his superlative black coat of ceremony, plucking at it, striving to
stir him to sympathy and understanding; the face, hopeful and afraid,
strained up at him.
Gently he detached the gloved hand on his sleeve, holding it a second
in his own before letting it go.
"Listen," he said. "That bargain is cancelled. Colonel von Specht
died to-day."
He turned forthwith and walked to the stairs. He did not look back at
her.
"Herein!" called somebody from within the white-painted door of the
Baron's room, when he knocked.
Herr Haase, removing his hat, composing his face to a nullity of
official expression, entered.
After the shadow of the hall and the staircase, the window blazed at
him. The Baron was at his little table, seated sideways in his chair,
toying with an ivory paper-knife, large against the light. Von Wetten
stood beside him, tall and very stiff, withdrawn into himself behind
his mask of Prussian officer and aristocrat; and in a low chair, back
to the door and facing the other two, Bettermann sat.
He screwed round awkwardly to see who entered, showing his thin face
and its scar, then turned again to the Baron, large and calm and
sufficient before him.
"I tell you," he said, resuming some talk that had been going on
before Herr Haase's arrival: "I tell you, the letter of the bargain
or nothing!"
The Baron had given to Herr Haase his usual welcome of a half smile,
satiric and not unkindly. He turned now to Bettermann.
"But certainly," he answered. He slapped the ivory paper-knife
against his palm. "I was not withdrawing from the bargain. I was
merely endeavoring to point out to you at the instance of my friend
here" a jerk of the elbow towards Von Wetten "the advantages of a
million marks, or several million marks, plus the cashiering of
Colonel von Specht from the army, over the personal satisfaction
which you have demanded for yourself. But since you insist."
Bettermann, doubled up in his low chair, broke in abruptly: "Yes, I
insist!"
The Baron smiled his elderly, temperate smile. "So be it," he said.
"Well, my good Haase, what have you to tell us?"
Herr Haase brought his heels together, dropped his thumbs to the
seams of his best trousers, threw up his chin, and barked:
"Your Excellency, I have seen the Herr Colonel Graf von Specht. He
died at ten minutes past eleven this morning."
His parade voice rang in the room; when it ceased the silence, for a
space of moments, was absolute. What broke it was the voice of Von
Wetten.
"Thank God!" it said, loudly and triumphantly.
The Baron swung round to him, but before he could speak Bettermann
gathered up the slack of his long limbs and rose from his chair. He
stood a moment, gaunt in his loose and worn clothes, impending over
the seated baron.
"So that was it! Well" He paused, surveying the pair of them, the old
man, the initiate and communicant of the inmost heart of the machine
through which his soul had gone like grain through a mill, and the
tall Prussian officer, at once the motor and millstone of that
machine. And he smiled. "Well," he repeated, "there's the end of
that!"
The door closed behind him; his retreating footsteps echoed in the
corridor. The Baron spoke at last. He stared up at Von Wetten, his
strong old face seamed with new lines.
"You thank God for that, do you?" he said.
Von Wetten returned his gaze. "Yes, Excellency," he replied.
He had screwed his monocle into his eye; it gave to his unconscious
arrogance the barb of impertinence.
"You!" The Baron cried out at him. "You thank God, do you? and
neither your thanks nor your God is worth the bones of a single
Pomeranian grenadier! Do you know what has happened, fool?"
Captain von Wetten bent towards him, smiling slightly.
"You are speaking to Haase, of course, Excellency?"
The Baron caught himself. His face went a trifle pinker, but his
mouth was hard under the clipped white moustache and the heavy brows
were level.
"I will tell you what has happened," he said deliberately. "I will
try to make it intelligible to you."
He held up the ivory paper-knife, its slender yellow blade strained
in his two hands.
"That is Germany to-day," he said, "bending." His strong hands
tightened; the paper-knife broke with a snap. "And that is Germany
to-morrow broken. We have failed."
He threw the two pieces from him to the floor and stared under the
pent of his brows at Von Wetten.
Their eyes engaged. But one of the pieces slid across the floor to
Herr Haase's feet. Orderly and serviceable always, Herr Haase bent
and picked up the broken pieces and put them back upon the table.
VIII
ALMS AND THE MAN
While she was yet dressing, she had heard the soft pad of slippers on
the narrow landing outside her room and the shuffle of papers; then,
heralded by a single knock, the scrape and crackle of a paper being
pushed under her door. It was in this fashion that the Maison Mardel
presented its weekly bills to its guests.
"Merci!" she called aloud, leaving her dressing to go and pick up the
paper. A pant from without answered her and the slippers thudded
away.
Standing by the door, with arms and shoulders bare, she unfolded the
document, a long sheet with a printed column of items and large inky
figures in francs and centimes written against them, and down in the
right hand corner the dramatic climax of the total. It was the total
that interested Annette Kelly.
"H'm!" It was something between a gasp and a sigh. "They 're making
the most of me while I last," said Annette aloud.
Her purse was under her pillow, an old and baggy affair of shagreen,
whose torn lining had to be explored with a forefinger for the coins
it swallowed. She emptied it now upon the bed. The light of a Paris
summer morning, golden and serene, flowed in at the window, visiting
the poverty of the little room with its barren benediction and
shining upon the figure of Annette as she bent above her money and
counted it She was a slender girl of some three-and-twenty years,
with hair and eyes of a somber brown; six weeks of searching for
employment in Paris and economizing in food, of spurring herself each
morning to the tone of hope and resolution, of returning each evening
footsore and dispirited, had a little blanched and touched with
tenseness a face in which there yet lingered some of the soft
contours of childhood.
She sat down beside the money on the bed, her ankles crossed below
her petticoat; her accounts were made up. After paying the bill and
bestowing one franc in the unavoidable tip, there would remain to her
exactly eight francs for her whole resources. It was the edge of the
precipice at last. It was that precipice, overhanging depths unseen
and terrible, which she was contemplating as she sat, feet swinging
gently in the rhythm of meditation, her face serious and quiet. For
six weeks she had seen it afar off; now it was at hand and immediate.
"Well," said Annette slowly; she had already the habit of talking
aloud to herself which comes to lonely people. She paused. "It just
means that today I've got to get some work. I've got to."
She rose, forcing herself to be brisk and energetic. The Journal,
with its advertisements of work to be had for the asking, had come to
her door with the glass of milk and the roll which formed her
breakfast, and she had already made a selection of its more humble
possibilities. She ran them over in her mind as she finished
dressing. Two offices required typists; she would go to both. A
cashier in a shop and an English governess were wanted. "Why
shouldn't I be a governess?" said Annette. And finally, somebody in
the Rue St. Honore required a young lady of good figure and pleasant
manner for "reception." There were others, too, but it was upon these
five that Annette decided to concentrate.
She put on her hat, took her money and her Journal, and turned to the
door. A curious impulse checked her there and she came back to the
mirror that hung above her dressing-table.
"Let's have a look at you!" said Annette to the reflection that
confronted her.
She stood, examining it seriously. It was, she thought, quite
presentable, a trim, quiet figure of a girl who might reasonably ask
work and a wage; she could not find anything in it to account for
those six weeks of refusals. She perked her chin and forced her face
to look assured and spirited, watching the result in the mirror.
"Ye-es," she said at last, and nodded to the reflection. "You'll have
to do; but I wish I wish you hadn't got that sort of doomed look.
Good-bye, old girl!"
At the foot of the stairs, in the open door of that room which was
labeled "Bureau," where a bed and a birdcage and a smell of food kept
company with the roll-top desk, stood the patronne, Madame Mardel.
She moved a little forth into the passage as Annette approached.
"Good morning, mademoiselle. Again a charming day!"
She was a large woman, grossly fleshy, with clothes that strained to
creaking point about her body and gaped at the fastenings. Her vast
face, under her irreproachably neat hair the hair of a Parisienne was
swarthy and plethoric, with the jowl of a bulldog and eyes tiny and
bright. Annette knew her for an artist in "extras," a vampire that
had sucked her purse lean with deft overcharges, a creature without
mercy or morals. But the daily irony of her greeting had the grace,
the cordial inflexion, of a piece of distinguished politeness.
"Charming," agreed Annette. She produced the bill. "I may as well pay
this now," she suggested.
Madame's chill and lively eyes were watching her face, estimating her
solvency in the light of Madame's long experience of misfortune and
despair. She shrugged a huge shoulder deprecatingly.
"There is no hurry," she said. She always said that. "Still, since
mademoiselle is here."
Annette followed her into the bureau, that dimlighted sanctuary of
Madame's real life. Below the half-raised blind in the window the
canaries in their cage rustled and bickered; unwashed plates were
crowded on the table; the big unmade bed added a flavor of its own to
the atmosphere. Madame eased herself, panting, into the chair before
the desk, revealing the great rounded expanse of her back with its
row of straining buttons and lozenge-shaped revelations of
underwear. With the businesslike deliberation of a person who
transacts a serious affair with due seriousness, she spread the bill
before her, smoothing it out with a practiced wipe of the hand, took
her rubber stamp from the saucer in which' it lay, inked it on the
pad and waited. Annette had been watching her, fascinated by that
great methodical rhythm of movement, but at the pause she started,
fished the required coins from the old purse, and laid them at
Madame's elbow. "Merci, mademoiselle," said Madame, and then, and not
till then, the stamp descended upon the paper. A flick with a
scratchy pen completed the receipt, and Madame turned awkwardly in
the embrace of her chair to hand it to Annette with her weekly smile.
The ritual was accomplished.
"Good morning, mademoiselle. Thank you; good luck."
The mirthless smile discounted the words; the cold, avid eyes were
busy and suspicious. Annette let them stare their fill while she
folded the paper and tucked it into the purse; she had had six weeks
of training in the art of preserving a cheerful countenance.
Then: "Good morning, madame," she smiled, with her gay little nod and
reached the door in good order.
There was still Aristide, the lame man-of-all-work, who absorbed a
weekly franc and never concealed his contempt of the amount. He was
waiting on the steps, leaning on a broom, and turned his rat's face
on her, sourly and impatiently, without a word. She paused as she
came to him and dipped two fingers into the poor old purse;
Aristide's pale, red-edged eyes followed them, while his thin mouth
twisted into contempt.
"This is for you, Aristide," she said, and held out the coin.
He took it in his open palm and surveyed it with lifted eyebrows.
"This?" he inquired.
"Yes." The insult never failed to hurt her; this morning, in
particular, she would have been glad to set forth upon the day's
forlorn hope without that preface of hate and cruel greed. But
Aristide still stood, with the coin in his open hand, staring from it
to her and she flinched from him. "Good morning," she said timidly,
and slipped past.
It needed the gladness of the day, its calm and colorful warmth, to
take the taste of Aristide out of her mouth and uplift her again to
her mood of resolution. Her way lay downhill; the first of her
advertisements gave an address at the foot of the Rue Lafayette; and
soon the stimulus of the thronged streets, the mere neighborhood of
folk who moved briskly and with purpose, re-strung her slackened
nerves and she was again ready for the battle. And as she went her
lips moved.
"Mind, now!" she was telling herself. "Today's the end the very end.
You've got to get work today!"
The address in the Rue Lafayette turned out to be that of a firm of
house and estate agents; it was upon the first floor and showed to
the landing four ground-glass doors, of which three were lettered
"Private," while the fourth displayed an invitation to enter without
knocking. Upon the landing, in the presence of those inexpressive
doors, behind which salaries were earned and paid and life was all
that was orderly and desirable, Annette paused for a space of moments
to make sure of herself.
"Now!" she said, with a deep breath, and pushed open the fourth door.
Within was an office divided by a counter, and behind the counter
desks and the various apparatus of business. The desks were
unoccupied; the only person present was a thin pretty girl seated
before a typewriter. She looked up at Annette across the counter; her
face showed patches of too bright a red on the cheekbones.
"Good morning," began Annette, with determined briskness. "I've
come."
The girl smiled. "Typist?" she interrupted.
"Yes," said Annette. "The advertisement"--she stopped; the girl was
still smiling, but in a manner of deprecating and infinitely gentle
regret.
Annette stared at her, feeling within again that rising chill of
disappointment with which she was already so familiar. "You mean" she
stammered awkwardly "you mean you've got the place?"
The thin girl spread her hands apart in a little French gesture of
conciliation.
"Ten minutes ago," she answered. "There is no one here yet but the
manager, and I was waiting at the door when he arrived."
"Thank you," said Annette faintly. The thin girl, still regarding her
with big shadowy eyes, suddenly put a hand to her bosom and coughed.
The neat big office beyond the bar of the polished counter was
unbearably pleasant to look at; one could have been so happily busy
at one's place between those tidy desks. A sharp bell rang from an
inner office; the thin girl rose. The hectic on her cheeks burned
brighter.
"I must go," she said hurriedly. "He wants me. I hope you will have
good luck."
The sunlight without had lost some of its quality when Annette came
forth to the street again; it no longer warmed her to optimism. She
stood for some moments in the doorway of the building, letting her
depression and discouragement have their way with her.
"If only I might cry a bit," she reflected. "That would help a
little. But I mustn't even do that!"
She had to prod herself into fresh briskness with the sense of her
need, that to-day was the end. She sighed, jerked her chin up, set
her small face into the shape of resolute cheerfulness and started
forth again in the direction of the second vacancy for a typist.
Here, for a while, hope burned high. The office was that of a firm of
thriving wine exporters and the post had not yet been filled. The
partner into whose office she penetrated by virtue of her sheer
determination to see someone in authority, was a stout ruddy
Marseillais, speaking French in the full-throated Southern fashion;
he was kindly and cheery, with broad vermilion lips a-smile through
his beard.
"Yes, we want a typist," he admitted; "but I'm afraid" his amiable
brown eyes scrutinized her with manifest doubt. "You have
references?" he inquired.
Yes, Annette had references. She had only lost her last situation
when her employer went bankrupt; the testimonial she produced spoke
well of her in every sense. She gave it him to read. But what what
was it in her that had inspired that look of doubt, that look she had
seen so often before in the eyes of possible employers?
"Yes, it is very good." He handed the paper back to her, still
surveying her and hesitating. "And you are accustomed to the machine?
H'm!"
It was then that hope flared up strongly. He could not get out of it;
he must employ her now. Salary? She would take what the firm offered!
And still he continued to look at her with a hint of embarrassment in
his regard. She felt she was trembling.
"I'm afraid" he began again, but stopped at her involuntary little
gasp and shifted uneasily in his chair. He was acutely uncomfortable.
An idea came to him and he brightened. "Well, you can leave your
address and we will write to you. Yes, we will write to you."
And to-day was the end! Annette stared at him. "When?" she asked
shortly.
The burly man reddened dully; she had seen through his pretext for
getting rid of her. "Oh, in a day or two," he answered uneasily.
Annette rose. She had turned pale but she was quite calm and
self-possessed.
"I I hoped to get work today," she said. "In fact, I must find it
today. But will you at least tell me why you won't give me the
place?"
The big man's cheery face began to frown. He was being forced to fall
back on his right to employ or not to employ whom he pleased without
giving reasons. Annette watched him, and before he could speak she
went on again.
"I'm not complaining," she said. Her voice was even and very low.
"But there's something wrong with me, isn't there? I saw how you
looked at me at first. Well, it wouldn't cost you anything, and it
would help me a lot, if you'd just tell me what it is that's wrong.
You see, nobody will have me, and it's getting rather rather
desperate. So if you'd just tell me, perhaps I could alter something,
and have a chance at last."
Her serious eyes, the pallor of her face, and the level tones of her
voice held him like a hand on his throat. He was a man with the
cordial nature of his race, prone to an easy kindliness, who would
have suffered almost any ill rather than feel himself guilty of a
cruelty. But how could he speak to her of the true reason for
refusing her the son in the business, the avid young debauchee whose
victims were girls in the firm's employ?
"If you'd just tell me what it is, I wouldn't bother you any more,
and it might make all the difference to me," Annette was saying.
She saw him redden and shift sharply in his chair; an impulse of his
ardent blood was spurring him to give her the work she needed, and
then so to deal with his son that he would never dare lift his eyes
to her. But the instinct of caution developed in business came to
damp that dangerous warmth.
"Mademoiselle!" He returned her look gravely and honestly. "Upon my
word, I can see nothing whatever wrong with you nothing whatever."
"Then," began Annette, "why won't you?"
He stopped her with an upraised hand. "I am going to tell you," he
said. "There is a rule in this office, and behind the rule are good
and sufficient reasons, that we do not take into our employ women who
are still young and pretty."
She heard him with no change of her rigid countenance. She
understood, of course; she had known in her time what it was to be
persecuted. She would have liked to tell him that she was well able
to take care of herself, but she recalled her promise not to bother
him further.
She sighed, buttoning her glove. "It's a pity," she said unhappily,
"because I really am a good typist."
"I am sure of it," he agreed. "I infinitely regret, but sa y est!"
She raised her head. "Well, thank you for telling me, at any rate,"
she said. "Good morning, monsieur."
"Good morning, mademoiselle," he replied, and held open the door for
her to pass out.
Once more the street and the sunshine and the hurry of passing
strangers, each pressing by about his or her concerns. Again she
stood a little while in the doorway, regarding the thronged urgency
that surged in spate between the high, handsome buildings, every unit
of it wearing the air of being bound towards some place where it was
needed, while she alone was unwanted.
"I think," considered Annette, "that I ought to have some coffee or
something, since it's the last day."
She looked down along the street; not far away the awning of a cafe
showed red and white above the sidewalk, sheltering its row of little
tables, and she walked slowly towards it. How often in the last six
weeks, footsore and leaden-hearted, had she passed such places,
feeling the invitation of their ease and refreshment in every jarred
and crying nerve of her body, yet resisting it for the sake of the
centimes it would cost.
She took a chair in the back row of seats, behind a small iron table,
slackening her muscles and leaning back, making the mere act of
sitting down yield her her money's worth. The shadow of the awning
turned the day to a benign coolness; there was a sense of privilege
in being thus at rest in the very street, at the elbow of its
passers-by. A crop-headed German waiter brought the cafe au lait
which she ordered, and set it on the table before her two metal jugs,
a cup and saucer, a little glass dish of sugar, and a folded napkin.
The cost was half a franc; she gave him a franc, bade him keep the
change, and was rewarded with half a smile, half a bow, and a "Merci
beaucoup, madame!" which in themselves were a balm to her spirit,
bruised by insult and failure. The coffee was hot; its fragrance
gushed up from her cup; since her last situation had failed her she
was tasting for the first time food that was appetizing and dainty.
She lifted the cup. "A short life and a merry one," she murmured,
toasting herself before she drank.
Six francs remained to her, and there were yet three employers to
visit. The lady in need of a governess and the shop which required a
cashier were at opposite ends of Paris; the establishment which
desired a young lady for "reception" was between the two. Annette,
surveying the field', decided to reserve the "reception" to the last.
She finished her coffee, flavoring to the last drop the warm
stimulation of it; then, having built up again her hopeful mood, she
set out anew.
It was three hours later, towards two o'clock in the afternoon, that
she came on foot, slowly, along the Rue St. Honore, seeking the
establishment which had proclaimed in the Journal its desire to
employ, for purposes of "reception," a young lady of good figure and
pleasant manners. She had discovered, at the cost of one of her
remaining francs for omnibus fares, that a 50-franc a month governess
must possess certificates, that governessing is a skilled trade
overcrowded by women of the most various and remarkable talents. At
the shop that advertised for a cashier a floor-walker had glanced at
her over his shoulder for an instant, snapped out that the place was
filled, and walked away.
The name she sought appeared across the way, lettered upon a row of
first-floor windows; it was a photographer's.
"Now!" said Annette. "The end this is the end!"
A thrill touched her as she went up the broad stairway of the
building; the crucial thing was at hand. The morning had been bad,
but at each failure there had still been a possibility ahead. Now,
there was only this and nothing beyond.
A spacious landing, carpeted, and lit by the tall church-windows on
the staircase, great double doors with a brass plate, and a dim
indoor sense pervading all the place! Here, evidently, the sharp
corners of commerce were rounded off; its acolytes must be engaging
female figures with affable manners.
Annette's ringer on the bronze bell-push evoked a manservant in
livery, with a waistcoat of horizontal yellow and black stripes like
a wasp and a smooth, subtle, still face. He pulled open one wing of
the door and stood aside to let her pass in, gazing at her with
demure eyes, in whose veiled suggestion there was something satiric.
Annette stepped past him at once.
"There is an advertisement in the Journal for a young lady," she
said. "I have come to apply for the post."
The smooth manservant lowered his head in a nod that was just not a
bow, and closed the tall door.