never marry a
policeman--their hours are so inconvenient. You can't never tell when
he's comin' home.' That's what I told her, for she's always interested."
The other two salesladies laughed, and one of them asked, "What did Miss
Van Antwerp say to that?"
"She just said that she wasn't thinkin' of gettin' married, but she'd
remember my advice."
"I ain't thinkin' of gettin' married, either," said one of the
salesladies, the one with the gentler voice, "but I've had a dream an'
it may come true. I dreamed there was a young feller, handsome he was,
too, and the son of a charge customer. You've seen her, the old stiff
with those furs and the big diamond ear-rings, that's so fussy always
and so partic'lar, for all she belongs to the Consumers' League."
"I know who you mean; horrid old thing she is, too," interrupted the
other; "but I didn't know she had a son."
"I don't know it, either," was the reply. "But that's what I
dreamed--and I dreamed it three nights runnin', too. Fierce, wasn't it?
An' he kept hangin' round and wantin' to make a date to take me to the
opera. Said he could talk French an' he'd tell me what it was all about.
An'--"
Just then the floor-walker called "Forward!" as a customer came to the
other end of the counter; and the girl with the gentle voice moved away.
Minnie Henryson wondered whether this floor-walker was Mr. Maguire or
Mr. Smith. Under the suggestion of his stare, whichever he was, Addie
Cameron and the other shop-girl moved away toward the door, and the rest
of their conversation was lost to the listener.
She did not know how long she continued to sit there, while customers
loitered before the ribbon-counter and fingered the stock and asked
questions. She heard the fire-engines come slowly back; and above the
murmur which arose all over the store she caught again the harsh
grinding of the brakes on the Elevated in the avenue. Then she rose, as
she saw her mother looking for her.
"I didn't mean to keep you waiting so long," Mrs. Henryson explained;
"but I couldn't seem to find just the rug I wanted for your father. You
know he's always satisfied with anything, so I have to be particular to
get something he'll really like. And then I met Mrs. McKinley, and we
had to have a little chat."
Minnie looked at her mother. She had forgotten that the wife of the
Corporation Counsel was a friend of her mother's; and she wondered
whether she could get her mother to say a good word for Addison Wyngard.
Mother and daughter threaded their way through the swarm of shoppers
toward the door of the store.
"By the way, Minnie," said her mother, just as they came to the
entrance, "didn't you tell me that young Mr. Wyngard sat next you at the
theater the other night at that Thursday Club of yours? That's his name,
isn't it?"
"Mr. Wyngard did sit next to me one evening," the daughter answered, not
looking up.
"Well, Mrs. McKinley saw you, and so did the Judge. He says that this
young Wyngard is a clever lawyer--and he's going to take him into his
office."
And then they passed out into the avenue flooded with spring sunshine.
Minnie took a long breath of fresh air and she raised her head. It
seemed to her almost as though she could already feel a new ring on the
third finger of her left hand.
(1910)
[Illustration: Under an April Sky]
The swirling rain bespattered the window as the fitful April wind
changed about; and the lonely woman, staring vacantly upon the plumes of
steam waving from the roofs below her, saw them violently twisted and
broken and scattered. The new hotel towered high above all the
neighboring buildings, and she could look down on the private houses
that filled block after block, until the next tall edifice rose abruptly
into view half a mile to the northward. Through the drizzle the prospect
seemed to her drearier than ever, and the ugly monotony of it weighed on
her like a nightmare. With an impatient sigh she turned from the window,
but as her eye traveled around the walls she saw nothing that might
relieve her melancholy.
It was not a large room, this private parlor on an upper story of the
immense hotel; and its decorations, its ornaments, its furniture, its
carpets, had the characterless commonplace befitting an apartment which
might have a score of occupants in a single month. Yet she had spent the
most of the winter in it; those were her pretty cushions (on the hard
sofa), and that was her tea equipage on the low table by the fireplace
(with its gas-log). The photographs in their silver frames were hers
also, and so were the violets that filled a Rookwood bowl on the top of
the writing-desk near the window. But as she glanced about in search of
something that might make her feel at home, she found nothing to satisfy
her longing. The room was a room in a hotel, after all; and she had
failed wholly to impress her own individuality upon it. To recall her
vain efforts only intensified her loneliness.
The hotel was full, so they said, and it held a thousand souls and more;
and as she walked aimlessly to and fro within her narrow space, she
wondered whether any one of the thousand felt as detached and as
solitary as she did then--as she had felt so often during the long
winter. She paused at the window again, and gazed at the houses far down
below her on the other side of the narrow street; they were at least
homes, and the women who dwelt there had husbands or sons or
fathers--had each of them a man of some sort for her to lean on, for her
to cling to, for her to love, for her to devote herself to, and for her
to sacrifice herself for.
Sometimes she had delighted in the loftiness of her position, lifted
high in air; she had fancied almost that she was on another plane from
the people in the thick of the struggle down below. Now as she pressed
her forehead against the chill pane and peered down to watch the
umbrellas that crawled here and there on the sidewalk, more than a
hundred feet beneath her, she had a fleeting vision of her own mangled
body lying down there on the stones, if she should ever yield to the
temptation that came to her in these moments of depression. She
shuddered at the sight, and turned away impetuously, while the rain
again rattled against the window, as though demanding instant admission.
An observer would have declared that this woman, weary as she might be
with solitude, was far too young for life already to have lost its
savor. Her figure was slight and girlish yet. Her walk was brisk and
youthful. Her thick, brown hair was abundant, and untouched by gray. Her
dark-brown eyes kept their freshness still, although they were older
than they might seem at first. She was perhaps a scant thirty years of
age, although it might well be that she was three or four years younger.
No doubt the observer would have found her ill at ease and restless, as
though making ready for an ordeal that she was anxious to pass through
as soon as possible.
The clock on the mantelpiece began to strike, and she looked up eagerly;
but when she saw that it was only three, she turned away petulantly,
almost like a spoiled child who cannot bear to wait.
Her eye fell on the desk with an unfinished letter lying on it. With her
usual impulsive swiftness she sat herself down and hastily ran over
what she had written.
"Dear Margaret," the letter began, "it was a surprise, of course, to
hear from you again, for it must be three or four years since last we
corresponded. But your kindly inquiries were very welcome, and it did me
good to feel that there was a woman really interested in me, even though
she was thousands of miles away. It is with a glow of gratitude that I
think of you and your goodness to me when I was suddenly widowed. You
took pity on my loneliness then, and you can't guess how often I have
longed for a friend like you in these last years of bitter solitude--a
friend I could go to for sympathy, a friend I could unburden my heart
to."
Having read this almost at a glance, she seized her pen and continued:
"I feel as if I simply must talk out to somebody--and so I'm going to
write to you, sure you will not misunderstand me, for your insight and
your perceptions were always as kindly as they were keen.
"You ask me what I am going to do. And I answer you frankly. I am going
to marry a man I don't love--and who doesn't love me. So we shall
swindle each other!
"I can see your shocked look as you read this--but you don't know what
has brought me to it. I've come to the end of my tether at last. My
money has nearly all gone. I don't know how I can support myself--and
so I'm going to let somebody support me, that's all!
"The settlement of poor George's affairs has dragged along all these
years, and it was only last December that I got the few hundred dollars
that were coming to me. I took the cash and I came here to New York to
see if something wouldn't turn up. What--well, I didn't know and I
didn't care. I just hoped that the luck might change at last--and
perhaps I did dream of a Prince Charming at the end of the perspective;
not a mere boy, of course, not the pretty little puppet Cinderella
married, but a Prince Charming of middle age, with his hair dashed with
gray at the temples, a man of position and sound judgment and good
taste, who might still find his ideal in a thin little widow like me. Of
course the dream hasn't come true; it's only the nightmares that are
realized. I haven't seen any Prince Charmings, either pretty little
puppets or mature men of the world. I guess the race is extinct, like
the dodo. At any rate, nothing has turned up, and the winter is over,
and my money is nearly all gone.
"But I don't regret the past few months. New York is very interesting,
and I'd dearly love to talk it over with you. It is a sort of a
stock-pot; everything goes in--good meat, and bones, and scraps of all
sorts--and you never know just what the flavor will be like, but it's
sure to be rich and stimulating and unexpected. I've been to very
exclusive houses here sometimes, and I enjoyed that immensely; I think
I could learn easily to live up to any income, no matter how big it was.
I've been mostly in the society absurdly called the Four Hundred; it
used to be called the Upper Ten Thousand; there are pleasant men and
women there, and dull ones too, just as there are everywhere else, I
suppose. And I've even gone a little into artistic and literary
circles--but I don't really like untidy people.
"You see, I am here at the newest and swellest hotel. It's true I have
only a tiny little parlor and a teeny little bedroom, 'way up near the
top of the house, with a room in the attic somewhere for my maid
Jemima--you remember Jemima? Well, she's watching over me still, and
she's the only real friend I have in all New York! She'd give me all her
savings gladly if I was mean enough to take them; but I couldn't live on
that pittance, could I?
"I brought very good letters, and I had very good advice from an old
maid who knew George's father when he was a boy--Miss Marlenspuyk; dear
old soul she is. Then, as it happened, somebody remembered that poor
George had been interested in that strike in Grass Valley, and had
received one-third of the stock when the Belinda and the Lone Star were
consolidated. I've got that stock still, and I could paper a house with
it--if I had one. At any rate, somebody started the story that I was
immensely rich, and of course I didn't contradict it, I hope I've too
much tact to refuse any help that chance throws in my way. I don't know
whether it was the reported wealth, or the excellent letters I brought,
or Miss Marlenspuyk's good advice, or even my own personal
attractiveness--but, whatever the cause, I just walked into Society here
almost without an effort; so easily, indeed, that the social strugglers
who have seen doors open wide for me where they have been knocking in
vain for years--well, they are mad enough to die! It's enough to make us
despise ourselves even more than we do when we see the weeping and
wailing and gnashing of teeth there is among the outsiders who are
peeking over the barbed-wire fence of Society! I'm afraid I've been
horrid enough to get a good deal of satisfaction out of the envy of
those outside the pale.
"And I've enjoyed the thing for its own sake, too. I like to give a
little dinner here to a woman from whom I expect favors and to a couple
of agreeable men. I like to go to other people's dinners, and to a ball
now and then. Why is it I haven't really the half-million or more that
they think I have? I'm sure I could spend it better than most of those I
know who have it. As it is, I've about enough money left in the bank at
the corner to carry me another month--and then? And then I wonder
sometimes whether I hadn't better take the last half-dollar for a poison
of some sort--painless, of course. Jemima would see me decently buried.
But of course I sha'n't do anything of the sort; I'm too big a coward!
"And the winter has almost gone, and nothing has turned up. Oh yes, I
forgot--poor George's brother, who doesn't like me, and never did; he
knows how poor I am, and he wouldn't give me a dollar out of his own
pocket. But he wrote me last week, asking if I would like a place as
matron in a girl's boarding-school in Milwaukee. Of course I haven't
answered him! I don't exactly see myself as a matron. What a hideous
word it is!
"_Mais il faut faire un fin_, and my end is matrimony, I suppose.
There's a man here called Stone; he's a lieutenant-commander in the
navy, and I think he's going to ask me to marry him--and I'm going to
accept the proposal promptly!
"He's not the mature Prince Charming of my dreams, but he is really not
ill-looking. He's a manly fellow, and I confess I thought he was rather
nice, until I discovered that he was after me for my money--which was a
shock to my vanity, too. Little Mat Hitchcock--you must remember that
withered little old beau? Well, he is still extant, and as detestable as
ever; he told me that John Stone had proposed to half the wealthy girls
in New York. Of course, I don't believe that, but I thought it was very
suspicious when he took me in to dinner a month ago and tried to
question me about my stock in the Belinda and Lone Star. I told him I
had the stock--and I have, indeed!--and I let him believe that it was
worth anything you please. It wasn't what I said, of course, for I was
careful not to commit myself; but I guess he got the right impression.
And since then he has been very attentive; so it must be the money he is
after and not me. I rather liked him, till I began to suspect; and even
now I find it hard to have the thorough contempt I ought to have for a
fortune-hunter.
"Why is it that we think a man despicable who marries for money, and yet
it is what we expect a woman to do? I've asked Miss Marlenspuyk about
Mr. Stone, and she knows all about him, as she does about everybody
else. She says he has three or four or five thousand dollars a year
besides his pay--and yet he wants to marry me for my money! It will just
serve him right if I marry him for his. He's at the Brooklyn Navy-Yard
for a few months more, and then his shore duty will be up; so that if we
are married, he'll be ordered to sea soon, and I shall be free from him
for three years. When I write like that I don't know whether I have a
greater contempt for him or for myself. _Mais il faut vivre, n'est-ce
pas?_ And what am I to live on next month? I can't be a matron in
Milwaukee, can I? The world owes me a living, after all, and I've simply
got to collect the debt from a man. And how I hate myself for doing it!
"He sent me flowers this morning--a big bunch of violets--and of course
he will come in this afternoon to get thanked. If I am engaged before
dinner I'll put in a postscript to tell you--so that you can get your
wedding-present ready!"
As she wrote this last sentence she gave a hard little laugh.
Then she heard a brisk rattle from the telephone-box near the door.
She dropped her pen and went across the room and put the receiver to her
ear.
"Yes--I'm Mrs. Randolph," she said. "Yes--I'm at home. Yes. Have Mr.
Stone shown up to my parlor."
Then she replaced the receiver and stood for a moment in thought. She
went back to the desk and closed her portfolio, with the unfinished
letter inside. She changed the position of the bowl of violets and
brought it into the full light. She glanced about the room to see if it
was in order; and she crossed to the fireplace and looked at herself in
the mirror above.
"I do wish I had slept better last night," she said to herself. "I
always show it so round the eyes."
She crossed swiftly to the door which opened into the next room.
"Jemima!" she called.
"Yes, Miss Evelyn," responded a voice from within.
"Mr. Stone is coming up--and my hair is all wrong. I simply must do it
over. You tell him I'll be here in a minute."
"Yes, Miss Evelyn," was the answer.
"And after Mr. Stone comes you get the water ready for the tea," said
Mrs. Randolph, as she went into the bedroom. "Be sure that you have a
fresh lemon. The last time Mr. Stone was here his slice was all dried
up--and men don't like that sort of thing."
A minute or two after she had disappeared there was a rap at the door,
and Jemima came from the bedroom and admitted Mr. Stone. She told him
that Mrs. Randolph would see him at once, and then she went back to her
mistress, after giving him a curiously inquisitive look.
Mr. Stone had the walk of a sailor, but he carried himself like a
soldier. His eyes were blue and penetrating; his ashen mustache curled
over a firm mouth; his clean-shaven chin was square and resolute.
He stood near the door for a moment, and then he went toward the window.
The rain had dwindled, and as he looked out he thought he saw a break in
the clouds.
It was full five minutes before Mrs. Randolph returned.
"Oh, Mr. Stone," she began, in voluble apology, "it's a shame to keep
you waiting so, but honestly I couldn't help it. You took me by surprise
so, I really wasn't fit to be seen!"
Mr. Stone gallantly expressed a doubt as to this last statement of
hers.
"It's very good of you to think that," she responded, "but I hardly
hoped to see any one this afternoon, in this awful weather. How did you
ever have the courage to venture out? It's so kind of you to come and
visit a lonely woman, for it has been such a long day!"
Mr. Stone informed her that it looked as though it was about to clear
up.
"Of course you sailors have to know all about the weather, don't you?"
she replied. "That's the advantage of being a man--you can do things.
Now a woman can't do anything--she can't even go out in the rain for
fear of getting her skirts wet!"