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[Illustration: "IT'S ALL RIGHT, DEAREST; THIS IS YOUR SURPRISE"
[See page 28]
JUST AROUND THE CORNER
ROMANCE _en casserole_
BY
FANNIE HURST
ILLUSTRATED
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
MCMXIV
COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY HARPER & BROTHERS
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER, 1914
CONTENTS
PAGE
POWER AND HORSE-POWER 1
OTHER PEOPLE'S SHOES 31
THE OTHER CHEEK 72
MARKED DOWN 110
BREAKERS AHEAD 153
THE GOOD PROVIDER 199
SUPERMAN 247
THE PARADISE TRAIL 300
THE SQUALL 329
ILLUSTRATIONS
"IT'S ALL RIGHT, DEAREST; THIS IS YOUR SURPRISE" _Frontispiece_
SHE HELD UP A HAND AS LIGHT AS A LEAF, AND HE TOOK
IT IN A WIDE, GENTLE CLASP THAT ENVELOPED IT _Facing p._ 290
"HELLO!" HE WHISPERED, EXTENDING BOTH HANDS AND
SMILING AT HER UNTIL ALL HIS TEETH SHOWED " 328
"I WENT OVER TO LOO'S, AND WE STAYED UP AND TALKED
SO LATE--I DIDN'T KNOW--" " 360
JUST AROUND THE CORNER
POWER AND HORSE-POWER
In the Knockerbeck Hotel there are various parlors; Pompeian rooms lined
in marble and pillared in chaste fluted columns; Louis Quinze corners,
gold-leafed and pink-brocaded, principally furnished with a
spindly-legged Vernis-Martin cabinet and a large French clock in the
form of a celestial sphere surmounted by a gold cupid.
There are high-ceilinged rendezvous rooms, with six arm and two straight
chairs chased after the manner of Gouthiere, and a series of small
inlaid writing-desks, generously equipped for an avidious public to whom
the crest-embossed stationery of a four-dollar-a-day-up hotel suggests
long-forgotten friends back home.
Just off the lobby is the Oriental room, thick with arabesque hangings
and incense and distinguished by the famous pair of Chinese famille rose
mandarin jars, fifty-three inches high and enameled with Hoho birds and
flowers. In careful contrast the adjoining room, a Colonial parlor
paneled in black walnut and designed by a notorious architect, is ten
degrees lower in temperature and lighted by large rectangular windows,
through whose leaded panes a checkered patch of sunshine filters across
the floor for half an hour each forenoon.
Then there is the manicure parlor, done in white tile, and stationary
wash-stands by the Herman Casky Hygienic Company, Eighth Avenue.
The oracle of this particular Delphi was Miss Gertrude Sprunt,
white-shirtwaisted, smooth-haired, and cool-fingered. Miss Sprunt could
tell, almost as soon as you stepped out of the elevator opposite the
parlors, the shortest cut to your hand and heart; she could glance at a
pair of cuffs and give the finger-nails a correspondingly high or
domestic finish, and could cater to the manicurial whims of Fifth Avenue
and Four Corners alike. After one digital treat at her clever hands you
enlisted as one of Miss Sprunt's regulars.
This fact was not lost upon her sister worker, Miss Ethyl Mooney. "Say,
Gertie"--Miss Mooney tied a perky little apron about her trim waist and
patted a bow into place--"is there ever a mornin' that you ain't booked
clear through the day?"
Miss Sprunt hung her flat sailor hat and blue jacket behind the door,
placed her hands on her hips, glanced down the length of her svelte
figure, yawned, and patted her mouth with her hand.
"Not so you could notice it," she replied, in gapey tones. "I'm booked
from nine to quitting just six days of the week; and, believe me, it's
not like taking the rest cure."
"I guess if I was a jollier like you, Gert, I'd have a waitin'-list,
too, I wish I could get on to your system."
"Maybe I give tradin'-stamps," observed Miss Sprunt, flippantly.
"You give 'em some sort of laughing-gas; but me, I'm of a retiring
disposition, and I never could force myself on nobody."
Miss Gertrude flecked at herself with a whisk-broom.
"Don't feel bad about it, Ethyl; just keep on trying."
Miss Ethyl flushed angrily.
"Smarty!" she said.
"I wasn't trying to be nasty, Ethyl--you're welcome to an appointment
every twenty minutes so far as I'm concerned."
Miss Ethyl appeared appeased.
"You know yourself, Gert, you gotta way about you. A dollar tip ain't
nothin' for you. But look at me--I've forgot there's anything bigger'n a
quarter in circulation."
"There's a great deal in knowing human nature. Why, I can almost tell a
fellow's first name by looking at his half-moons."
"Believe me, Gert, it ain't your glossy finish that makes the hit; it's
a way you've got of making a fellow think he's the whole show."
"I _do_ try to make myself agreeable," admitted Miss Sprunt.
"Agreeable! You can look at a guy with that
Oh-I-could-just-listen-to-you-talk-for-ever expression, and by the time
you're through with him he'll want to take his tens out of the water and
sign over his insurance to you."
"Manicuring is a business like anything else," said Miss Sprunt, by no
means displeased. "You sure do have to cater to the trade."
"Well, believe me--" began Miss Ethyl.
But Miss Gertrude suddenly straightened, smiled, and turned toward her
table.
Across the hall Mr. James Barker, the rubbed-down, clean-shaven result
of a Russian bath, a Swedish massage, and a bountiful American
breakfast, stepped out of a French-gold elevator and entered the parlor.
Miss Sprunt placed the backs of her hands on her hips and cocked her
head at the clock.
"Good morning, Mr. Barker; you're on time to the minute."
Mr. Barker removed his black-and-white checked cap, deposited three
morning editions of evening papers atop a small glass case devoted to
the display of Madame Dupont's beautifying cold-creams and marvelous
cocoa-butters, and rubbed his hands swiftly together as if generating a
spark. A large diamond mounted in a cruelly stretched lion's mouth
glinted on Mr. Barker's left hand; a sister stone glowed like an
acetylene lamp from his scarf.
"On time, eh! Leave it to your Uncle Fuller to be on time for the big
show--a pretty goil can drag me from the hay quicker'n anything I know
of."
Miss Gertrude quirked the corner of one eye at Miss Ethyl in a scarcely
perceptible wink and filled a glass bowl with warm water.
"That's one thing I will say for my regular customers--they never keep
me waiting; that is the beauty of having a high-class trade."
She glanced at Mr. Barker with pleasing insinuation, and they seated
themselves _vis-a-vis_ at the little table.
Miss Sprunt surrounded herself with the implements of her craft--small
porcelain jars of pink and white cold-creams, cakes of powder in varying
degrees of pinkness, vials of opaque liquids, graduated series of files
and scissors, large and small chamois-covered buffers, and last the
round glass bowl of tepid water cloudy with melting soap.
Mr. Barker extended his large hand upon the little cushion and sighed in
satisfaction.
"Go to it, sis--gimme a shine like a wind-shield."
She rested his four heavy fingers lightly in her palm.
"You really don't need a manicure, Mr. Barker; your hands keep the shine
better than most."
"Well, I'll be hanged--tryin' to learn your Uncle Fuller when to have
his own hands polished! Can you beat it?" Mr. Barker's steel-blue shaved
face widened to a broad grin. "Say, you're a goil after my own heart--a
regular little sixty-horse-power queen."
"I wasn't born yesterday, Mr. Barker."
"I know you wasn't, but you can't bluff me off, kiddo. You don't need to
give me no high-power shine if you don't want to, but I've got one
dollar and forty minutes' worth of your time cornered, just the samey."
Miss Sprunt dipped his hands into tepid water.
"I knew what I said would not frighten you off, Mr. Barker. I wouldn't
have said it if I thought it would."
Mr. Barker guffawed with gusto.
"Can you beat the wimmin?" he cried. "Can you beat the wimmin?"
"You want a high pink finish, don't you, Mr. Barker?"
"Go as far as you like, sis; give 'em to me as pink and shiny as a
baby's heel."
Miss Sprunt gouged out a finger-tip of pink cream and applied it lightly
to the several members of his right hand. Her touch was sure and swift.
He regarded her with frankly admiring eyes.
"You're some little goil," he said; "you can tell me what I want better
than I know myself."
"That's easy; there isn't a broker in New York who doesn't want a high
pink finish, and I've been doing brokers, actors, millionaires, bank
clerks, and Sixth Avenue swells in this hotel for three years."
He laughed delightedly, his eyes almost disappearing behind a fretwork
of fine wrinkles.
"What makes you know I'm a tape-puller, kiddo? Durned if you ain't got
my number better than I got it myself."
"I can tell a broker from a business man as easy as I can tell a
five-carat diamond from a gilt-edge bond."
He slid farther down on his chair and regarded her with genuine
approval.
"Say, kiddo, I've been all round the world--took a trip through Egypt in
my car last spring that I could write a book about; but I ain't seen
nothin' in the way of skirts that could touch you with a ten-foot rod."
She flushed.
"Oh, you fellows are such jolliers!"
"On the level, kiddo, you're preferred stock all right, and I'd be
willin' to take a flyer any time."
"Say, Mr. Barker, you'd better quit stirring the candy, or it will turn
to sugar."
"Lemme tell you, Miss Gertie, I ain't guyin', and I'll prove it to you.
I'm goin' to take you out in the swellest little ninety-horse-power
speedwagon you ever seen; if you'll gimme leave I'll set you and me up
to-night to the niftiest little dinner-party on the island, eh?"
She filed rapidly at his thumb, bringing the nail to a pointed apex.
"I'm very careful about accepting invitations, Mr. Barker."
"Don't you think I can tell a genteel goil when I see her? That's why I
ain't asked you out the first time I seen you."
She kept her eyes lowered.
"Of course, since you put it that way, I'll be pleased to accept your
invitation, Mr. Barker."
He struck the table with his free hand.
"You're a live un, all right. How about callin' round fer you at six
this evenin'?"
She nodded assent.
"Good goil! We'll keep the speedometer busy, all right!"
She skidded the palms of her hands over his nails. "There," she said,
"that's not a bad shine."
He straightened his hands out before him and regarded them in mock
scrutiny. "Those are some classy grabbers," he said; "and you're some
classy little woiker."
He watched her replace the crystal stoppers in their several bottles and
fit her various commodities into place. She ranged the scissors and
files in neat graduated rows and blew powder particles off the cover
with prettily pursed lips.
"That'll be about all, Mr. Barker."
He ambled reluctantly out from his chair.
"You'll be here at six, then?"
"Will I be here at six, sis? Say, will a fish swim?"
He fitted his cap carefully upon his head and pulled the vizor low over
his eyes.
"So long, kiddo!" He crossed the marble corridor, stepped into the gold
elevator, the filigree door snapped shut, and he shot upward.
Miss Ethyl waited a moment and then pitched her voice to a careful note
of indifference.
"I'll bet the million-dollar kid asked you to elope with him."
Miss Gertrude tilted her coiffure forward and ran her amber back-comb
through her front hair.
"No," she said, with the same indifference, "he didn't ask me to elope
with him; he just wanted to know if I'd tour Hester Street with him in
his canoe."
"I don't see no medals on you fer bein' the end man of the minstrel
show. Don't let a boat trip to Coney go to your head; you might get
brain-fever."
Gertrude Sprunt cast her eyes ceilingward.
"Well, one good thing, your brain will never cause you any trouble,
Ethyl."
"Lord, Gert, cut out the airs! You ain't livin' in the rose suite on the
tenth floor; you're only applyin' nail-polishes and cuticle-lotions down
here in the basement."
"There's something else I'm doing, too," retorted Miss Gertrude, with
unruffled amiability. "I'm minding my own affairs."
They fell to work again after these happy sallies, and it was late
afternoon before there came a welcome lull.
"Who's your last, Gert?"
"Mr. Chase." There were two red spots of excitement burning on Miss
Sprunt's cheeks, and her eyes showed more black than blue.
"Not that little guy with the Now-I-lay-me-down-to-sleep face? Take it
from me, he's a bank clerk or a library guy. Thank Heaven, I ain't got
no cheap skates on my staff!"
Miss Gertrude flushed up to her eyes.
"He may be a clerk, but--"
Mr. Chase entered quietly. There was a gentle, even shrinking smile upon
his features, and he carried a small offering covered with purple
tissue-paper, which he placed nervously upon the edge of the table.
"Good afternoon, Miss Sprunt." He pushed the greeting toward her. "May I
hope that you will accept these?"
"Oh, Mr. Chase, aren't you good?" The very quality of her voice was
suddenly different, like the softening of a violin note when you mute
the strings.
He drew his chair up to the table with the quiet satisfaction of a man
ready for a well-merited meal.
"You and violets are inseparable in my mind, Miss Sprunt, because you
both suggest the spring."
She laughed in low, rich tones, and her shirtwaist rose and fell rapidly
from short breathing.
"Why," she said, "that's the very nicest thing any one ever said to me!"
His hand, long-fingered and virile, drooped over the edge of the bowl
into the warm water; he leaned forward with his chest against the line
of the table.
"What do you mean, Miss Sprunt?"
She took his dripping hand from the water and dried each finger
separately.
"If you had been doing high pink finishes for three years you'd know the
difference when a dull white came along--I--I mean, I--"
He smoothed away her embarrassment with a raillery: "By your polish
shall ye be known."
"Yes," she replied, with more seriousness than banter; "that's exactly
what I mean. I'm not used to men whose polish extends beyond their
finger-nails."
She worked with her head bent low, and he regarded the shining coils of
her hair.
"How droll you are!" he said.
She pushed back the half-moons of his fingers with an orange stick
dipped in cold-cream.
"You ought to watch your cuticle, Mr. Chase, and be more regular about
the manicures. Your hands are more delicate than most."
He started.
"Of course I should pay more attention to them, but I'm pretty busy
and--and--"
"Of course I understand manicures are expensive luxuries these days."
"Yes."
"I have become so accustomed to hotel trade that I forgot that some
hands may be earning salaries instead of drawing incomes."
Her manner was unobtrusive, and he laughed quietly.
"You are quite a student of types, Miss Sprunt."
"Wouldn't I have to be, Mr. Chase, me doing as many as a hundred fingers
a day, and something different coming with each ten of them?"
"You are delightful," he said, letting his amused eyes rest upon her;
"but I fear you've mysterious methods of divination."
"Oh, I don't know," she said, airily. "Just take you, for example. I
don't need an X-ray to see that there isn't a Fifth Avenue tailor sign
stitched inside your coat. It doesn't take any mind-reader to know that
you come in from the Sixth Avenue entrance and not from the elevator.
Besides, when you come to live in a lobster palace you usually have your
claws done to match your shell. I'd have given _you_ a dull white finish
without your even asking for it."
"I see where I stand with you, Miss Sprunt."
"Oh, it isn't that, Mr. Chase. I guess, if the truth was known, the
crawfish stand better with me than the lobsters."
Mr. Chase's fingers closed lightly over hers.
"I believe you mean what you say," he said.
"You bet your life I do!" she said, emphasizing each word with a buff.
She looked up, met his insistent eyes, and laughed in a high, unnatural
pitch. "Other hand, please," she whispered.
When he finally rose to depart she rose with him, holding her nosegay at
arm's-length and tilting her head.
"It's almost time for wood violets, Miss Sprunt. I'll try to get you
some."
"Oh, don't trouble, Mr. Chase; these hothouse ones are beauties."
"I--I'll be dropping in soon again, Miss Sprunt. I think I'll take your
advice and be more regular about my manicures."
"Oh," she said, in some confusion, "I--I didn't mean that. You can care
for them in between times yourself."
At the Sixth Avenue exit he paused.
"Good night," he said, slowly.
"Good night," she responded, her lips warm and parted like a child's.
When the click of his footsteps had echoed down the marble corridor Miss
Ethyl crossed the room and indulged in several jerky sniffs at the
little floral offering. "Well, whatta you know about that little tin
Willie, bringin' a goil violets in May? You better stick to the
million-dollar kid, Gert; he's the strawberries-in-December brand."
For once Miss Gertrude did not retort; her eyes, full of dreams, were
gazing past the doorway which had so recently framed the modest figure
of Mr. Chase.
Promptly at six Mr. Barker appeared for his appointment. He bespoke the
last word and epilogue in sartorial perfection--his suit was a trifle
too brown and a trifle too creased and his carnation a bit too large,
but he radiated good cheer and perfume.
Miss Ethyl nudged Miss Gertrude excitedly.
"Pipe the rig, Gert; he makes you look like a hole in a doughnut."
He entered, suave as oil.
"Well, sis, ready?"
"Oh, Mr. Barker, you're all dressed up--and look at me. I--"
"Ah-h-h, how do you like it? Some class, eh? Guess your Uncle Fuller
ain't some hit--brand-new gear from tonneau to rear wheels."
Mr. Barker circumvolved on one heel, holding his coat-tails apart.
"I blew me right fer this outfit; but it's woith the money, sis."
"If I had known I'd have gone home and dressed up, too."
"Well, whatta you know about that?" exclaimed Mr. Barker, observing her
up and down. "That there shroud you're wearing is as classy as anything
I've seen up in the lobby or any place else, and I've been all round the
woild some, too. I know the real thing from the seconds every time."
Miss Gertrude worked into her gloves.
"I guess it is more becoming for a girl like me to go plainly."
"Believe me, kiddo"--Mr. Barker placed his hand blinker-fashion against
the side of his mouth, and his lips took on an oblique slant--"take it
from me, kiddo, when it comes to real feet-on-the-fender comfort, a
nineteen-fifty suit with a extry pair of pants thrown in can make this
rig feel like a busted tire."
"Well, Mr. Barker, I'm ready if you are."
He swung one arm akimbo with an outward circular movement, clicked his
heels together, and straightened his shoulders until his speckled white
vest swelled.
"Hitch on, sis, and let's show Broadway we're in town!"
Gertrude took a pinch of sleeve between her gloved fingers; they fell
into step. At the door she turned and nodded over one shoulder.
"Good night, Ethyl dear," she said, a trifle too sweetly.
A huge mahogany-colored touring-car caparisoned in nickel and
upholstered in darker red panted and chugged at the Broadway curb. Mr.
Barker helped her into the front seat, swung himself behind the
steering-wheel, covered them over with a striped rug, and turned his
shining monster into the flux of Broadway.
Miss Gertrude leaned her head back against the upholstery and breathed a
deep-seated, satisfied sigh.
"This," she said, "is what I call living."
Mr. Barker grinned and let out five miles more to the hour.
"I guess this ain't got the Sixth Avenue 'L' skinned a mile!"
"Two miles," she said.
"Honest, sis, I could be arrested for what I think of the 'L.'"
"I know the furnishing of every third-floor front on the line," she
replied, with a dreary attempt at jocoseness.
"Never mind, kiddo, I've got my eye on you," he sang, quoting from a
street song of the hour.
They sped on silently, the wind singing in their ears.
"Want the shield up?"
"The what?"
"The glass front."
"No, thank you, Mr. Barker; this air is good."
"This old wagon can eat up the miles, all right, eh? She toured Egypt
fer two months and never turned an ankle."
"To think of having traveled as you have."
"Me, I'm the best little traveler you ever seen. More than once I drove
this car up a mountainside. Hold your hat--here goes, kiddo."
"I guess you'll think I'm slow, but this is the first time I've been in
an automobile, except once when I was sent for in a taxi-cab for a
private manicure."
"You think you could get used to mine, kiddo?" He nudged her elbow with
his free arm; she drew herself back against the cushions.
"The way I feel now," she said, closing her eyes, "I could ride this way
until the crack of doom."
They drew up before a flaring, electric-lighted cafe with an awning
extending from the entrance out to the curb. A footman swung open the
door, a doorman relieved Mr. Barker of his hat and light overcoat, a
head waiter steered them through an Arcadia of palms, flower-banked
tables, and small fountains to a mirrored corner, a lackey drew out
their chairs, a pantry boy placed crisp rolls and small pats of sweet
butter beside their plates and filled their tumblers with water from a
crystal bottle, a waiter bent almost double wrote their order on a
silver-mounted pad, and music faint as the symphony of the spheres came
to them from a small gold balcony.
Miss Gertrude removed her gloves thoughtfully.
"That is what I call living," she repeated. She leaned forward, her
elbows on the table, and the little bunch of violets at her belt worked
out and fell to the floor. An attendant sprang to recover them.
"Let 'em go," said Barker. He drew a heavy-headed rose from the
embankment between them and wiped its wet stem. "Here's a posy that's
got them beat right."
She took it and pinned it at her throat. "Thanks," she said, glancing
about her with glowing, interested eyes.
"This place makes Runey's lunch-room look like a two-weeks-old
manicure."
"I told you I was goin' to show you the time of your life, didn't I? Any
goil that goes out with me ain't with a piker."
"Gee!" said Gertrude; "if Ethyl could only see me now!"
She sipped her water, and the ice tinkled against the frail sides of the
tumbler. A waiter swung a silver dome off a platter and served them a
steaming and unpronounceable delicacy; a woman sang from the small gold
balcony--life, wine, and jewels sparkled alike.
A page with converging lines of gilt balls down the front of his uniform
passed picture post-cards, showing the cafe, from table to table.
Gertrude asked for a lead-pencil and wrote one to a cousin in Montana,
and Mr. Barker signed his name beneath hers.
They dallied with pink ices and French pastries, and he loudly requested
the best cigar in the place.
"It's all in knowin' how to live," he explained. "I've been all over the
woild, and there ain't much I don't know or ain't seen; but you gotta
know the right way to go about things."
"Anybody could tell by looking at you that you are a man of the world,"
said Miss Gertrude.
It was eleven o'clock when they entered the car for the homeward spin.
The cool air blew color and verve into her face; and her hair,
responding to the night damp, curled in little grape-vine tendrils round
her face.
"You're some swell little goil," remarked Mr. Barker, a cigar hung idle
from one corner of his mouth.
"And you are some driver!" she retorted. "You run a car like a real
chauffeur."
"I wouldn't own a car if I couldn't run it myself," he said. "I ran this
car all through France last fall. There ain't no fun bein' steered like
a mollycoddle."
"No one could ever accuse you of being a mollycoddle, Mr. Barker."
He turned and loosened the back of her seat until it reclined like a
Morris chair. "My own invention," he said; "to lie back and watch the
stars on a clear night sort of--of gives you a hunch what's goin' on up
there."
She looked at him in some surprise. "You're clever, all right," she
said, rather seriously.
"Wait till you know me better, kiddo. I'll learn you a whole lot about
me that'll surprise you."
His hand groped for hers; she drew it away gently, but her voice was
also gentle:
"Here we are home, Mr. Barker."
In front of her lower West Side rooming-house he helped her carefully to
alight, regarding her sententiously in the flare of the street lamp.
"You're my style, all right, kiddo. My speedometer registers you pretty
high."
She giggled.
"I'm here to tell you that you look good to me, and--and--I--anything on
fer to-morrow night?"
"No," she said, softly.
"Are you on?"
She nodded.
"I'll drop in and see you to-morrow," he said.
"Good," she replied.
"If nothin' unexpected comes up to-morrow night we'll take one swell
spin out along the Hudson Drive and have dinner at the Vista. There's
some swell scenery out along the Palisade drive when the moon comes up
and shines over the water."
"Oh, Mr. Barker, that will be heavenly!"
"I'm some on the soft-soap stuff myself," he said.
"You're full of surprises," she agreed.
"I'll drop in and see you to-morrow, kiddo."
"Good night," she whispered.
"Good night, little sis," he replied.
They parted with a final hand-shake; as she climbed up to her room she
heard the machine chug away.
The perfume of her rose floated about her like a delicate mist. She
undressed and went to bed into a dream-world of shimmering women and
hidden music, a world chiefly peopled by deferential waiters and
scraping lackeys. All the night through she sped in a silent
mahogany-colored touring-car, with the wind singing in her ears and
lights flashing past like meteors.
* * * * *
When Miss Gertrude arrived at the Knockerbeck parlors next morning a
little violet offering wrapped in white tissue-paper lay on her desk.
They were fresh wood violets, cool and damp with dew. She flushed and
placed them in a small glass vase behind the cold-cream case.
Her eyes were blue like the sky when you look straight up, and a smile
trembled on her lips. Ten minutes later Mr. Barker, dust-begrimed and
enveloped in a long linen duster, swaggered in. He peeled off his stout
gloves; his fingers were black-rimmed and grease-splotched.
"Mornin', sis; here's a fine job for you. Took an unexpected business
trip ten miles out, and the bloomin' spark-plug got to cuttin' up like a
balky horse."
He crammed his gloves and goggles into spacious pockets and looked at
Miss Gertrude with warming eyes.
"Durned if you ain't lookin' pert as a mornin'-glory to-day!"
She took his fingers on her hand and regarded them reprovingly.
"Shame on you, Mr. Barker, for getting yourself so mussed up!" cried
Miss Sprunt.
"Looks like I need somebody to take care of me, doan it, sis?"
"Yes," she agreed, unblushingly.
Once in warm water, his hands exuded the odor of gasolene. She sniffed
like a horse scenting the turf.
"I'd rather have a whiff of an automobile," she remarked, "than of the
best attar of roses on the market."
"You ain't forgot about to-night, sis?"
She lowered her eyes.
"No, I haven't forgotten."
"There ain't nothin' but a business engagement can keep me off. I gotta
big deal on, and I may be too busy to-night, but we'll go to-morrow
sure."
"That'll be all right, Mr. Barker; business before pleasure."
"I'm pretty sure it'll be to-night, though. I--I don't like to have to
wait too long."
He reached across the table suddenly and gripped hold of her working
arm.
"Say, kiddo, I like you."
"Silly!" she said, softly.
"I ain't foolin'."
"I'll be ready at six," she said, lightly. "If you can't come let me
know."
"I ain't the sort to do things snide," he said. "If I can't come I'll
put you wise, all right."
"You certainly know how to treat a girl," she said.
"Let me get to likin' a goil, and there ain't nothin' I won't do for
her."
"You sure can run a machine, Mr. Barker."
"You wait till I let loose some speed along the Hudson road, and then
you'll see some real drivin'; last night wasn't nothin'."
"Oh, Mr. Barker!"
"Call me Jim," he said.
"Jim," she repeated, softly, after him.
The day was crowded with appointments. She worked unceasingly until the
nerves at the back of her head were strained and aching, and tired
shadows appeared under her eyes. The languor of spring oppressed her.
To her surprise, Mr. Chase appeared at four o'clock. At the sight of him
the point of her little scissors slipped into the unoffending cuticle of
the hand she was grooming. She motioned him to a chair along the wall.
"In just a few minutes, Mr. Chase."
"Thank you," he replied, seating himself and watching her with
interested, near-sighted eyes.
A nervousness sent the blood rushing to her head. The low drone of
Ethyl's voice talking to a customer, the tick of the clock, the click
and sough of the elevator were thrice magnified. She could feel the gush
of color to her face.
The fat old gentleman whose fingers she had been administering placed a
generous bonus on the table and ambled out. She turned her burning eyes
upon Mr. Chase and spoke slowly to steady her voice. She was ashamed of
her unaccountable nervousness and of the suffocating dryness in her
throat.
"Ready for you, Mr. Chase."
He came toward her with a peculiar slowness of movement, a
characteristic slowness which was one of the trivial things which burned
his attractiveness into her consciousness. In the stuffiness of her own
little room she had more than once closed her eyes and deliberately
pictured him as he came toward her table, gentle yet eager, with a
deference which was new as it was delightful to her.
As he approached her she snapped a flexible file between her thumb and
forefinger, and watched it vibrate and come to a jerky stop; then she
looked up.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Chase."
"Good afternoon, Miss Sprunt. You see, I am following your advice." He
took the chair opposite her.
"I--I want to thank you for the violets. They are the first real hint of
May I've had."
"You knew they came from me?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"Why--I--why, I just knew."
She covered her confusion by removing and replacing crystal
bottle-stoppers.
"I'm glad that you knew they came from me, Miss Sprunt."
"Yes, I knew that they could come from no one but you--they were so
simple and natural and--sweet."
She laughed a pitch too high and plunged his fingers into water some
degrees too hot. He did not wince, but she did.
"Oh, Mr. Chase, forgive me. I--I've scalded your fingers."
"Why," he replied, not taking his eyes from her face, "so you have!"
They both laughed.
Across the room Miss Ethyl coughed twice. "I always say," she observed
to her customer, "a workin'-girl can't be too careful of her actions.
That's why I am of a retiring disposition and don't try to force myself
on nobody."
Mr. Chase regarded the shadows beneath Miss Sprunt's eyes with a pucker
between his own.
"You don't get much of the springtime in here, do you, Miss Sprunt?"
"No," she replied, smiling faintly. "The only way we can tell the
seasons down here is by the midwinter Elks convention and the cloak
drummers who come to buy fur coats in July."
"You poor little girl," he said, slowly. "What you need is air--good,
wholesome air, and plenty of it."
"Oh, I get along all right," she said, biting at her nether lip.
"You're confined too closely, Miss Sprunt."
"Life isn't all choice," she replied, briefly.
"Forgive me," he said.
"I walk home sometimes," she said.
"You're fond of walking?"
"Yes, when I'm not too tired."
"Miss Sprunt, would--would you walk with me this evening? I know a quiet
little place where we could dine together."
"Oh," she said, "I--I already have an engagement. I--"
She colored with surprise.
"You have an engagement?" His tones were suddenly flat.
"No," she replied, in tones of sudden decision, "I'd be pleased to go
with you. I can do what I planned to-night any other time."
"Thank you, Miss Sprunt."
Her fingers trembled as she worked, and his suddenly closed over them.
"You poor, tired little girl," he repeated.
She gulped down her emotions.
"Miss Sprunt, this is neither the time nor the place for me to express
myself, yet somehow our great moments come when we least expect them."
She let her limp fingers rest in his; she was strangely calm.
"I know it is always a great pleasure to have you come in, Mr. Chase."
"The first time I dropped in was chance, Miss Sprunt. You can see for
yourself that I am not the sort of fellow who goes in for the little
niceties like manicures. I'm what you might call the seedy kind. But the
second time I dropped in for a manicure was not accident, nor the third
time, nor the tenth--it was _you_."
"You've been extravagant all on account of me?" she parried.
"I've been more than that on account of you, dear girl. I've been
consumed night and day by the sweet thought of you."
"Oh-h-h!" She placed one hand at her throat.
"Miss Sprunt, I am not asking anything of you; I simply want you to know
me better. I want to begin to-night to try to teach you to reciprocate
the immense regard--the love I feel for you."
She closed her eyes for a moment; his firm clasp of her hand tightened.
"You'll think I'm a bold girl, Mr. Chase; you'll--you'll--"
"Yes?"
"You'll think I'm everything I ought not to be, but you--you can't teach
me what I already know."
"Gertrude!"
She nodded, swallowing back unaccountable tears.
"I never let myself hope, because I didn't think there was a chance, Mr.
Chase."
"Dear, is it possible without knowing me--who, what I am--you--"
"I only know _you_," she said, softly. "That is all that matters."
"My little girl," he whispered, regarding her with unshed tears shining
in his eyes.
She placed her two hands over her face for a moment.
"What is it, dear?"
She burrowed deeper into her hands.
"I'm so happy," she said, between her fingers.
They regarded each other with almost incredulous eyes, seeking to probe
the web of enchantment their love had woven.
"I do not deserve this happiness, dearest." But his voice was a paean of
triumph.
"It is I who do not deserve," she said, in turn. "You are too--too
everything for me."
They talked in whispers until there were two appointees ranged along the
wall. He was loath to go; she urged him gently.
"I can't work while you are here, dear; return for me at six--no," she
corrected, struck by a sudden thought, "at six-thirty."
"Let me wait for you, dearest," he pleaded.
She waggled a playful finger at him.
"Good-by until later."
"Until six-thirty, cruel one."
"Yes."
"There is so much to be said, Gertrude dear."
"To-night."
He left her lingeringly. They tried to cover up their fervent,
low-voiced farewells with passive faces, but after he had departed her
every feature was lyric.
Juliet might have looked like that when her love was young.
Mr. Barker arrived, but she met him diffidently, even shamefacedly.
Before she could explain he launched forth:
"I'm sorry, kiddo, but we'll have to make it to-morrow night for that
ride of ourn. That party I was tellin' you about is goin' to get busy on
that big deal, and I gotta do a lot of signin' up to-night."
Fate had carved a way for her with gentle hand.
"That's all right, Mr. Barker; just don't you feel badly about it." She
felt a gush of sympathy for him; for all humanity.
"You understand, kiddo, don't you? A feller's got to stick to business
as much as pleasure, and we'll hit the high places to-morrow night, all
right, all right. You're the classiest doll I've met yet."
She swallowed her distaste.
"That's the right idea, Mr. Barker; business appointments are always
important."
"I'll see you to-morrow mornin', and we'll fix up some swell party."
"Good night, Mr. Barker."
"So long, honey."
Directly after he departed Miss Ethyl bade her good night in cold,
cracky tones.
"The goin's-on in this parlor don't make it no place for a minister's
daughter, Miss Gertie Sprunt."
"Then you ought to be glad your father's a policeman," retorted her
friend, graciously. "Good night, dearie."
She hummed as she put her table in order. At each footstep down the
marble corridor her pulse quickened; she placed her cheeks in her hands,
vise-fashion, to feel of their unnatural heat. When Mr. Chase finally
came they met shyly and with certain restraint. Whispering together like
diffident children, they went out, their hands lightly touching.
Broadway was already alight; the cool spring air met them like tonic.
Like an exuberant lad, Mr. Chase led her to the curb. A huge,
mahogany-colored touring-car, caparisoned in nickel and upholstered in a
darker red, vibrated and snorted alongside. A chauffeur, with a striped
rug across his knees, reached back respectfully and flung open the door.
Like an automaton Gertrude placed her small foot upon the step and
paused, her dumfounded gaze confronting the equally stunned eyes of the
chauffeur. Mr. Chase aided and encouraged at her elbow.
"It's all right, dearest, it's all right; this is your surprise."
"Why," she gasped, her eyes never leaving the steel-blue shaved face of
the chauffeur--"why--I--"
Mr. Chase regarded her in some anxiety. "What a surprised little girl
you are! I shouldn't have taken you so unawares." He almost lifted her
in.
"This machine is yours, Mr. Chase?"
"Yes, dear, this machine is _ours_."
"You never told me anything."
"There is little to tell, Gertrude. I have not used my cars to amount to
anything since I'm back from Egypt. I've been pretty busy with affairs."
"Back from Egypt!"
"Do not look so helpless, dear. I'm only back three months from a trip
round the world, and I've been putting up with hotel life meanwhile.
Then I happened to meet you, and as long as you had me all sized up I
just let it go--that's all, dear."
"You're not the Mr. Adam Chase who's had the rose suite on the tenth
floor all winter?"
"That's me," he laughed.
Her slowly comprehending eyes did not leave his face.
"Why, I thought--I--you--"
"It was my use of the private elevator on the east side of the building
that gave you the Sixth Avenue idea, and it was too good a joke on me to
spoil, dearie."
She regarded him through blurry eyes.
"What must you think of me?"
He felt for her hand underneath the lap-robe.
"Among other things," he said, "I think that your eyes exactly match the
violets I motored out to get for you this morning at my place ten miles
up the Hudson."
"When did you go, dear?"
"Before you were up. We were back before ten, in spite of a spark-plug
that gave us some trouble."
"Oh," she said.
The figure at the wheel squirmed to be off. She lay back faint against
the upholstery.
"To think," she said, "that you should care for me!"
"My own dear girl!"
He touched a spring and the back of her seat reclined like a Morris
chair.
"Lie back, dear. I invented that scheme so I can recline at night and
watch the stars parade past. I toured that way all through Egypt."
The figure in the front seat gripped his wheel.
"Where are we going, Adam dear?" she whispered.
"This is your night, Gertrude; give James your orders."
She snuggled deeper into the dark-red upholstery, and their hands
clasped closer beneath the robe.
"James," she said, in a voice like a bell, "take us to the Vista for
dinner; afterward motor out along the Palisade drive, far out so that we
can see the Hudson by moonlight."
OTHER PEOPLE'S SHOES
At the close of a grilling summer that had sapped the life from the city
as insidiously as fever runs through veins and licks them up--at the
close of a day that had bleached the streets as dry as desert bones--Abe
Ginsburg closed his store half an hour earlier than usual because his
clerk, Miss Ruby Cohn, was enjoying a two days' vacation at the Long
Island Recreation Farm, and because a staggering pain behind his eyes
and zigzag down the back of his neck to his left shoulder-blade made the
shelves of shoe-boxes appear as if they were wavering with the
heat-dance of the atmosphere and ready to cast their neatly arranged
stock in a hopeless fuddle on the center of the floor.
Up-stairs, on an exact level with the elevated trains that tore past the
kitchen windows like speed monsters annihilating distance, Mrs. Ginsburg
poised a pie-pan aloft on the tips of five fingers and waltzed a knife
round the rim of the tin. A ragged ruffle of dough swung for a moment;
she snipped it off, leaving the pie pat and sleek.
Then Mrs. Ginsburg smiled until a too perfect row of badly executed
teeth showed their pink rubber gums, leaned over the delicate lid of the
pie, and with a three-pronged fork pricked out the doughy
inscription--ABE. Sarah baking cakes for Abraham's prophetic visitors
had no more gracious zeal.
The waiting oven filled the kitchen with its gassy breath; a train
hurtled by and rattled the chandeliers, a stack of plates on a shelf,
and a blue-glass vase on the parlor mantel. A buzz-bell rang three
staccato times. Mrs. Ginsburg placed the pie on the table-edge and
hurried down a black aisle of hallway.
Book-agents, harbingers of a
dozen-cabinet-photographs-colored-crayon-thrown-in, and their kin have
all combined to make wary the gentle cliff-dweller. Mrs. Ginsburg opened
her door just wide enough to insert a narrow pencil, placed the tip of
her shoe in the aperture, and leaned her face against the jamb so that
from without half an eye burned through the crack.
"Abie? It ain't you, is it, Abie?"
"Don't get excited, mamma!"
"It ain't six o'clock yet, Abie--something ain't right with you!"
"Don't get excited, mamma! I just closed early for the heat. For what
should I keep open when a patent-leather shoe burns a hole in your
hand?"
"_Ach_, such a scare as you give me! If I'd 'a' known it I could have
had supper ready. It wouldn't hurt you to call up-stairs when you close
early--no consideration that boy has got for his mother! Poor papa! If
he so much as closed the store ten minutes earlier he used to call up
for me to heat the things--no consideration that boy has got for his old
mother!"
Mr. Ginsburg placed a heavy hand on each of his mother's shoulders and
kissed her while the words were unfinished and smoking on her lips.
"It's too hot to eat, mamma. Ain't I asked you every night during this
heat not to cook so much?"
"Just the same, when it comes to the table I see you eat. I never see
you refuse nothing--I bet you come twice for apple-pie to-night. Is the
hall table the place for your cuffs, Abie? I'm ashamed for the people
the way my house looks when you're home--no order that boy has got! I go
now and put my pie in the oven."
"I ain't hungry, mamma--honest! Don't fix no supper for me--I go in the
front room and lay down for a while. Never have I known such heat as I
had it in the store to-day--and with Miss Ruby gone it was bad enough, I
can tell you."
Mrs. Ginsburg reached up suddenly and turned high a tiny bead of
gas-light--it flared for a moment like a ragged-edged fan and then
settled into a sooty flare. In its low-candle-power light their faces
were far away and without outline--like shadows seen through the mirage
of a dream.
"Abie--tell mamma--you ain't sick, are you? Abie, you look pale."
"Now, mamma, begin to worry about nothing when--"
"It ain't like you to come up early, heat or no heat. _Ach!_ I should
have known when he comes up-stairs early it means something. What hurts
you, Abie? That's what I need yet, a sickness! What hurts you, Abie?"
"Mamma, the way you go on it's enough to make me sick if I ain't. Can't
a boy come up-stairs just because--"
"I know you like a book; when you close the store and lay down before
supper there's something wrong. Tell me, Abie--"
"All right, then! You know it so well I can't tell you nothing--all I
got is a little tiredness from the heat."
"Go in and lay down. Can't you tell mamma what hurts you, Abie? Are you
afraid it would give me a little pleasure if you tell me? No
consideration that boy has got for his mother!"
"Honest, mamma, ain't I told you three times I ain't nothing but tired?"
"He snaps me up yet like he was a turtle and me his worst enemy! For
what should I worry myself? For my part, I don't care. I only say, Abie,
if there's anything hurts you--you know how poor papa started to
complain just one night like this how he fussed at me when I wanted the
doctor. If there's anything hurts you--"
"There ain't, mamma."
"Come in and let me fix the sofa for you. I only say when you close the
store early there's something wrong. That Miss Ruby should go off
yet--vacation she has to have--a girl like that, with her satin shoes
and all--comes into the store at nine o'clock 'cause she runs to the
picture shows all night! Yetta Washeim seen her. Vacation yet she has to
have! Twenty years I spent with poor papa in the store, and no vacation
did I have. Lay down, Abie."
"All right, then," said Mr. Ginsburg, as if duty were a geological eon,
and throwing himself across the flowered velvet lounge in the parlor.
"I'll lay down if it suits you better."
Mr. Ginsburg was of a cut that never appears on a classy clothes
advertisement or in the silver frame on the bird's-eye maple
dressing-table of sweet sixteen or more; he belonged to the less
ornamented but not unimportant stratum that manufactures the classy
clothes by the hundred thousand, and eventually develops into husbands
and sponsors for full-length double-breasted sealskin coats for the
sweet sixteens and more.
He was as tall as Napoleon, with a round, un-Napoleonic head,
close-shaved so that his short-nap hair grew tight like moss on a rock,
and a beard that defied every hirsute precaution by pricking darkly
through the lower half of his face as phenomenally as the first
grass-blades of spring push out in an hour.
"Let me fix you a little something, Abie. I got grand broth in the
ice-box--all I need to do is to heat it."
"Ain't I told you I ain't hungry, mamma?"
"When that boy don't eat he's sick. I should worry yet! Poor papa! If
he'd listened to me he'd be living to-day. I'm your worst enemy--I am! I
work against my own child--that's the thanks what I get."
Sappho, who never wore a gingham wrapper and whose throat was unwrinkled
and full of music, never sang more surely than did Mrs. Ginsburg into
the heart-cells of her son. He reached out for her wrapper and drew her
to him.
"Aw, mamma, you know I don't mean nothing; just when you get all worried
over nothing it makes me mad. Come, sit down by me."
"To-night we don't go up to Washeims'. I care a lot for Yetta's
talk--her Beulah this and her Beulah that! It makes me sick!"
"I'll take you up, mamma, if you want to go."
"Indeed, you stay where you are! For their front steps and refreshments
I don't need to ride in the Subway to Harlem anyway."
"What's the difference? A little evening's pleasure won't hurt you,
mamma."
"Such a lunch as she served last time! I got better right now in my
ice-box, and I ain't expecting company. They can buy and sell us, too, I
guess. Sol Washeim don't take a nine-room house when boys' pants ain't
booming--but such a lunch as she served! You can believe me, I wouldn't
have the nerve to. Abie, I see Herschey's got fall cloth-tops in their
windows already."
"Yes?"
"Good business to-day--not, Abie?--and such heat too! Mrs. Abrahams
called across the hallway just now that she was in for a pair; but you
was so busy with a customer she couldn't wait--that little pink-haired
clerk, with her extravagant ways, had to go off and leave you in the
heat! Shoe-buttoners she puts in every box like they cost nothing. I
told her so last week, too."
"She's a grand little clerk, mamma--such a business head I never seen!"
"Like I couldn't have come down and helped you to-day! Believe me--when
I was in the store with papa, Abie, we wasn't so up-to-date; but none of
'em got away."
"I should know when Mrs. Abrahams wants shoes--five times a week she
comes in to be sociable."
"I used to say to papa: 'Always leave a customer to go take a new one's
shoes off; and then go back and take your time! Two customers in their
stockinged feet is worth more than one in a new pair of shoes!' Abie,
you don't look right. You'll tell me the truth if you don't feel well,
won't you? I always say to have the doctor in time saves nine. If poor
papa had listened to me--"
"I'm all right, mamma. Why don't you sit down by me? Don't light the
gas--for why should you make it hotter? Come, sit down by me."
"I go put the oven light out. Apple-pie I was baking for you yet; for
myself I don't need supper--I had coffee at five o'clock."