'Oh, no--works out about sixty cents to a dollar. It ain't that
altogether--it's the principle. I'm getting tired of it!'
The press-room door was ajar, Humphrey reached out and closed it.
Henry raised his voice; got out of his chair and sat on the edge of the
table. His eyes brightened sharply. Emotion crept into his voice and
shook it a little.
'Do you know what's he done to me--that old doubleface? Took me in here
two years ago at eight a week with a promise of nine if I suited. Well,
I did suit. But did I get the nine? Not until I'd rowed and begged for
seven months. A year of that, a lot more work--You know! “Club Notes,”
this library stuff, “Real Estate Happenings,” “Along Simpson Street,”
reading proof--'
Humphrey slowly nodded as he smoked.
'--And I asked for ten a week. Would he give it? No! I knew I was worth
more than that, so I offered to take space rates instead. Then what does
he do? You know, Hump. Been clipping me off, one thing after another,
and piling on the proof and the office work. Here's one thing more gone
to-day. Last week my string was exactly seven dollars and forty-six
cents. Dam it, it ain't fair! I can't _live!_ I won't stand it. Gotta be
ten a week or I--I'll find out why. Show-down.'
He rushed to the door. Then, as if his little flare of indignation had
burnt out, fingered there, knitting his brows and looking up and down
the street and across at the long veranda of the Sunbury House, where
people sat in a row in yellow rocking chairs.
Humphrey smoked and considered him. After a little he remarked
quietly:--
'Look here, Hen, I don't like it any more than you do. I've seen what he
was doing. I've tried to forestall him once or twice----'
'I know it, Hump.' Henry turned. He was quite listless now. 'He's a
tricky old fox. If I only knew of something else I could do--or that we
could do together----'
'But--this was what I was going to say--no matter how we feel, I'm going
to be really in trouble if I don't get that picnic story pretty soon. Mr
Boice asked about it this morning.'
Henry leaned against Mr Boice's desk, up by the window; dropped his chin
into one hand.
'I'll do it, Hump. This afternoon. Or to-night. We're going down to
Mildred's this noon, of course.'
'That's part of what's bothering me. God knows how soon after that
you'll break away from Corinne.'
'Pretty dam soon,' remarked Henry sullenly, 'the way things are going
now.... I'll get at it, Hump. Honest I will. But right now'--he moved
a hand weakly through the air--'I just couldn't. You don't know how I
feel. I _couldn't!_'
'Where you going now?'
'I don't know.' The hand moved again. 'Walk around. Gotta be by myself.
Sorta think it out. This is one of the days... I've been thinking--be
twenty-one in November. _Then_ I'll show him, and all the rest of 'em.
Have a little money then. I'll show this hypocritical old town a few
things--a few things....'
His voice died to a mumble. He felt with limp fingers at his moustache.
'I'll be ready quarter or twenty minutes past twelve,' Humphrey called
after him as he moved mournfully out to the street.
3
Mr Boice moved heavily along, inclining his massive head, without a
smile, to this acquaintance and that, and turned in at Schultz and
Schwartz's.
The spectacle of Henry Calverly--in spotless white and blue, with the
moustache, and the stick--had irritated him. Deeply. A boy who couldn't
earn eight dollars a week parading Simpson Street in that rig, on a
week-day morning! He felt strongly that Henry had no business sticking
out that way, above the village level. Hitting you in the eyes. Young
Jenkins was bad enough, but at least his father had the money. Real
money. And could let his son waste it if he chose. But a conceited young
chump like Henry Calverly! Ought to be chucked into a factory somewhere.
Stoke a furnace. Carry boxes. Work with his hands. Get down to brass
tacks and see if he had any stuff in him. Doubtful.
Mr Boice made a low sound, a wheezy sound between a grunt and a hum, as
he handed his hat to the black, muscular, bullet-headed, grinning Pinkie
Potter, who specialised in hats and shoes in Sunbury's leading barber
shop.
He made another sound that was quite a grunt as he sank into the red
plush barber chair of Heinie Schultz. His massive frame was clumsy, and
the twinges of lumbago, varied by touches of neuritis, that had come
steadily upon him since middle life, added to the difficulties of moving
it about. He always made these sounds. He would stop on the street, take
your hand non-committally in his huge, rather limp paw, and grunt before
he spoke, between phrases, and when moving away.
Heinie Schultz, who was straw-coloured, thin, listlessly patient (Bill
Schwartz was the noisy fat one), knew that the thick, yellowish gray
hair was to be cut round in the back and the neck shaved beneath it.
The beard was to be trimmed delicately, reverently--'not cut, just the
rags taken off'--and combed out. Heinie had attended to this hair and
beard for sixteen years.
'Heard a good one,' murmured Heinie, close to his patron's ear. 'There
was a bride and groom got on the sleeping car up to Duluth--'
A thin man of about thirty-five entered the shop, tossed his hat to
Pinkie, and dropped into Bill Schwartz's chair next the window. The
new-comer had straight brown hair, worn a little long over ears and
collar. His face was freckled, a little pinched, nervously alert. Behind
his gold rimmed spectacles his small sharp eyes appeared to be darting
this way and that, keen, penetrating through the ordinary comfortable
surfaces of life.
This was Robert A. McGibbon, editor and proprietor of the _Sunbury
Weekly Gleaner_. He had appeared in the village hardly six months back
with a little money--enough, at least, to buy the presses, give a little
for good will, assume the rent and the few business debts that Nicholas
Simms Godfrey had been able to contract before his health broke, and to
pay his own board at the Wombasts' on Filbert Avenue. His appearance
in local journalism had created a new tension in the village and his
appearance now in the barber shop created tension there. Heinie's
vulgar little anecdote froze on his lips. Mr Boice, impassive, heavily
deliberate, after one glimpse of the fellow in the long mirror before
him, lay back in the chair, gazed straight upward at the fly-specked
ceiling.
Mr Boice, when face to face with Robert A. McGibbon on the street,
inclined his head to him as to others. But up and down the street his
barely expressed disapproval of the man was felt to have a root
in feelings and traditions infinitely deeper than the mere natural
antagonism to a fresh competitor in the local field.
For McGibbon was--the term was a new one that had caught the popular
imagination and was worming swiftly into the American language--a yellow
journalist. He had worked, he boasted openly, on a sensationally new
daily in New York. In the once staid old _Gleaner_ he used boldfaced
headlines, touched with irritating acumen on scandal, assailed the
ruling political triumvirate, and made the paper generally fascinating
as well as disturbing. As a result, he was picking up subscribers
rapidly. Advertising, of course, was another matter. And Boice had all
the village and county printing.
The political triumvirate mentioned above was composed of Boice himself,
Charles H. Waterhouse, town treasurer, and Mr Weston of the Sunbury
National Bank. For a decade their rule had not been questioned along the
street. The other really prominent men of Sunbury all had their business
interests in Chicago, and at that time used the village merely for
sleeping and as a point of departure for the very new golf links. Such
men, I mean, as B. L. Ames, John W. MacLouden, William B. Snow, and J.
E. Jenkins.
The experience of withstanding vulgar attacks was new to the
triumvirate. (McGibbon referred to them always as the 'Old Cinch.') The
_Gleaner_ had come out for annexation to Chicago. It demanded an
audit of Charlie Waterhouse's town accounts by a new, politically
disinterested group. It accused the bank of withholding proper support
from men of whom old Boice disapproved. It demanded a share of the
village printing.
The 'Old Cinch' were taking these attacks in silence, as beneath their
notice. They took pains, however, in casual mention of the new force in
town, to refer to him always as a 'Democrat.' This damned him with many.
He called himself an 'Independent.' Which amused Charlie Waterhouse
greatly. Everybody knew that a man who wasn't a decent Republican had to
be a Democrat. In the nature of things.
And they were waiting for his money and his energy to give out. Giving
him, as Charlie Waterhouse jovially put it, the rope to hang himself
with.
Bill Schwartz took McGibbon's spectacles, tucked the towel around his
scrawny neck, lathered chin and cheeks, and seizing his head firmly in a
strong right hand turned it sidewise on the head-rest.
McGibbon lay there a moment, studying the yellowish-white whiskers
that waved upward above the towels in the next chair. Bill stropped his
razor.
'How are you, Mr Boice?' McGibbon observed, quite cheerfully.
Mr Boice made a sound, raised his head an inch. Heinie promptly pushed
it down.
'Quite a story you had last week about the musicale at Mrs Arthur V.
Henderson's.'
Mr Boice lay motionless. What was up! Distinctly odd that either journal
should be mentioned between them. Bad taste. He made another sound.
'Who wrote it?'
No answer.
'Henry Calverly?'
A grunt.
'Thought so!' McGibbon chuckled.
Mr Boice twisted his head around, trying to see the fellow in the
mirror. Heinie pulled it back.
'Got it here. Hand me my glasses, Bill, will you. Thanks.' McGibbon was
sitting up, his face all lather, digging in his pocket. He produced a
clipping. Read aloud with gusto:--
'“Mrs Stelton's art has deepened and broadened appreciably since she
last appeared in Sunbury. Always gifted with a splendid singing organ,
always charming in personality and profoundly, rhythmically musical in
temperament, she now has added a superstructure of technical authority
which gives to each passage, whether bravura or pianissimo, a quality
and distinction.”'
McGibbon was momentarily choked by his own almost noiseless laughter.
Bill pushed his head down and went swiftly to work on his right cheek.
Two other customers had come in.
'Great stuff that!' observed McGibbon cautiously, under the razor.
'“Profoundly, rhythmically musical in temperament “! “A superstructure
of technical authority”! Great! Fine! That boy'll do something yet.
Handled right. Wish he was working for me.'
Mr Boice, from whom sounds had been coming for several moments, now
raised his voice. It was the first time Heinie had ever heard him raise
it. Bill paused, razor in air, and glanced around. Pinkie Potter looked
up from the shoes he was polishing.
'Well,' he roared huskily, 'what in hell's the matter with that!'
Just then Bill turned McGibbon's head the other way. He too raised his
voice. But cheerfully.
'Nothing much. Nice lot o' words. Only Mrs Stelton wasn't there.
Sprained her ankle in the Chicago station on the way out.'
Bill Schwartz had a trumpet-like Prussian voice. The situation seemed to
him to contain the elements of humour. He laughed boisterously.
Heinie Schultz, more politic, tittered softly, shears against mouth.
Pinkie Potter laughed convulsively, and beat out an intricate rag-time
tattoo on his bootblack's stand with his brush.
4
It was Mr Boice's fixed habit to go on, toward noon, to the post-office.
Instead, to-day, he returned to the _Voice_ office.
He seated himself at his desk for a quarter of an hour, doing nothing.
He had the faculty of sitting still, ruminating.
Finally he reached out for the two-foot rule that always lay on his
desk, and carefully measured a certain article in last week's paper.
Then did a little figuring.
He rose, moved toward the door; turned, and remarked to the wondering
Humphrey:--
'Take fifteen inches off Henry's string this week, Weaver. A dollar 'n'
five cents. Be at the post-office if anybody wants me.' And went out.
Humphrey himself measured Henry's article on the musicale. Old Boice had
been accurate enough; it came to an even fifteen inches. Which at seven
cents an inch, would be a dollar and five cents.
When Henry reappeared and together they set out for Lower Chestnut
Avenue, Humphrey found he hadn't the heart to break this fresh
disappointment to his friend. He decided to let it drift until the
Saturday. Something might turn up.
Henry's mood had changed. He had left the office, an hour earlier,
looking like a discouraged boy. Now he was serious, silent, hard to
talk to. He seemed three years older. With certain of Henry's rather
violently contrasted phases Humphrey was familiar; but he had never seen
him look quite like this. Henry was strung up. Plainly. He walked very
fast, striding intently forward. At least once in each block he found
himself a yard ahead of his companion, checked himself, muttered a
few words that sounded vaguely like an apology and then repeated the
process.
At Mrs Henderson's Henry was grave and curiously attractive. He had
charm, no doubt of it--a sort of charm that women, older women, felt.
Mildred Henderson distinctly played up to him. And Corinne, Humphrey
noted, watched him now and then; the quietly observant keenness in her
big dark eyes masked by her easy, lazy smile.
Toward the close of luncheon Henry's evident inner tension showed signs
of taking the form of gaiety. He acted like a young man wholly sure of
himself. Humphrey's net impression, after more than a year and a half
of close association with the boy, was that he couldn't ever be sure of
himself. Not for one minute. Yet, when they threw down their napkins and
pushed back their chairs, it was Henry who said, with an apparently easy
arrogance back of his grain:--
'Hump, you've got to be going back so soon, we're going to give you and
Mildred the living-room. We'll wash the dishes.'
Humphrey noted the quick little snap of amusement in Mrs Henderson's
eyes (Henry had not before openly used her first name) and the
demure, expressionless look that came over Corinne's face. Neither was
displeased.
To Mrs Henderson's, 'You'll do no such thing!' Henry responded
smilingly:--
'I won't be contradicted. Not to-day.'
Corinne was still silent. But Mrs Henderson, now frankly amused,
asked:--
'Why the to-day, Henry?'
'Oh, I don't know. Just the way I feel,' said he; and ushered her
with mock politeness into the front room, then, gallantly, almost
nonchalantly, took the elbow of the unresisting Corinne and led her
toward the kitchen.
Humphrey lighted a cigarette and watched them go. Then with a slight
heightening of his usually sallow colour, followed his hostess into the
living-room.
It will be evident to the reader that among these four young persons,
rather casually thrown together in the first instance, something of an
'understanding' had grown up.
There had been a furtive delight about their first gathering at
Humphrey's rooms, a sense of exciting variety in humdrum village life,
the very real and lively pleasure of exploring fresh personalities.
Of late years, looking back, it has seemed to me that Mildred Henderson
never really belonged in Sunbury, where a woman's whole duty lay in
keeping house economically and as pleasantly as might be for the husband
who spent his days in Chicago. And in bearing and rearing his children.
I never knew anything of her earlier life, before Arthur V. Henderson
brought her to the modest house on Chestnut Avenue. I never could figure
why she married him at all. Marriages are made in so many places besides
Heaven! He used to like to hear her play.
In those days, and a little later, I judged her much as the village
judged her--peering out at her through the gun-ports in the armour
plate of self-righteousness that is the strong defence of every suburban
community. But now I feel that her real mistake lay in waiting so long
before drifting to her proper environment in New York. Like all of us,
she had, sooner or later, to work out her life in its own terms or die
alive of an atrophied spirit. She had gifts, and needed, doubtless,
to express them. I can see her now as she was in Sunbury during those
years--little, trim, slim, with a quick alert smile and snappy eyes.
Not a beautiful woman, perhaps not even an out-and-out pretty one, but
curiously attractive. She had much of what men call 'personality.' And
she was efficient, in her own way. She never let her musical gift rust;
practised every day of her life, I think. Including Sundays. Which was
one of the things Sunbury held against her.
Humphrey, too, was using Sunbury as little more than a stop gap. We knew
that sooner or later he would strike his gait as an inventor. He was
quiet about it. Much thought, deep plans, lay back of that long wrinkly
face. While he kept at it he was a conscientious country editor. But his
heart was in his library of technical books, and in his workshop in
the old Parmenter barn. He must have put just about all of his little
inheritance into the place.
Corinne Doag was distinctly a city person. And she was a real singer,
with ambition and a firm, even hard purpose, I can see now, back of the
languorous dusky eyes and the wide slow smile that Henry was not then
man enough to understand. In those days, more than in the present, a
girl with a strong sense of identity was taught to hide it scrupulously.
It was still the century of Queen Victoria. The life of any live girl
had to be a rather elaborate pretence of something it distinctly was
not. For which we, looking back, can hardly blame her. Besides, Corinne
was young, healthy, glowing with a quietly exuberant sense of life. I
imagine she found a sort of pure joy, an animal joy, in playing with men
and life. She wasn't dishonest. She certainly liked Henry. Particularly
to-day. But this was the summer time. She was playing. And she liked to
be, thrilled.
An hour later, could Humphrey have glanced into the butler's pantry, he
would have concluded that he knew Henry Calverly not at all. And
Miss Wombast, could she have looked in, would have been thrilled and
frightened, perhaps to the point of never speaking to Henry again. And
of never, never forgetting him.
As the scene has a bearing on the later events of the day, we will take
a look.
They stood in the butler's pantry, Henry and Corinne. The shards of a
shattered coffee cup lay unobserved at their feet. Out in the kitchen
sink all the silver and the other cups and saucers lay in the rinsing
rack, the soapsuds dry on them. Henry held Corinne in his arms.
'Henry,' she whispered, 'we _must_ finish the dishes! What on earth will
Mildred think?'
'Let her think!' said Henry.
Corinne leaned back against the shelves, disengaged her hands long
enough to smooth her flying blue-black hair.
'Henry, I never thought----'
'Never thought what?'
'Wait! My hair's all down again. They might come out here. I mean you
seemed----'
'How did I seem? Say it!'
'Oh well--_Henry_!--I mean sort of--well, reserved. I thought you were
shy.'
'Think so now!'
'I--well, no. Not exactly. Wait now, you silly boy! Really, Henry, you
musn't be so--so intense.'
'But I _am_ intense. I'm not the way I look. Nobody knows----' Here he
interrupted himself.
'Oh, Henry,' she breathed, her head on his shoulder now, her arm
clinging about his neck. He felt very manly. Life, real life, whirled,
glowed, sparkled about him. He was exultant. 'You dear boy--I'm afraid
you've made love to lots of girls.'
'I _haven't!_' he protested, with unquestionable sincerity. 'Not to
lots.'
'Silly!' A silence. Then he felt her draw even closer to him.
'Henry, talk to me! Make love to me! Tell me you'll take me away with
you--to-day!--now! Make me feel how wonderful it would be! Say it,
anyway--even if--oh, Henry, _say_ it!'
For an instant Henry's mind went cold and clear. He was a little
frightened. He found himself wondering if this tempestuous young woman
who clung so to him could possibly be the easy, lazy, comfortably
smiling Corinne. He thought of Carmen--the Carmen of Calvé. He had suped
once in that opera down at the Auditorium. He had paid fifty cents to
the supe captain.
The thrill of the conqueror was his. But he was beginning to feel that
this was enough, that he had best rest his case, perhaps, at this'
point.
As for asking her to fly away with him, he couldn't conscientiously so
much as ask her to have dinner with him in Chicago. Not in the present
state of his pocket.
One fact, however, emerged. He must propose something. He could at least
have it out with old Boice. Settle that salary business. He'd _have_ to.
Another fact is that he was by no means so cool as he, for the moment,
fancied himself.
The door from dining-room to kitchen opened, rather slowly. There was a
light step in the kitchen, and Mildred Henderson's musical little voice
humming the theme of the Andante in the Fifth Symphony.
Henry and Corinne leaped apart. She smoothed her hair again, and patted
her cheeks. Then she took a black hair from his shoulder.
They heard Mildred at the sink. Rinsing the dishes and the silver,
doubtless.
'Hate to disturb you two,' she called, a reassuring if slightly humorous
sympathy in her voice, 'but I promised Humphrey I'd get after you,
Henry. He says you simply must get some work done to-day.'