"That fat old bore!" I exclaimed.
Knowlton interrupted me. "Hush, Teddy. While I recognize a certain truth
in your description, still you are to know that our Mr. Hemphill,
although hard up, belongs to one of the first families of Deep Harbor.
His wife helps run the social plant in this burg--she's superintendent
of it, in fact, and issues or cancels all permits to circulate through
the labyrinth. I've only recently made this important discovery. Hence
your bid to dinner." Knowlton grinned triumphantly.
Hemphill was a particularly disagreeable figure in the outer office, for
he always buttonholed one to listen to a tiresome anecdote.
"It's the wife, Ted, who runs the works--not old Charlie. I agree with
you about him. Believe me, he's kept on his good behaviour at home."
Knowlton pressed his buzzer. "I'll have him in and tell him you've
accepted."
I saw it was useless to protest. Hemphill appeared at the door, and I
looked more closely than heretofore at my prospective host. Across his
fat red face there spread an oily smile which sank on each side into a
coarse iron-grey stubble. His forehead was high and greasy above two
small blue eyes, beneath which were pouches of red skin. His hair, stiff
and grey like the growth on his face, was worn pompadour and trimmed to
make his head appear flat on top. Over the most conspicuously
Falstaffian detail of his anatomy hung a heavy gold watch chain carrying
many seals indicative of his membership in fraternal organizations. In
the lapel of his coat was an enameled button as further proof of his
fellowship.
"Mr. Hemphill," said Knowlton, "Ted accepts with pleasure your
invitation to dine at your house this evening."
"That's fine, Mr. Jevons," he replied. "That certainly helps us out of a
hole." I pricked up my ears. "Mrs. Hemphill was terrible put out because
one of her regular young men was called to Pittsburgh to look after a
pig-iron contract. His going kind of bust up the dinner party. I didn't
think it mattered much myself, but you know what women are about such
things. Wouldn't do to have one of the girls left without a beau, so I
says, to make peace in the family, 'How about asking young Teddy out to
the works?' Of course Sally--that's my wife--didn't care much about
ringing in a stranger that way, but I said to her, says I, 'Shucks,
Teddy's all right--nice, quiet boy, European education, and quite a
swell where he comes from, according to what I've heard.' Well, that
sort of quieted her, and finally she says to me--'Go ahead and ask him.
I can't have my dinner party spoiled.' So that's how I came to put the
proposition up to you," he concluded.
I saw Knowlton playing with his paper knife and making desperate efforts
not to catch my eye or grin. My indignation all but boiled over.
"I'm deeply flattered"--I began, but at this point Knowlton pressed his
buzzer. A stenographer hurried in. "Get me New York on the 'phone," he
commanded. "That's all, Teddy. Be there at quarter of seven," and both
Hemphill and I found ourselves dismissed without further ceremony. I
surrendered in despair. What was the use of fighting? But I made up my
mind to be so silent a partner in the evening's proceedings that never
again would my services be in demand for filling a gap at a dinner
table. Really my rage at being patronized by such people made my hands
shake so that my work in the laboratory was useless for the rest of the
afternoon. I tingled all over and longed for some way to square the
score. I was going to my first dinner party in Deep Harbor like a man
from Blankley's--practically hired out for the evening.
I left at ten minutes before six to allow myself a larger margin for
dressing. I stopped at the office, but the wise Knowlton had eluded me
by going home at half-past five. There was no one with whom I could
lodge a final protest.
I dressed in a savage mood. Many caustic epigrams occurred to me as I
brushed my hair. I hoped I could remember them for later use that
evening. One never can remember a rehearsed conversation; it's like
trying to use a handy phrase-book in a foreign country. The other side
never leads up to one's cues. At last I was ready, and punctually at a
quarter before seven I presented myself before the door of a large
old-fashioned house set amid the maples of Myrtle Boulevard, Deep
Harbor's most fashionable residential street. The house had been built,
I judged, about or immediately after the period of the Civil War. It was
square, with a door in the middle flanked on either side by long
oval-topped windows. Projecting from the door and coming to meet one in
a flight of brown stone steps, was a porch heavily ornamented with what
appeared to be a Turco-Bulgarian style of design. In any event, this
feature of the house was compounded of strange samples of the
carpenter's craft, turned in oriental arabesques such as an architect
might dream of after a hasty reading of _Kubla Khan_. Apart from the
wanton outburst of the approach, the house was most solemn and
dignified, with severe lines, its flat roof topped off by a little
square cupola from which I fancied it would be fun to watch for
Malbrouck's return from the wars. My curiosity to see within was fully
aroused by the time I rang the doorbell. It was always a bother to
remember that one was supposed to be angry; I had forgotten my chosen
role and caught myself anticipating the evening.
Hemphill himself opened the black walnut front door with its silver
plated knobs. As he did so a feminine voice called imperiously "Charles,
Mary Ellen will answer the door!" "Alas for Charles," thought I, "the
warning has come too late--the deed is done and I am within." Mary Ellen
was visible on the horizon of the passage which ran straight through the
centre line of the house. Upon seeing what had happened she fled to the
rear with a report of the situation at the front. Hemphill, much
embarrassed and evidently suffering some anxiety concerning the
immediate future, helped me off with my coat. He hung it up upon a black
walnut hatrack with which its designer had incorporated a slab of white
marble. We entered a room upon the right with an extraordinarily high
ceiling. The room was perfect early Victorian down to the last detail of
crocheted anti-macassars on the backs of dull red plush chairs. To my
great delight an engraving of _The Monarch of the Glen_ and of _Dignity
and Impudence_ occupied the positions of honour upon the walls. There
was also a scene in Venice, by Ruskin. Over all, however, was the
shabbiness of respectable poverty which descends upon great possessions
when they become relics of a vanished prosperity. I was so absorbed with
my delight in the room--I decided on the spot to put it into a novel
some day--that I overlooked for a moment the assembly gathered there.
But I was soon aware of a tall, stern-lipped woman in an evening dress
corresponding to the period of the room, bearing down upon me.
"Mother," said Hemphill (I was certain this was a tactless epithet),
"this is Teddy."
She shook hands icily as she surveyed me. My evening clothes were London
made; I felt quite calm about this ordeal. I noticed a perceptible thaw,
although nothing excessive, when she greeted me after inspection. Behind
her came a tall girl of about nineteen, who was already a pale replica
of her mother--the same angularity, particularly about the neck and
shoulders, but in her eyes her father's meekness in the presence of
authority. It was not a house of divided counsels, I decided, after
another glance at the mother.
"My daughter Edith," mama announced. Edith dropped her eyes and modestly
resisted my efforts to shake hands with her. "My sister, Mrs. Martin,"
was the next in line--a stout elderly lady in alpaca and cameos, who
walked with the aid of an ivory stick. She wasn't unlike the Queen,
taking her in silhouette. I was much struck by the similarity in types
all the way from Windsor to Deep Harbor. I murmured something, intended
as a compliment, to Mrs. Martin about the resemblance.
"Good gracious, I hope I'm not so old or so fat as all that!" came the
crushing retort. Evidently the path of tact in a new country was going
to be strewn with unforeseen difficulties. I reddened. It was
disconcerting to break a cucumber frame as soon as one entered the
garden. "Miss Helen Claybourne," I heard Mrs. Hemphill continue. I
looked up, hope abandoned, to encounter two large serious grey eyes
gazing at me with frank curiosity. I started, for they were beautiful
eyes set wide apart beneath a high, well-modelled brow, over which soft
light brown hair waved most alluringly. A straight nose and firm chin
completed a face that was not only full of character, but also good to
look upon. I was enough of a snob to note that her clothes were right
and that her athletic figure carried them magnificently. She shook hands
heartily and frankly; her grasp was warm and pleasant, strong as a
boy's, but womanly too. My rout was complete; I could find words in the
gaze of those grey eyes which seemed to say "We believe in the truth." I
felt humble and apologetic; one should first crave audience before
daring to speak to those eyes. The next reaction was one of anger that a
girl--she couldn't be over eighteen--had so abashed me.
There were others present, both men and women, but they did not exist
for me. I heard their names mentioned and could not remember them; I
went around the room shaking hands and trying to repeat the necessary
conventional phrases, but I stammered and stuttered and bumped into the
furniture. Everywhere I felt two large grey eyes burning holes in the
middle of my back. It was a great relief when we filed into the dining
room. I was half hopeful and half fearful that I should be given Miss
Claybourne to take down; I wasn't. My seat was next to Mrs. Martin for
safe keeping, while grey eyes sat across from me and talked to an
aggressive looking saphead in a watered silk waistcoat. My conversation
was nil; my earlier break with Mrs. Martin discouraged me there, while
she was now most absorbed in her food. I tried to hear something of what
was said across the table, but in vain. Occasionally grey eyes looked in
my direction, but without friendliness or even recognition. I sank into
gloom and despair. Early in the dinner I hoped for a glass of wine to
cheer me up. There was a slender empty glass beside the iced water at my
plate. That hope was dashed when Mary Ellen filled these slender glasses
with mineral water from a bottle most artfully concealed in a napkin.
Occasionally, Hemphill burst into anecdote, but usually these sallies of
his were sternly suppressed by the voice of the skipper at the other end
of the table. The latter carried on a marvellous sign language with the
harassed Mary Ellen, to whom dinner parties on this scale were obviously
a novelty. When she wasn't signalling Mary Ellen in a code of frowns and
nods, Mrs. Hemphill spent her time searching with one foot for a
mysterious bell that was concealed somewhere beneath the table. At last
the dinner was over, and we all adjourned to the front room. There was
no smoking for the men; I was thus bereft of my last hoped-for
consolation.
In the drawing room little tables were set out, and Mrs. Hemphill
announced that we would now play hearts. We were given beribboned tags
with our table number on them, and this time luck smiled upon me; I drew
grey eyes as my partner. Miss Hemphill, pale and wan as a tallow candle,
was also at our table. The other man I have forgotten, I tried to be
light-hearted and amusing from the start, but made such a sad mess of it
that grey eyes began to look at me with unmistakable disapproval.
"Have you been in Deep Harbor long?" she asked me just as I made an
atrocious misplay. In some way this harmless-seeming question implied
censure. Like Benedick, I thought "There is a double meaning in that." I
retorted rather sharply: "Only three months." Grey eyes lifted her
eyebrows the merest fraction. I regretted bitterly the tone of my reply,
but it was too late.
"How does it happen that no one has met you?" she questioned quite
calmly, without any apparent trace of rudeness in her voice. The effect
was withering upon me; no school-girl could patronize me or cast doubts
upon my social eligibility--at least, not in Deep Harbor. She knew I was
angry and turned with some laughing remark to the other man, thus
effectually squelching my intended retort, for which, however, I was
still groping. The hand soon ended, and partners were changed. Although
grey eyes was my opponent for another game, she did not address any but
necessary remarks to me, while I continued to play badly and silently.
With the conclusion of this game she progressed to another table, and
Mrs. Martin once more descended upon me. The old lady took ample revenge
upon me for likening her to the Queen. She commented adversely upon each
play I made, and in between times lectured me upon might-have-beens. The
result was that I remained at the bottom table all the evening.
At ten o'clock the orgy was suspended, and to my amazement I saw grey
eyes approaching me. I scrambled hastily to my feet, determined to make
all possible amends. She handed me a little package tied with tissue
paper and ribbon.
"I have been asked to present you with the booby prize," she said with a
dangerous twinkle in the grey eyes. My chagrin almost choked me.
Suddenly I felt lonely; I wanted her to be friendly with me. I wanted to
beg her for a kind word. Instead I bowed and took my prize from her
hands, feeling I had richly earned it.
"And now," said her soft, gentle voice, "you may take me into the dining
room and get me some ice-cream."
My heart leaped with gratitude; the kind word had come unsought. She
took my arm quite as if we had been good friends for some time, and I
floated into the other room with her, trailing, as it were, a cloud of
glory. We found ice-cream, coffee, and marvelous rich cake oozing
chocolate! There was a couch over by a bay window, and without more
words we ensconced ourselves snugly on it. Her profile was almost
severely beautiful--a classic outline like that of a Greek Venus. I
studied it with delight for along with its serene beauty was an
intellectual charm, easily recognizable, but impossible to describe in
specific terms. For twenty blessed minutes we talked--of nothing
important; yet learned to know one another with bewildering speed. I
have no recollection of what we said; words came and were approved on
both sides. Sympathetic echoes were felt rather than expressed. We were
a little formal, not quite sure as yet that such sympathy was real and
not a dream. Then we were aware that the dinner party were beginning to
bid the hostess good-bye. With unspoken reluctance we came out of our
corner.
"May I see you home?" I whispered with anxious heartbeats.
"Yes," she smiled, "I live just across the street."
Mrs. Hemphill must have been amazed at the gratitude I showered upon her
for her invitation. I wrung Mr. Hemphill's hand with enthusiasm, as
Helen glided up to me and took my arm. It was an exit in triumph.
Across the street we paused for a moment outside her front door.
"Good-night," I said. "Dream true."
"I'm not yet the Duchess of Towers," came her reply, as she vanished
through the door. So she knew _Peter Ibbetson_!
Turning toward my little flat on the other side of the town came to me
the bitter after the sweet. She had not invited me to call! I had not
liked to ask, held back by a kind of stupid pride. Besides, I had been
most certain she would ask me, and she hadn't. The rest of my walk was
deep in gloom again.
Knowlton was sitting up for me. He made free of my rooms whenever he
liked.
"Well," he greeted me, "how do you like the F. F.'s of Deep Harbor?"
"The dinner party was rather mixed, but on the whole not bad."
"From that I infer that the mixture contained at least one charming
ingredient."
This shot was too near home for comfort; therefore I did not deign a
reply.
"Don't forget to make your party call," grinned Knowlton at me as I
undressed.
"I am not in the habit of overlooking dinner calls," I snapped back at
him.
After Knowlton had grinned himself out of my rooms I sat on the edge of
my bed and meditated. It was good to have pleasant thoughts again and to
believe that a large part of the world was contained in a pair of grey
eyes. "I am not in love," I considered, as I struggled, with the aid of
a fountain pen, to say something appropriate in my diary. The devil of
diaries is, unless one is a Mr. Pepys, that all the appropriate things
are said on the uneventful, unemotional days. "No, it isn't love--it's
recognition of kinship"--like some one in an old Greek story, after many
wanderings I had, quite by chance, stumbled upon a woman, and when we
had compared the tokens each of us carried, behold, they fitted
perfectly! "I am not yet the Duchess of Towers," she said. "Not
yet"--then I again thought of Benedick and the dangers of inference
founded upon feminine remarks. I had not been asked to call. For all I
knew it was over. I might never see her again. I took down a copy of
William Morris's "The Sundering Flood," for I remembered the heroine had
grey eyes. All of William Morris's heroines had, I reflected. It was
part of the pre-Raphaelite scheme of interior decorating; nevertheless
it was comforting to read of grey-eyed beauty, especially as the pages
of the diary blankly refused to be written upon. It grew late, and it
was hard to separate my thoughts, my dreams, and what I was reading from
the other. Indeed, they blended most deliciously--a sort of sentimental
intoxication giving me a glimpse of the earthly paradise. Yet Reason
kept whispering that it wasn't love; that I was mistaking sentimental
self-deception for reality. "What a colossal and ridiculous structure
you are erecting upon nothing," said Reason. "Upon a pair of grey eyes,"
I retorted. "Empires have been built upon less." "Ah," came back Reason,
"that pair of grey eyes cared nothing for you, or they would have asked
you to call." That was, for the moment, unanswerable. I was annoyed at
Reason for waking me up, and for spite decided to write a poem. I was
not in the habit of writing verses, for I had an abominable ear for
rhythm. Nevertheless, writing a sonnet was the most efficient way of
banishing Reason for that night. I got as far as the idea--something
about two travellers in the desert of life meeting by chance at a
well-rim, only to part again--when, mercifully, sleep overcame me;
disgustingly sound, dreamless sleep, and I knew no more until next
morning's alarm.
I got up to find Reason, reinforced by her auxiliary, bright sunshine,
most firmly in the saddle. Ahead loomed a factory and a seven-o'clock
whistle; gone were the magic shadows of the night and all the enchanted
garden of sentimental fancies. I attacked my test tubes in a frenzy of
efficiency. My eye was clear and my hand steady; ideas flowed fast.
Reason was triumphant. Then came a telephone call for me; Reason came a
nasty cropper under Instinct's sudden leap. I knew what the call meant
before I took the receiver down. Knowlton's cynical eye was upon me as I
answered; I cared nothing for him this time.
"This is Helen Claybourne," came a soft voice over the wire.
"Yes, I know," I said; not perhaps the right words.
"I am glad you remember"--I felt her smile, half naive, half
mischievous. "I meant last evening to ask you to call, and I forgot."
Reason's forces fled in a panic, scattered by the wild surge of my
blood. "Mother will be pleased to have you next Thursday, if that is
convenient."
"I'm awfully grateful," I stammered feebly. Why wouldn't words come?
"Until Thursday, then," the heavenly voice said calmly, and there was a
click in my ear. The receiver had been hung up at the other end.
"Gratitude is a feeling I never before heard you express," commented
Knowlton drily, as I turned away with a sigh, tingling from head to
foot. I was reckless with a wild, joyous insanity.
"Philosophy is a fool, Knowlton," I exclaimed gaily, "as you recall
Hamlet long ago pointed out to Horatio, not in just these words. Nor
does a peripeteia necessarily carry with it a tragic catastrophe,
Aristotle notwithstanding."
"You crazy idiot," remarked Knowlton, "I'm not going to send you to any
more parties if you come back with a hangover. You certainly have a hell
of a classic education for a chemist," he added, "and how you like to
show it off! What was that word you used--perry what?"
"Peripeteia, you mean," I condescended. "It is a reversal of fortune,
marking the turning point of a Greek tragedy."
"Well, I'll show you a first-class American tragedy if you don't go back
to your lab and work," he grinned. "I don't admire the influence of the
female sex upon you, Ted."
"You are generalizing from a single example," I flung back as I left the
room.
* * * * *
It was Tuesday, and Thursday seemed further away than does the week-end
viewed from Monday morning. Knowlton pursued me remorselessly, trying to
make me confess who my new friend was. All his cross-examinations were
in vain. I took delight in hugging my happiness to myself, and in
answering Knowlton's questions in the most extravagant and flambuoyant
language I could think of. In the end I could not tell whether he was
amused or annoyed. I worked night and day in the laboratory to pass the
time. My hopes were soaring so high that I trembled for fear that
Reason's sunbeams would melt the wax of their wings and send us crashing
down. And with my work Knowlton was content. Industry was the sure pass
to his favour.
On Thursday at the noon hour, however, Knowlton exploded a bombshell.
"We are going to work the plant twenty-four hours a day, Ted," he
announced, "and I've put you in charge of the night-shift, beginning
tonight."
My throat went dry. Which of the seven devils of hell had led him to
choose this night of all nights?
"It's tough on you, Ted, for you'll have to work right through the whole
twenty-four hours the first day. But I want you to let the lab go
tonight and simply act as superintendent. You'll be able to snatch some
sleep in the office."
"I have an engagement this evening--it's very awkward," I began.
"Well, you've got two now, and the one at the factory is the one you'll
keep."
In spite of Knowlton's decisiveness, we reached a compromise. He agreed
to let me off from six o'clock until midnight, provided I would make up
the time later, a concession which I eagerly accepted.
A few minutes after eight found me walking out Myrtle Boulevard, Deep
Harbor's street of streets, toward the Claybourne residence. I had
dressed in dinner clothes with exceeding care; no one could have guessed
that my business for most of the night was to superintend the
night-shift at a factory. The latter task was infinitely remote; if it
crossed my mind at all, it was only as something mechanical, to be wound
up later and left to run by itself. The important matter in hand was to
verify first impressions concerning a pair of grey eyes.
A maid opened the door of a pleasant oak-panelled hallway, and before I
had time to get my bearings the grey eyes were introducing me to
"Mother." In an instant I had the feeling that the latter was not
prepared to be enthusiastic. Strange young men from the outlands, of
unknown origin, were evidently to be resisted. I looked at her closely,
as I made my best and politest bow, hoping that my manners might carry a
little conviction. Mrs. Claybourne was short and sallow, the latter
caused, as I was later to learn, by her mania for tinkering with her
health. She was a little fretful, with a tendency to imply that the
world was not very considerate. "I told Helen I was too tired tonight to
be very entertaining," was her wail, as I shook hands, "but she would
ask you."
"We are not going to bother you at all, mother dear," Helen, as I dared
think of her, interposed hastily. "Now do sit down in your big chair and
read your magazine. We are going out on the side porch."
"Mr. Claybourne is at the club playing cards. I must apologize for his
not being here--but then he seldom is," Mrs. Claybourne went on
plaintively. "Helen, this room is so untidy it's a positive disgrace. I
do think you might have Jane straighten it up a little when you expect
callers. No one ever thinks of me. My nerves make me a very poor
housekeeper, Mr. Jevons."
The room appeared to me most comfy and home-like. There were books and
magazines and the atmosphere of a place in which people really lived. I
murmured some deprecatory reply as Helen took me out on to the side
porch. The latter was a heavenly place shut in by vines heavy with the
odour of honeysuckle. There were deep wicker-basket chairs and a
marvellous couch-like hammock. Unlike the Deep Harbor with which I was
familiar, this spot was quiet and restful. The early October air was
tinged with a delicious hint of frosts to come; the stars shone large
and clear; the Milky Way seemed fairly to romp across the sky.
"You mustn't mind mother," said Helen, as we sat in two of the large
chairs. "She isn't quite happy unless she has a grievance."
I laughed. It was so like the comment I had hoped her capable of making.
"I'm afraid I'm her grievance tonight--I wish I thought a happy one."
"I'm afraid that's partly true," Helen replied. "Mother is an extreme
stickler for the conventions. She complains that no one knows who you
are. It was useless for me to tell her that I knew you and didn't care
who you are--Mother says I am hopelessly of this generation--and regards
that as an argument against you. I finally told her you were coming
anyway--and, well--," she laughed,--"here you are."
So she had defended me and fought for me! My invitation to call was
therefore no mere empty social form such as common politeness toward a
stranger, but an offer of friendship.
"I really can set your mother's mind at rest," I said. "I belong to one
or two decent clubs--so does my father--"
"Please don't--I'm not asking for a passport," she interrupted. "As for
mother, she will get used to you in time."
This was encouraging, for it deliberately implied other calls to come.
Of course, the upshot was that I told her all about myself, pouring out
the pent-up loneliness accumulated since my arrival. She listened as
only a sympathetic girl can listen to a man talking endlessly about
himself. At times there came delicious silences during which we stared
at the stars, and again a gentle question from her would start me off
once more. It was with a shock that we suddenly noticed "mother"
silhouetted in the doorway.
"Helen!" came the complaining voice. "It's half past ten." "Good Lord,"
I groaned inwardly, "I might have stayed all night." I rose hastily,
Helen more deliberately.
"Very well, mother," her soft voice said, "Ted is just going." It was
the first time she had called me Ted. I fell over a wicker tabouret in
my delirium. As we passed into the living room, Mrs. Claybourne
buttonholed me.
"Have you a grandfather, young man?"
Helen's shocked "Mother!" was unheeded.
"Yes, Mrs. Claybourne, I had. He was colonel of one of your northern
regiments in the Civil War. His sword hangs over my desk. I shall be
pleased to show it you some day at tea."
"Mother! How could you?" again from Helen, and she laid her hand, just
for a second, ever so lightly, on my arm.
The effect of my statement I observed to be favourable. The "good-night"
Mrs. Claybourne gave me was less chilly than the earlier "good
evenings." Helen went with me to the door.
"Do you ride?" she asked, with a change of subject that surprised me.
"Yes--or, rather, I did before coming to Deep Harbor."
"Then get a horse and be here at nine next Sunday morning. Good-night,
Ted."
"Good-night, Helen. Thank you for tonight."
I left in such entranced good humour with the world that I forgot to
change my clothes before reporting at the factory; and so it happened
that the superintendent of the first night-shift performed his duties in
what my tailor had informed me were "faultless" evening clothes. The
result was to make Knowlton's grin wider than usual when I appeared to
relieve him.
"Ted, you've got more nerve than I gave you credit for, if you face our
gang in a clawhammer. However, lots of folks have original ideas when
they try suicide. If you are lynched before morning don't forget I
warned you."
"You need not worry," I said with dignity. "I'm fairly good friends with
most of our men."
"All right, Ted. Some get theirs shooting tigers; others falling off the
Alps; still others by being just plain damn fools. I'm thinking you'll
look a little strange on your way to breakfast aboard the seven-five
trolley."
At this I turned a little pale; I had not thought of the journey back by
broad daylight. It was too late to back out. I went down to the machine
shop with my fortitude somewhat shaken, only to discover my fears
groundless and Knowlton's warning unnecessary. No one but an occasional
apprentice or mechanic's helper so much as bothered to look at me, much
less make any comment. The office might always have worn similar
regalia, as far as outward signs were concerned.
Until about one in the morning I found the factory by night a
picturesque place. Every machine was running at full capacity. Overhead
blinking white arc lamps, whose rays were shot through with spluttering
purple, danced and hissed. At the lathes grey-headed mechanics,
fine-looking shrewd-faced men most of them, bent and peered at the
Medusa-like tresses of steel the tools sheered off from the castings.
Helpers leaned over them with wire-enclosed electric bulbs, lighting up
the faces of the chief actors as in a theatre. Belts raced and flapped
from nosy shafts along the ceiling--a steady, uninterrupted din. An
occasional machine would shriek or groan in the agony of its task.
Further down the shop the compressed air chisels were beating a devil's
tattoo against the rougher castings. Boys trundled trucks piled with
metal parts on their way from one machine to another. Foremen, pad and
pencil in hand, went about keeping a record of each machine's progress.
The place smelt of hot oil, of grimy cotton waste, and of sweaty human
bodies.
As the novelty of the picture wore off I became sleepy and bored. By two
o'clock it was clear that as superintendent I had a sinecure. This
automaton of a factory was quite capable of running itself. No one
referred any questions to me or asked my advice. I lingered hopefully
here and there when I saw a machine slow down or stop for a moment, but
whatever the reason of these stoppages, I was not consulted.
Upstairs to the laboratory I went, leaving word with the chief foreman
where I was to be found. Work was out of the question; I was too sleepy.
I tried my hand at a few pages in the diary--to recapitulate my thoughts
on the subject of grey eyes. As usual when I most wanted to write or
felt that I had a topic worth writing about, no words would come. I fell
asleep in my chair once, with my feet upon my desk, to wake with a
horrible start when they slid off with a thump. "Six weeks of this"--I
thought with a shudder--"only the other nights will not be quite so bad,
because I am to do my regular work at night and sleep by day." A
dreadful inversion of one's normal life, whichever way one looked at it.
It meant bringing a midnight supper for one thing--and where was the
restaurant in Deep Harbor to prepare a tempting supper? Then I was
annoyed at myself because my mind had seized upon such a petty factor as
a question of supper to magnify into importance.
I tried to get back to grey eyes, but I was too sleepy to be
sentimental. What was it we were to do Sunday? Oh, yes--go for a ride.
Where? I wondered. Heavens! I had no riding clothes! I scribbled a hasty
memorandum and heard the town hall clock strike three. "Take a look
around once an hour," Knowlton had said. "To make sure, punch the clock
in the front office each time you pass." To punch a clock was to
register one's number on a circular mechanism which also recorded the
time as well. My number was seven. As I had rather resented being
numbered, Knowlton allowed me to choose my own. His was one. I remember
chosing seven because it was lucky. At this point I pulled myself
together and started another tour.
Hour by hour the endless night went by; the dawn, turning the lake to
mauve and next to gold, gave promise that soon the factory gates would
open to let me pass. I was tired--too tired to think or care for
anything but bed. I had still to report to Knowlton when I successfully
passed the ordeal of going down-town in evening clothes. Fortunately I
was able to borrow a raincoat.
"Run home and get all the sleep you can. You are off until six this
evening."
At two in the afternoon I awoke; and, try as I would, further sleep was
impossible. I got up, had a shower, and telephoned Helen. Of course her
mother answered. It appeared that Helen was out, nor, to judge from her
mother's explanations, did there seem any likelihood Helen would ever be
home again. "Something will have to be done about mama," I reflected.
What was it I must do today? Oh, yes--riding clothes. I hurried out in
search of a tailor who would engage himself on his honour to make me
riding clothes by Sunday morning. Two declared it could not be done by
mortal man, since it was now Friday afternoon; one was doubtful. He had
heard of things done in such haste, but was skeptical concerning
results. I insulted him into accepting the commission. Our contract was
finally settled on the basis of midnight Saturday or no pay. "Where does
one obtain horses in this town?" I pondered, strolling down State
Street, which was respectable for four blocks and most ragged and
disreputable top and bottom. At Frazee's famous soda-water-and-candy
store whom should I see inside but Helen! After all, the coincidence was
not so remarkable, I muttered. If one were out at all in Deep Harbor one
was limited to State Street's four blocks of stores or to Myrtle
Boulevard. The rest of the town was chiefly built up of slums and
factories, except for one or two lesser streets on which people lived,
but never walked. I went in to Frazee's and only needed Helen's
welcoming smile to join her at the little marble-topped table.
"What on earth are you eating?" I asked, not very polite, as I pointed
at a little mess in a dish before her.
"That is a chocolate nut sundae," she laughed. "Won't you try one?"
"Are they very sweet?" I inquired doubtfully.
"Of course!" and she presented a brimming spoon to me to taste. I was
honored by the compliment, but the sickeningly sweet compound all but
did for me. I had not yet eaten, for I was too tired in the morning and
had forgotten about it after I got up. Helen was delighted with the face
I made over it.
"I think I prefer more solid food," I apologized. "My education stopped
with ice-cream sodas."
"I think it's a great lark meeting you here like this! Mother would be
furious!"
"Isn't it done?" I asked in all seriousness, looking about at Frazee's
unlimited display of white marble, enamel, and nickel trimmings. It
seemed a harmless looking place to me.
"Of course not, you silly Ted. What do you suppose Deep Harbor would say
if we did this very often?"
"Is Deep Harbor loquacious?"
"Extremely."
"But the place is full of young couples--just like ourselves."
Helen laughed. "If I explain, you'll think me snobbish, Ted, and I'm
not, even if mother is. Don't you see--all these boys and girls--well
that's what Deep Harbor is like."
"I understand perfectly, now I think it over. I should be very careful
where I took you to tea at home--and we'd have to have official sanction
to go at all ... Deep Harbor is like the rest of the world."
Again she laughed, and her grey eyes danced. "Ted, you really must give
up thinking we are strange aborigines. But I feel the same way you do
when I come back from boarding school--until I settle down again."
"I suppose it's the old prejudice against the new and strange," I said.
"You've just said Deep Harbor is like the rest of the world, Ted."
"It is," I said, looking at her until she dropped her eyes.
"Always conceding that you know the world, Ted," she added slyly,
looking up suddenly from under her lashes.
"I've seen quite a lot of it."
"Is that the same as knowing it?"
"No, but it's a start."
"Goodness me, Teddy, I ought to be home by now," she exclaimed,
springing up. Women are apt to break off a conversation just as it is
getting interesting.
"May I walk home with you?"
"That would never do, Teddy."
I looked so disappointed that she softened. "You may come part way. That
will be enough for Myrtle Boulevard for one afternoon."
"What do you mean?"
"The porches are full at this time, Ted, and I know every living soul on
Myrtle Boulevard."