The family rose from the table and moved into the living room, a little
constraint upon them. Mrs. Payson stayed behind to give directions to
Hulda. Hulda, who dined in a heap off the end of the kitchen table, was
rarely allowed to consume her meal in peace. Between Hulda and Mrs.
Payson there was waged the unending battle of the coffee-pot. After
breakfast, luncheon, dinner the mistress of the house would go into the
kitchen, take the coffee-pot off the gas stove and peer into its dark
depths.
"My goodness, Hulda, you've made enough coffee for a regiment! That's
wasteful. It'll only have to be thrown away."
"Ay drink him."
"You can't drink all this, girl. You'll be sick. You drink altogether
too much coffee. Coffee makes you nervous, don't you know that? Yellow!"
Hulda munched a piece of bread and took another long gulp of her
beloved beverage, her capable red hand wrapped fondly about the
steaming cup. "Naw Mrs. Pay-son. My grandfather he was drink twenty cup
a day in old country."
"Yes, but what happened to him? He'd be living to-day----"
"He ban living to-day. Ninety years and red cheeks like apples."
In the living room Lottie took up her knitting again. The front parlor
was unlighted but Charley went in and sat down at the old piano. She
did not play particularly well and she had no voice. Lottie, knitting
as she went, walked into the dim front room and sat down near Charley
at the piano. Charley did not turn her head.
"That you, Lotta?" She went on playing.
"Yes, dear."
A little silence. "Now you stick to it!"
"I will."
In the living room Henry Kemp leaned over and kissed his wife.
Straightening, he took a cigar out of his vest pocket and eyed it
lovingly. He pressed its resilient oily black sides with a tender
thumb and finger. He lighted it, took a deep pull at it, exhaled with
a long-drawn _pf-f-f_, and closed his eyes for a moment, a little
sigh of content breathing from him. He glanced, then, at his watch.
Only seven-fifty. Good Lord! He strolled over to Great-aunt Charlotte
who was seated near the front parlour doorway and the music. Her head
was cocked. He patted her black-silk shoulder, genially.
"That cigar smells good, Henry."
"Good cigar, Aunt Charlotte." He rolled it between his lips.
Aunt Charlotte's fingers tapped the arm of her chair. She waggled her
head a little in time with the music. "It's nice to have something that
smells like a man in the house."
"You vamp!" shouted Henry Kemp. He came over to Belle again who was
seated in the most gracious chair the room boasted, doing nothing with
a really charming effect. "Say, listen Belle, we don't have to stay so
very late this evening, do we? I'm all tired out. I worked like a horse
to-day downtown."
Before Belle could answer Charley called in from the other room, "Oh,
mother, I'm going to be called for, you know."
Belle raised her voice slightly. "The poet?"
"Yes."
"In the flivver?" Her father's question.
"Yes. Now roar, Dad, you silly old thing. Imagine a girl like me being
cursed with a father who thinks poets and flivvers are funny. If you'd
ever tried to manage either of them you'd know there's nothing comic
about them."
"There is too," contended Henry Kemp. "Either one of 'em's funny; and
the combination's killing. The modern--uh--what's this horse the poets
are supposed to ride?"
His wife supplied the classicism, "Pegasus."
"Pegasus!" he called in to Charley.
"You stick to your importing, Henry," retorted his gay young daughter,
"and leave the book larnin' to mother and me."
Henry Kemp, suddenly serious, strolled over to his wife again. He
lowered his voice. "About nine o'clock, anyway, can't we? Eh, Belle?"
"Not before nine-thirty. You know how mama----"
Henry sighed, resignedly. He stood a moment, balancing from heel to
toe. "Lot's a peach, that's what she is," he confided irrelevantly to
his wife. He puffed a moment in silence, his eyes squinting up through
the smoke. "And it's a damn shame, that's what. Damn shame."
He picked up the discarded newspaper and seated himself in the buffalo
chair. The buffalo chair was a hideous monstrosity whose arms, back,
and sides were made of buffalo horns ingeniously put together.
Fortunately, their tips curved away from the sitter. The chair had been
presented to old Isaac Thrift by some lodge or real estate board or
society. It was known to the family as Ole Bull. The women never sat
in it and always warned feminine callers away from it. Its horns had
a disastrous way with flounces, ruffles, plackets, frills. It was one
of those household encumbrances which common sense tells you to cast
off at every housecleaning and sentiment bids you retain. Thus far
sentiment had triumphed on Prairie Avenue. Once you resigned yourself
to him Ole Bull was unexpectedly comfortable. Here Henry Kemp sat
reading, smoking, glancing up over the top of his paper at the women
folk of his family--at his wife, his daughter, his mother-in-law,
thoughtfully through the soothing haze of his cigar. He pondered on
many things during these family Friday evenings, did Henry Kemp. And
said little.
The conversation was the intimate, frank, often brutal talk common to
families whose members see each other too often and know one another
too well. Belle to Lottie, for example:
"Oh, why don't you get something a little different! You've been
wearing blue for ten years."
"Yes, but it's so practical; and it always looks well."
"Cut loose and be impractical for a change. They're going to wear a lot
of that fawn colour this spring--sand, I think they call it.... How did
Mrs. Hines get along with that old taffeta she made over for you?"
"I don't know; it kind of draws across the front, and the sleeves--I
have to remember to keep my arms down. I wish you'd look at it."
"You'd have to put it on. How can I tell?"
"Too much trouble."
"Well, then, go on looking frumpy. These home dressmakers!"
Lottie did not look frumpy, as a matter of fact. No one with a figure
so vigorous and erect, a back so straight, a head so well set on its
fine column of a throat, a habit of such fastidious cleanliness of
person, could be frumpy. But she resorted to few feminine wiles of
clothing, as of speech or manner. Lottie's laces, and silks and fine
white garments, like her dear secret thoughts and fancies, were worn
hidden, by the world unsuspected. All the dearer to Lottie for that.
To-night Belle sat dangling her slipper at the end of her toe, her
knees crossed. She had a small slim foot and a trick of shooting
her pump loose at the heel so that it hung half on half off as she
waggled her foot in its fine silk stocking. Henry Kemp had found
it an entrancing trick when first they were married. He found it
less fascinating now, after twenty years. Sometimes the slipper
dropped--accidentally. "Henry dear, my slipper." Well, even the Prince
must have remonstrated with Cinderella if she made a practice of the
slipper-dropping business after their marriage. Twenty years after.
Belle, dangling the slipper, called in now to Lottie: "Nice party,
Lot?"
"Oh, nice enough."
"Who was there?"
"The girls. You know."
"Is her flat pretty? What did she serve?"
"Chicken salad with aspic--hot biscuits--olives--a cake----"
"Really!"
"Oh, yes. A party."
"Is she happy with her Orville--now that she's waited ten years for
him?"
"Yes--at least, she was until this afternoon."
"Until!--Oh, come in here, Lottie. I can't shout at you like----"
Lottie, knitting as she walked, came back into the living room. Charley
followed her after a moment; came over to her father, perched herself
on a slippery arm of Ole Bull and leaned back, her shoulder against his.
Lottie stood, still knitting. She smiled a little. "Beck Schaefer was
on one of her reckless rampages. She teased Celia until Celia cried."
"About what? Teased her about what? Pretty kind of guest, I must say."
"Oh, marriage. Marriage and happiness and--she said every unmarried
woman was a failure."
"That shouldn't have bothered Celia. She's married, safe enough. She
certainly had Beck there."
"Beck intimated that Orville wasn't worth waiting ten years for."
"Most men aren't," spoke up great-aunt Charlotte from her corner, "and
their wives don't know it until after they've been married ten years;
and then it's too late. Celia had plenty of time to find it out first
and she married him anyway. That's better. She'll be happy with him."
"Charlotte Thrift!" called Charley, through the laughter. "You
_couldn't_ be so wise just living to be seventy-four. Oh, you
hoop-skirted gals weren't so prunes-and-prismy. You've had a past. I'm
sure of it."
"How d'you suppose I could have faced the future all these years if I
hadn't had!" retorted Aunt Charlotte.
"That Schaefer girl had better go slow." Henry Kemp blew a whole flock
of smoke-rings for Charley's edification at which Charley, unedified,
announced that she could blow better rings than any of these in size,
number, and velocity with a despised gold-tipped perfumed cigarette and
cold-sore on the upper lip. "Some day," he predicted, "some day she'll
run away with a bell-hop. Just the type."
"Who's run away with a bell-hop?" Mrs. Payson chose this unfortunate
moment to enter the living room after her kitchen conference.
"Beck Schaefer," said Charley, mischievously.
You should have seen, then, the quick glance of terror that Mrs. Payson
darted at Lottie. You might almost have thought that Lottie had been
the one who had succumbed to the lure of youth in blue suit and brass
buttons.
"Beck! She hasn't! She didn't! Beck Schaefer!"
"No mama, she hasn't. Henry just thinks she will--in time."
Mrs. Payson turned on the overhead electric lights (they had been
sitting in the soothing twilight of the lamps), signified that Charley
was to hand her the evening paper that lay at the side of Henry's
chair, and seated herself in an ancient rocker--the only rocker the
house contained. It squeaked. She rocked. Glaring lights, rustling
paper, squeaking chair. The comfort of the room, of the group, was
dispelled.
"I'd like to know why!" demanded Mrs. Payson, turning to the stock
market page. "A good family. Money. And Beck Schaefer's a fine looking
girl."
One thought flashed through the minds of all of them. The others looked
at Lottie and left the thought unspoken. Lottie herself put it into
words then. Bluntly: "She isn't a girl, mother. She's thirty-five."
"Thirty-five's just a nice age." The paper crackled as she passed
to the real estate transfers. "If this keeps on I'd like to know
what they're going to do about building. Material's so high now it's
prohibitive." More rustling of paper and squeaking of chair. "Beck
Schaefer's got her mother to look out for her."
"That's why," said Aunt Charlotte, suddenly. Lottie looked at her,
knitting needles poised a moment.
"Why what?" asked Mrs. Payson. Then, as her sister Charlotte did not
answer, "You don't even know what we're talking about, Charlotte. Sit
there in the corner half asleep."
"It's you who're asleep," snapped great-aunt Charlotte tartly. "With
your eyes wide open."
When the doorbell rang then, opportunely, they all sighed a little,
whether in relief or disappointment.
"I'll go," said Lottie. So it was she who opened the door to admit Ben
Gartz.
You heard him as Lottie opened the door. "Hello! Well, Lottie! How's
every little thing with you?... _That's_ good! You cer'nly look
it."
Ben Gartz came into the living room, rubbing his hands and smiling
genially. A genial man, Ben, and yet you did not warm yourself at his
geniality. A little too anxious, he was. Not quite spruce. Looking his
forty-nine years. A pale and mackerel eye in a rubicund countenance,
had Ben Gartz. Combed his thinning hair in careful wisps across the
top of his head to hide the spreading bald spot. The kind of man who
says, "H'are you, sir!" on meeting you, and offers you a cigar at
once; who sits in the smokers of Pullmans; who speaks of children
always as "Kiddies." He toed in a little as he walked. A plumpish man
and yet with an oddly shrunken look about him somehow. The flame had
pretty well died out in him. He and his kind fought a little shy of
what they called "the old girls." But he was undoubtedly attracted to
Lottie. Ben Gartz had been a good son to his mother. She had regarded
every unmarried woman as her possible rival. She always had said, "Ben
ought to get married, I'd like to see him settled." But it was her one
horror. The South Side, after her death, said as one voice, "Well,
Ben, you certainly have nothing to reproach yourself with. You were a
wonderful son to her." And the South Side was right.
Once Mrs. Payson said of him, "He's a good boy."
Aunt Charlotte had cocked an eye. "He's uninteresting enough to be
good. But I don't know. He looks to me as if he was just waiting for
a chance to be bad." She had caught in Ben Gartz's face a certain
wistfulness--a something unfulfilled--that her worldly-wise sister had
mistaken for mildness.
Henry Kemp brightened at the visitor's entrance as well he might in
this roomful of women. "Well, Ben, glad to see you. Come into the
harem."
Ben shook hands with Mrs. Payson, with Aunt Charlotte, with Belle, with
Charley. "My, my, look at this kiddy! Why, she's a young lady! Better
look out, Miss Lottie; you'll be letting your little niece get ahead of
you." Shook hands with Henry Kemp. Out came the cigar.
"No, no!" protested Henry. "You've got to smoke one of mine." They
exchanged cigars, eyed them, tucked them in vest pockets and lighted
one of their own, according to the solemn and ridiculous ritual of men.
Ben Gartz settled back in a chair and crossed his chubby knees. "This
is mighty nice, let me tell you, for an old batch living in a hotel
room. The family circle, like this. Mighty nice." He glanced at Lottie.
He admired Lottie with an admiration that had in it something of fear,
so he always assumed a boisterous bluffness with her. Sometimes he
felt, vaguely, that she was laughing at him. But she wasn't. She was
sorry for him. He was to her as obvious as a child to its mother.
"You might have come for dinner," Lottie said, kindly, "if I'd known,
earlier. The folks had dinner here."
"Oh, no!" protested Ben as though the invitation were now being
tendered. "I couldn't think of troubling you. Mighty nice of you,
though, to think of me. Maybe some other time----"
Mrs. Carrie Payson said nothing. She did not issue dinner invitations
thus, helter-skelter. She did not look displeased, though.
"Well, how's business?"
Great-aunt Charlotte made a little clucking sound between tongue and
palate and prepared to drift from the room. She had a knack of drifting
out of the room--evaporating, almost. You looked up, suddenly, and she
was not there. Outside there sounded the sharp bleat of a motor horn--a
one-lung motor horn. Two short staccato blasts followed by a long one.
A signal, certainly.
"The poet, Charley," said Henry Kemp; and laughed his big kind laugh.
"Ask him in," Mrs. Payson said. "Aren't you going to ask your young man
to come in?" Charley was preparing to go.
"What for?" she asked now.
"To meet the family. Unless you're ashamed of him. When I was a
girl----"
Great-aunt Charlotte sat back again, waiting.
"All right," said Charley. "He'll hate it." She walked across the room
smiling; opened the door and called out to the bleat in the blackness:
"Come on in!"
"What for?"
"Meet the family."
"Oh, say, listen----"
You heard them talking and giggling a little together in the hall.
Then they came down the hall and into the living room, these two young
things; these two beautiful young things. And suddenly the others in
the room felt old--old and fat and futile and done with life. The two
stood there in the doorway a moment. The very texture of their skin;
the vitality of their vigorous hair as it sprang away in a fine line
from their foreheads; the liquid blue-white clearness of the eyeball;
the poise of their slim bodies--was youth.
She was tall but he was taller. His hair had a warmer glint; it was
almost red. In certain lights it was red. The faun type. Ears a little
pointed. Contemptuous of systems, you could see that; metric or
rhythmic. A good game of tennis, probably. Loathing golf. So graceful
as to seem almost slouchy. Lean, composed, self-possessed. White
flannel trousers for some athletic reason (indoor tennis, perhaps, at
the gym); a loose great-coat buttoned over what seemed to be no shirt
at all. Certainly not a costume for a Chicago March night. He wore it
with a full dress air. And yet a certain lovable shyness.
Charley waved a hand in a gesture that somehow united him with the
room--the room full of eyes critical, amused, appraising, speculative,
disapproving.
"Mother and Dad you know, of course. Grandmother Payson, my Aunt
Lottie--Lotta for short. Mr. Ben Gartz.... Oh, forgive me, Aunt
Charlotte, I thought you'd gone. There in the corner--my great-aunt
Charlotte Thrift.... This is Jesse Dick."
It is a terrible thing to see an old woman blush. The swift, dull
almost thick red surged painfully to great-aunt Charlotte's face
now, and her eyes were suddenly wide and dark, like a young girl's,
startled. Then the red faded and left her face chalky, ghastly. It was
as though a relentless hand had wrapped iron fingers around her heart
and squeezed it and wrenched it once--tight and hard!--and then relaxed
its grip. She peered at the boy standing there in the doorway; peered
at him with dim old eyes that tried to pierce the veil of years and
years and years. The others were talking. Charley had got her wraps
from the hall, and was getting into her galoshes. This cumbersome and
disfiguring footgear had this winter become the fad among university
co-eds and South Side flappers. They wore galoshes on stormy days
and fair. The craze had started during a blizzardy week in January.
It was considered chic to leave the two top clasps or the two lower
clasps open and flapping. The origin of this could readily be traced to
breathless co-eds late for classes. All young and feminine Hyde Park
now clumped along the streets, slim silken shins ending grotesquely in
thick black felt-and-rubber.
Jesse Dick stooped now to assist in the clasping of Charley's galoshes.
He was down on one knee. Charley, teetering a little, put one hand on
his head to preserve her balance. He looked up at her, smiling; she
looked down at him, smiling. Almost sixty years of life swept back over
great-aunt Charlotte Thrift and left her eighteen again; eighteen, and
hoop-skirted in her second-best merino, with a green-velvet bonnet and
a frill of blond lace, and little muddied boots and white stockings.
She could not resist the force that impelled her now. She got up from
her corner and came over to them. The talk went on in the living room.
They did not notice her.
"I knew your--I knew a Jesse Dick," she said, "years ago."
The boy stood up. "Yes? Did you?"
"He died in the Civil War. At Donelson. He was killed--at Donelson."
The boy spatted his hands together a little, briskly, to rid them of a
bit of dried mud that had clung to the galoshes. "That must have been
my grandfather's brother," he said politely. "I've heard them speak of
him."
He had heard them speak of him. Charlotte Thrift, with seventy-four
years of a ruined life heavy upon her, looked at him. He had heard them
speak of him. "Pomroy Dick? Your grandfather? Pomroy Dick?"
"Why, yes! Yes. Did you know him, too? He wasn't--we Dicks aren't--How
did you happen to know him?"
"I didn't know your grandfather Pomroy Dick," said Great-aunt
Charlotte, and smiled so that the withered lips drew away from the
blue-white, even teeth. "It was Jesse I knew." She looked up at him.
"Jesse Dick."
Charley leaned over and pressed her fresh dewy young lips to the
parchment cheek. "Now isn't that interesting! Good-bye dear." She
stopped and flashed a mischievous glance at the boy. "Was he a poet
too, Aunt Charlotte?"
"Yes."
Jesse Dick turned his head quickly at that. "He was? I didn't know
that. Are you sure? No one in our family ever said----"
"I'm sure," Great-aunt Charlotte Thrift said, quietly. "Families don't
always know. About each other, I mean."
"No, indeed," both he and Charley agreed, politely. They were anxious
to be off. They were off, with a good-bye to the group in the living
room. Charlotte Thrift turned to go upstairs. "Jesse Dick----" she
heard, from the room where the others sat. "Dick----" She turned and
came back swiftly, and seated herself again in the dim corner. Henry
Kemp was speaking, his face all agrin.
"She's a case, that kid. We never know. Some weeks it's the son of
one of the professors, with horn glasses and no hat. And then it'll
be a millionaire youngster she's met at a dance, and the place will
be cluttered up with his Stutz and his orchids and Plow's candy for
awhile. Now it's this young Dick."
Ben Gartz waggled his head. "These youngsters!" he remarked,
meaninglessly. "These youngsters!"
But Mrs. Carrie Payson spoke with meaning. "Who is he? Dick? I've never
heard the name. Who're his folks?"
An uneasy rustle from Belle. "He is a poet," she said. "Quite a good
one, too. Some of his stuff is really----"
"Who're his folks?" demanded Mrs. Carrie Payson. "They're not poets
too, are they?"
Henry Kemp's big laugh burst out again, then, in spite of Belle's
warning rustle. "His father's 'Delicatessen Dick,' over on Fifty-third.
We get all our cold cuts there, and the most wonderful pickled herring.
They say they're put up in some special way from a recipe that's been
in the family for years. Holland Dutch, I guess----"
But Mrs. Carrie Payson had heard enough. "Well, I must say, Belle,
you're overdoing this freedom business with Charley. 'Delicatessen
Dick!' I suppose the poet sells the herrings over the counter? I
suppose he gives you an extra spoonful of onions when you----"
Belle spoke up tartly: "He isn't in the store, mother. His people have
loads of money. They're very thrifty and nice respectable people. Of
course--everybody in Hyde Park goes to Dick's for their Sunday night
supper things."
"His mother's a fine looking woman," Henry Kemp put in. "She's the
smart one. Practically runs the business, I hear. Old Dick is kind of a
dreamer. I guess dreaming doesn't go in the delicatessen business."
"It'll be nice for Charley," Mrs. Payson remarked, grimly. "With her
training at college. I shouldn't wonder if they'd put her in charge of
all the cold meats, maybe. Or the cheese."
"Now Mother Payson, Charley's only a kid. Don't you go worrying----"
Belle spoke with some hauteur. "He does not live at home. He has a room
near the University. He's fond of his parents but not in sympathy with
the business. His work appears regularly in _Poetry_, and they
accept only the best. He worked his way through college without a penny
from his people. And," as a triumphant finish--"he has a book coming
out this spring."
"Ha!" laughed Henry Kemp, jovially. Then suddenly sobering, regarded
the glowing end of his cigar. "But they do say it's darned good
poetry. People who know. Crazy--but good. I read one of 'em. It's
all about dead horses and entrails and----" he stopped and coughed
apologetically. "His new book is going to be called----" Here he went
off into a silent spasm of laughter.
"Henry, you know that's just because you don't understand. It's the new
verse."
"His new book," Henry Kemp went on, gravely, "is called 'White Worms.'"
He looked at Ben Gartz. The two men laughed uproariously.
Mrs. Payson sat forward stiffly in her rocking chair. "And you let
Charley go about with this person!"
"Oh, mother, please. Let's not discuss Charley's affairs. Mr. Gartz
can't be interested."
"Oh, but I am! Aren't you, Miss Lottie? Young folks----"
"Besides, all the girls are quite mad about him. Charley's the envy of
them all. He's the most sought-after young man in Hyde Park. He wrote
a poem to Charley that appeared in _Poetry_ last month." Belle
dismissed the whole affair with a little impatient kick of her foot
that sent the dangling slipper flying. "Oh, Henry--my slipper!" Henry
retrieved it. "Besides they're only children. Charley's a baby."
Mrs. Carrie Payson began to rock in the squeaky chair, violently. "You
heard what she said about the five."
"The five?"
"About the five--you know."
In the laughter that followed great-aunt Charlotte slipped out of the
room, vanished up the stairs.
Then the War, of course. Ben Gartz was the sort that kept a map in his
office, with coloured pins stuck everywhere in it. They began to talk
about the War. They say it'll go on for years and years; it can't, the
Germans are starving; don't you believe it, they've prepared for this
for forty years; aren't the French wonderful, would you believe it to
look at them so shrimpy; it's beginning to look pretty black for them
just the same; we'll be in it yet, you mark my words; should have gone
in a year ago, that was the time; if ever we do--zowie.
Lottie sat knitting. Ben Gartz reached over and fingered the soft
springy mass of wool. There was an intimacy about the act. "If we
go into it and I go off to war will you knit me some of these, Miss
Lottie? H'm?"
Lottie lifted her eyes. "If you go off to fight I'll knit you a whole
outfit, complete: socks, muffler, helmet, wristlets, sweater."
"'Death, where is thy sting'!" Ben Gartz rolled a pale blue eye.
Henry Kemp was not laughing now. His face looked a little drawn and
old. He had allowed his cigar to go dead in the earnestness of the war
talk. "You're safe, Lottie. It'll be over before we can ever go into
it."
Ben Gartz flapped a hand in disagreement. "Don't you be too sure of
that. I've heard it pretty straight that we'll be in by this time
next year--if not before. I've had an offer to go into the men's
watch-bracelet business on the strength of it. And if we do I'm going
to take it. Fortune in it."
"Men's watch bracelets! Real men don't wear them. Mollycoddles!"
"Oh, don't they! No I guess not! Only engineers, and policemen and
aviators and soldiers, that's all. Mollycoddles like that. They say
they aren't wearing any kind _but_ wrist watches over there. Well,
if we go into the war I go into the men's watch-bracelet business,
that's what. Fortune in it."
"Yeh," said Henry Kemp, haggardly. "If we go into the war I go into the
poor-house."
Belle stood up, decisively. "It's getting late, Henry."
Mrs. Payson bristled. "It's only a little after nine. You only come
once a week. I should think you needn't run off right after dinner."
"But it isn't right after dinner, mother. Besides Henry has been
working terribly hard. He's worn out."
Mrs. Payson, who knew the state of Henry's business, sniffed in
unbelief. But they went. In the hall:
"Then you'll be in to-morrow morning, Lottie?"
"Yes." Lottie seemed a little pale.
Mrs. Payson's face hardened.
You heard a roar outside. Henry warming up the engine. Snorts and
chugs, then a gigantic purr. They were off.
The three settled down again in the living room. Mrs. Payson liked to
talk to men. Years of business intercourse had accustomed her to them.
She liked the way their minds worked, clear and hard. When Lottie
had company she almost always sat with them. Lottie had never hinted
that this was not quite as it should be. She never even told herself
that perhaps this might have had something to do with her being Lottie
Payson still.
She was glad enough to have her mother remain in the room this evening.
She sat, knitting. She was thinking of Orville Sprague, and of Ben
Gartz. Of Charley and this boy--this Jesse Dick. How slim the boy
was, and how young, and how--vital! That was it, vital. His jaw made
such a clean, clear line. It almost hurt you with its beauty.... Beck
Schaefer.... Bell hop.... So that was what Henry had meant. Youth's
appeal to women of her age. A morbid appeal....
She shook herself a little. Her mother and Ben Gartz were talking.
"That's a pretty good proposition you got there, Mrs. Payson, if you
can swing it. I wouldn't be in any hurry, if I was you. You hang on to
it."
There always was talk of "propositions" and "deals" when Mrs. Payson
conversed with one of Lottie's callers.
"I think a good deal of your advice, Mr. Gartz. After all, I'm only a
woman alone. I haven't got anyone to advise me."
"You don't need anybody, Mrs. Payson. You're as shrewd as that Rolfe
is, any day. He's waiting to see how this war's going to go. Well, you
wait too. You've got a good proposition there----"
Lottie rose. "I'll get you something to drink," she said.
He caught her arm. "Now don't you bother, Miss Lottie." He always
called her "Miss Lottie" when others were there, and "Lottie" when they
were alone.
But she went, and came back with ginger ale, and some cookies.
Something in his face as he caught sight of these chaste viands
smote her kindly and understanding heart. She knew her mother would
disapprove, would oppose it. But the same boldness that had prompted
her to speak at dinner now urged her to fresh flights of daring.
"What would you say to a cup of nice hot coffee and some cold chicken
sandwiches!"
"Oh, say, Miss Lottie! I couldn't think--this is all right." But his
eyes brightened.
"Nonsense, Lottie!" said Mrs. Payson, sharply. "Mr. Gartz doesn't want
coffee."
"Yes he does. Don't you? Come on in the kitchen while I make it. We'll
all have a bite at the dining room table. I'll cut the bread if you'll
butter it."
Ben Gartz got up with alacrity. "No man who lives in a hotel could
resist an offer like that, Miss Lottie." He frisked heavily off to
the kitchen in her wake. Mrs. Payson stood a moment, tasting the
unaccustomed bitter pill of opposition. Then she took her stout cane
from a corner where she had placed it and followed after them to the
kitchen, sniffing the delicious scent of coffee-in-the-making as though
it were poison gas. Later they played dummy bridge. Lottie did not play
bridge well. She failed to take the red and black spots seriously.
Mrs. Payson would overbid regularly. If you had told her that this
was a form of dishonesty she would have put you down as queer. Ben
Gartz squinted through his cigar smoke, slapped the cards down hard,
roared at Mrs. Payson's tactics (he had been a good son to his mother,
remember) and sought Lottie's knee under the table.
"... going to marry at twenty and have five children, one right after
the other----"
"Lottie Payson, what are you thinking of!" Her mother's outraged voice.
"Why--what----"
"You trumped my ace!"