 | III The Conflict |  |
3. III
Jane knocked at the door of her father's little office. "Are you there, father?'' said she.
"Yes — come in, Jinny.'' As she entered, he went on, "But you must go right away again. I've got to 'tend to this strike.'' He took on an injured, melancholy tone. "Those fool workingmen! They're certain to lose. And what'll come of it all? Why, they'll be out their wages and their jobs, and the company lose so much money that it can't put on the new cars the public's clamorin' for. The old cars'll have to do for another year, anyhow — maybe two.''
Jane had heard that lugubrious tone from time to time, and she knew what it meant — an air of sorrow concealing secret joy. So, here was another benefit the company — she preferred to think of it as the company rather than as her father — expected to gain from the strike. It could put off replacing the miserable old cars in which it was compelling people to ride. Instead of losing money by the strike, it would make money by it. This was Jane's first glimpse of one of the most interesting and important truths of modern life — how it is often to the advantage of business men to have their own business crippled, hampered, stopped altogether.
"You needn't worry, father,'' said she cheerfully. "The strike's been declared off.''
"What's that?'' cried her father.
"A girl from down town just called. She says the union has called the strike off and the men have accepted the company's terms.''
"But them terms is withdrawn!'' cried Hastings, as if his daughter were the union. He seized the telephone. "I'll call up the office and order 'em withdrawn.''
"It's too late,'' said she.
Just then the telephone bell rang, and Hastings was soon hearing confirmation of the news his daughter had brought him. She could not bear watching his face as he listened. She turned her back, stood gazing out at the window. Her father, beside himself, was shrieking into the telephone curses, denunciations, impossible orders. The one emergency against which he had not provided was the union's ending the strike. When you have struck the line of battle of a general, however able and self-controlled, in the one spot where he has not arranged a defense, you have thrown him — and his army — into a panic. Some of the greatest tactitians in history have given way in those circumstances; so, Martin Hastings' utter loss of self-control and of control of the situation only proves that he had his share of human nature. He had provided against the unexpected; he had not provided against the impossible.
Jane let her father rave on into the telephone until
"I don't care to live, with such goings-on,'' declared he. But he hung up the receiver and sank back in his chair, exhausted.
"Come out on the porch,'' she went on, tugging gently at him. "The air's stuffy in here.''
He rose obediently. She led him to the veranda and seated him comfortably, with a cushion in his back at the exact spot at which it was most comfortable. She patted his shrunken cheeks, stood off and looked at him.
"Where's your sense of humor?'' she cried. "You used to be able to laugh when things went against you. You're getting to be as solemn and to take yourself as seriously as Davy Hull.''
The old man made a not unsuccessful attempt to smile. "That there Victor Dorn!'' said he. "He'll be the death of me, yet.''
"What has he done now?'' said Jane, innocently.
Hastings rubbed his big bald forehead with his scrawny hand. "He's tryin' to run this town — to run it to the devil,'' replied he, by way of evasion.
"Something's got to be done about him — eh?'' observed she, in a fine imitation of a business-like voice.
"Something will be done,'' retorted he.
Jane winced — hid her distress — returned to the course she had mapped out for herself. "I hope it won't be something stupid,'' said she. Then she seated herself and went on. "Father — did you ever stop to wonder whether it is Victor Dorn or the changed times?''
The old man looked up abruptly and sharply — the expression of a shrewd man when he catches a hint of a new idea that sounds as if it might have something in it.
"You blame Victor Dorn,'' she went on to explain. "But if there were no Victor Dorn, wouldn't you be having just the same trouble? Aren't men of affairs having them everywhere — in Europe as well as on this side — nowadays?''
The old man rubbed his brow — his nose — his chin — pulled at the tufts of hair in his ears — fumbled with his cuffs. All of these gestures indicated interest and attention.
"Isn't the real truth not Victor Dorn or Victor Dorns but a changed and changing world?'' pursued the girl. "And if that's so, haven't you either got to adopt new methods or fall back? That's the way it looks to me — and we women have got intuitions if we haven't got sense.''
"I never said women hadn't got sense,'' replied the old man. "I've sometimes said men ain't got no sense, but not women. Not to go no further, the women make
But she knew he was busily thinking all the time about what she had said. So she did not hesitate to go on: "Instead of helping Victor Dorn by giving him things to talk about, it seems to me I'd use him, father.''
"Can't do anything with him. He's crazy,'' declared Hastings.
"I don't believe it,'' replied Jane. "I don't believe he's crazy. And I don't believe you can't manage him. A man like that — a man as clever as he is — doesn't belong with a lot of ignorant tenement-house people. He's out of place. And when anything or anybody is out of place, they can be put in their right place. Isn't that sense?''
The old man shook his head — not in negation, but in uncertainty.
"These men are always edging you on against Victor Dorn — what's the matter with them?'' pursued Jane. "I saw, when Davy Hull talked about him. They're envious and jealous of him, father. They're afraid he'll distance them. And they don't want you to realize what a useful man he could be — how he could help you if you helped him — made friends with him — roused the right kind of ambition in him.''
"When a man's ambitious,'' observed Hastings, out of the fullness of his own personal experience, "it means he's got something inside him, teasing and nagging
"And Victor Dorn,'' said Jane, to make it clearer to her father by putting his implied thought into words, "Victor Dorn is doing the best he can — fighting on the only ground that offers and with the only weapons he can lay hands on.''
The old man nodded. "I never have blamed him — not really,'' declared he. "A practical man — a man that's been through things — he understands how these things are,'' in the tone of a philosopher. "Yes, I reckon Victor's doing the best he can — getting up by the only ladder he's got a chance at.''
"The way to get him off that ladder is to give him another,'' said Jane.
A long silence, the girl letting her father thresh the matter out in his slow, thorough way. Finally her young impatience conquered her restraint. "Well — what do you think, popsy?'' inquired she.
"That I've got about as smart a gel as there is in Remsen City,'' replied he.
"Don't lay it on too thick,'' laughed she.
He understood why she was laughing, though he did not show it. He knew what his much-traveled daughter thought of Remsen City, but he held to his own provincial opinion, nevertheless. Nor, perhaps, was he so far wrong as she believed. A cross section
She understood that his remark was his way of letting her know that he had taken her suggestion under advisement. This meant that she had said enough. And Jane Hastings had made herself an adept in the art of handling her father — an accomplishment she could by no means have achieved had she not loved him; it is only when a woman deeply and strongly loves a man that she can learn to influence him, for only love can put the necessary sensitiveness into the nerves with which moods and prejudices and whims and such subtle uncertainties can be felt out.
The next day but one, coming out on the front veranda a few minutes before lunch time she was startled rather than surprised to see Victor Dorn seated on a wicker sofa, hat off and gaze wandering delightedly over the extensive view of the beautiful farming country round Remsen City. She paused in the doorway to take advantage of the chance to look at him when he was off his guard. Certainly that profile view of the young man was impressive. It is only in the profile that we get a chance to measure the will or propelling force behind a character. In each of the two main curves of Dorn's head — that from the top of the brow downward over the nose, the lips, the chin and under, and that from the back of the head round under the
She was about to draw back and make a formal entry, when he said, without looking toward her:
"Well — don't you think it would be safe to draw near?''
The tone was so easy and natural and so sympathetic — the tone of Selma Gordon — the tone of all natural persons not disturbed about themselves or about others — that Jane felt no embarrassment whatever. "I've heard you were very clever,'' said she, advancing. "So, I wanted to have the advantage of knowing you a little better at the outset than you would know me.''
"But Selma Gordon has told me all about you,'' said he — he had risen as she advanced and was shaking hands with her as if they were old friends. "Besides, I saw you the other day — in spite of your effort to prevent yourself from being seen.''
"What do you mean?'' she asked, completely mystified.
"I mean your clothes,'' explained he. "They were unusual for this part of the world. And when anyone wears unusual clothes, they act as a disguise. Everyone neglects the person to center on the clothes.''
"I wore them to be comfortable,'' protested Jane, wondering why she was not angry at this young man whose manner ought to be regarded as presuming and whose speech ought to be rebuked as impertinent.
"Altogether?'' said Dorn, his intensely blue eyes dancing.
In spite of herself she smiled. "No — not altogether,'' she admitted.
"Well, it may please you to learn that you scored tremendously as far as one person is concerned. My small nephew talks of you all the time — the `lady in the lovely pants.' ''
Jane colored deeply and angrily. She bent upon Victor a glance that ought to have put him in his place — well down in his place. But he continued to look at her with unchanged, laughing, friendly blue eyes, and went on: "By the way, his mother asked me to apologize for his extraordinary appearance. I suppose neither of you would recognize the other in any dress but the one each had on that day. He doesn't always dress that way. His mother has been ill. He wore out his play-clothes. If you've had experience of children you'll know how suddenly they demolish clothes. She wasn't well enough to do any tailoring, so there was nothing to do but send Leonard forth in his big brother's unchanged cast-offs.''
Jane's anger had quite passed away before Dorn finished this simple, ingenuous recital of poverty unashamed, this somehow fine laying open of the inmost family secrets. "What a splendid person your sister must be!'' exclaimed she.
She more than liked the look that now came into his face. He said: "Indeed she is! — more so than anyone
"How can she?'' cried Jane. "Why, the day isn't long enough.''
Dorn laughed. "You'll never realize how much time there is in a day, Miss Jane Hastings, until you try to make use of it all. It's very interesting — how much there is in a minute and in a dollar if you're intelligent about them.''
Jane looked at him in undisguised wonder and admiration. "You don't know what a pleasure it is,'' she said, "to meet anyone whose sentences you couldn't finish for him before he's a quarter the way through them.''
Victor threw back his head and laughed — a boyish outburst that would have seemed boorish in another, but came as naturally from him as song from a bird. "You mean Davy Hull,'' said he.
Jane felt herself coloring even more. "I didn't mean him especially,'' replied she. "But he's a good example.''
"The best I know,'' declared Victor. "You see, the
Jane reflected on this, smiled understandingly. "That sounds like a description of me,'' said she.
"Probably,'' said Victor. "It's a very usual type in the second generation in your class.''
"My class?'' said Jane, somewhat affectedly. "What do you mean?''
"The upper class,'' explained Victor.
Jane felt that this was an opportunity for a fine exhibition of her democracy. "I don't like that,'' said she. "I'm a good American, and I don't believe in classes. I don't feel — at least I try not to feel — any sense of inequality between myself and those — those less — less — fortunately off. I'm not expressing myself well, but you know what I mean.''
"Yes, I know what you mean,'' rejoined Victor. "But that wasn't what I meant, at all. You are talking about social classes in the narrow sense. That sort of thing isn't important. One associates with the kind of people that pleases one — and one has a perfect right to do so. If I choose to have my leisure time with people who dress a certain way, or with those who have more than a certain amount of money, or more than a certain number of servants or what not — why, that's my own lookout.''
"I'm so glad to hear you say that,'' cried Jane. "That's so sensible.''
"Snobbishness may be amusing,'' continued Dorn, "or it may be repulsive — or pitiful. But It isn't either interesting or important. The classes I had in mind were the economic classes — upper, middle, lower. The upper class includes all those who live without work — aristocrats, gamblers, thieves, preachers, women living off men in or out of marriage, grown children living off their parents or off inheritances. All the idlers.''
Jane looked almost as uncomfortable as she felt. She had long taken a secret delight in being regarded and spoken of as an "upper class'' person. Henceforth this delight would be at least alloyed.
"The middle class,'' pursued Victor, "is those who are in part parasites and in part workers. The lower class is those who live by what they earn only. For example, you are upper class, your father is middle class and I am lower class.''
"Thank you,'' said Jane demurely, "for an interesting lesson in political economy.''
"You invited it,'' laughed Victor. "And I guess it wasn't much more tiresome to you than talk about the weather would have been. The weather's probably about the only other subject you and I have in common.''
"That's rude,'' said Jane.
"Not as I meant it,'' said he. "I wasn't exalting my
"I'd much rather lead your life than my own,'' said Jane. "But — you are impatient to see father. You came to see him?''
"He telephoned asking me to come to dinner — that is, lunch. I believe it's called lunch when it's second in this sort of house.''
"Father calls it dinner, and I call it lunch, and the servants call it it. They simply say, `It's ready.' ''
Jane went in search of her father, found him asleep in his chair in the little office, one of his dirty little account books clasped in his long, thin fingers with their rheumatic side curve. The maid had seen him there and had held back dinner until he should awaken. Perhaps Jane's entrance roused him; or, perhaps it was the odor of the sachet powder wherewith her garments were liberally scented, for he had a singularly delicate sense of smell. He lifted his head and, after the manner of aged and confirmed cat-nappers, was instantly wide awake.
"Why didn't you tell me Victor Dorn was coming for dinner?'' said she.
"Oh — he's here, is he?'' said Hastings, chuckling. "You see I took your advice. Tell Lizzie to lay an extra plate.''
Hastings regarded this invitation as evidence of his breadth of mind, his freedom from prejudice, his disposition to do the generous and the helpful thing. In
However, Hastings, after the familiar human fashion, honestly thought he was showing generosity, was going out of his way to "give a likely young fellow a chance.'' When he came out on the veranda he stretched forth a graciously friendly hand and, looking shrewdly into Victor's boyishly candid eyes, said:
"Glad to see you, young man. I want to thank you for ending that strike. I was born a working man, and I've been one all my life and, when I can't work any more, I want to quit the earth. So, being a working man, I hate to see working men make fools of themselves.''
Jane was watching the young man anxiously. She instinctively knew that this speech must be rousing his passion for plain and direct speaking. Before he had time to answer she said: "Dinner's waiting. Let's go in.''
And on the way she made an opportunity to say to him in an undertone: "I do hope you'll be careful not to say anything that'll upset father. I have to warn every one who comes here. His digestion's bad, and the least thing makes him ill, and — '' she smiled charmingly at him — "I hate nursing. It's too much like work to suit an upper-class person.''
There was no resisting such an appeal as that. Victor sat silent and ate, and let the old man talk
After dinner Hastings said:
"I'll drive you back to town, young man. I'm going in to work, as usual. I never took a vacation in my life. Can you beat that record?''
"Oh, I knock off every once in a while for a month or so,'' said Dorn.
"The young fellows growing up nowadays ain't equal to us of the old stock,'' said Martin. "They can't stand the strain. Well, if you're ready, we'll pull out.''
"Mr. Dorn's going to stop a while with me, father,'' interposed Jane with a significant glance at Victor. "I want to show him the grounds and the views.''
"All right — all right,'' said her father. He never liked company in his drives; company interfered with his thinking out what he was going to do at the office. "I'm mighty glad to know you, young man. I hope we'll know each other better. I think you'll find out that for a devil I'm not half bad — eh?''
Victor bowed, murmured something inarticulate, shook his host's hand, and when the ceremony of parting was over drew a stealthy breath of relief — which Jane observed. She excused herself to accompany her father to his trap. As he was climbing in she said:
"Didn't you rather like him, father?''
Old Hastings gathered the reins in his lean, distorted hands. "So so,'' said he.
"He's got brains, hasn't he?''
"Yes; he's smart; mighty smart.'' The old man's face relaxed in a shrewd grin. "Too damn smart. Giddap, Bet.''
And he was gone. Jane stood looking after the ancient phaeton with an expression half of amusement, half of discomfiture. "I might have known,'' reflected she, "that popsy would see through it all.''
When she reappeared in the front doorway Victor Dorn was at the edge of the veranda, ready to depart. As soon as he saw her he said gravely: "I must be off, Miss Hastings. Thank you for the very interesting dinner.'' He extended his hand. "Good day.''
She put her hands behind her back, and stood smiling gently at him. "You mustn't go — not just yet. I'm about to show you the trees and the grass, the bees, the chickens and the cows. Also, I've something important to say to you.''
He shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I must go.''
She stiffened slightly; her smile changed from
He bowed, and was on the walk, and running rapidly toward the entrance gates.
"Mr. Dorn!'' she called.
He turned.
She was afraid to risk asking him to come back for a moment. He might refuse. Standing there, looking so resolute, so completley master of himself, so devoid of all suggestion of need for any one or anything, he seemed just the man to turn on his heel and depart. She descended to the walk and went to him. She said:
"Why are you acting so peculiarly? Why did you come?''
"Because I understood that your father wished to propose some changes in the way of better hours and better wages for the men,'' replied he. "I find that the purpose was — not that.''
"What was it?''
"I do not care to go into that.''
He was about to go on — on out of her life forever, she felt. "Wait,'' she cried. "The men will get better hours and wages. You don't understand father's ways. He was really discussing that very thing — in his own mind. You'll see. He has a great admiration for you. You can do a lot with him. You owe it to the men to make use of his liking.''
He looked at her in silence for a moment. Then he
"Believe me, that is unjust,'' cried Jane. "I'll tell you another thing that was on his mind. He wants to — to make reparation for — that accident to your father. He wants to pay your mother and you the money the road didn't pay you when it ought.''
Dorn's candid face showed how much he was impressed. This beautiful, earnest girl, sweet and frank, seemed herself to be another view of Martin Hastings' character — one more in accord with her strong belief in the essential goodness of human nature. Said he: "Your father owes us nothing. As for the road — its debt never existed legally — only morally. And it has been outlawed long ago — for there's a moral statute of limitations, too. The best thing that ever happened to us was our not getting that money. It put us on our mettle. It might have crushed us. It happened to be just the thing that was needed to make us.''
Jane marveled at this view of his family, at the verge of poverty, as successful. But she could not doubt his sincerity. Said she sadly, "But it's not to the credit of the road — or of father. He must pay — and he knows he must.''
"We can't accept,'' said Dorn — a finality.
"But you could use it to build up the paper,'' urged Jane, to detain him.
"The paper was started without money. It lives
"I don't understand,'' said Jane. "But I want to understand. I want to help. Won't you let me?''
He shook his head laughingly. "Help what?'' inquired he. "Help raise the sun? It doesn't need help.''
Jane began to see. "I mean, I want to be helped,'' she cried.
"Oh, that's another matter,'' said he. "And very simple.''
"Will you help me?''
"I can't. No one can. You've got to help yourself. Each one of us is working for himself — working not to be rich or to be famous or to be envied, but to be free.''
"Working for himself — that sounds selfish, doesn't it?''
"If you are wise, Jane Hastings,'' said Dorn, "you will distrust — disbelieve in — anything that is not selfish.''
Jane reflected. "Yes — I see,'' she cried. "I never thought of that!''
"A friend of mine, Wentworth,'' Victor went on, "has put it wonderfully clearly. He said, `Some day we shall realize that no man can be free until all men are free.' ''
"You have helped me — in spite of your fierce refusal,'' laughed Jane. "You are very impatient to go,
She was slightly uneasy lest her overtures should be misunderstood. By the time they reached the first long, sunny stretch of the road down to town she was so afraid that those overtures would not be "misunderstood'' that she marched on beside him in the hot sun. She did not leave him until they reached the corner of Pike avenue — and then it was he that left her, for she could cudgel out no excuse for going further in his direction. The only hold she had got upon him for a future attempt was slight indeed — he had vaguely agreed to lend her some books.
People who have nothing to do get rid of a great deal of time in trying to make impressions and in speculating as to what impressions they have made. Jane — hastening toward Martha's to get out of the sun which could not but injure a complexion so delicately fine as hers — gave herself up to this form of occupation. What did he think of her? Did he really have as little sense of her physical charm as he seemed? No woman could hope to be attractive to every man. Still — this man surely must be at least not altogether insensible. "If he sends me those books to-day — or to-morrow — or even next day,'' thought Jane, "it will be a pretty sure sign that he was impressed — whether he knows it or not.''
She had now definitely passed beyond the stage where she wondered at herself — and reproached herself — for
"But,'' concluded Jane, "he belongs with us. I must take him away from all that. It will be interesting to do it — so interesting that I'll be sorry when it's done, and I'll be looking about for something else to do.''
She was not without hope that the books would come that same evening. But they did not. The next day passed, and the next, and still no books. Apparently he had meant nothing by his remark, "I've some books you'd be interested to read.'' Was his silence indifference, or was it shyness? Probably she could only faintly appreciate the effect her position, her surroundings produced in this man whose physical surroundings had always been as poor as her mental surroundings — those created by that marvelous mind of his — had been splendid.
She tried to draw out her father on the subject of the young man, with a view to getting a hint as to whether he purposed doing anything further. But old Hastings would not talk about it; he was still debating,
On the fourth day, being still unable to think of anything but her project for showing her prowess by conquering this man with no time for women, she donned a severely plain walking costume and went to his office.
At the threshold of the "Sanctum'' she stopped short. Selma, pencil poised over her block of copy paper and every indication of impatience, albeit polite impatience, in her fascinating Cossack face, was talking to — or, rather, listening to — David Hull. Like not a few young men — and young women — brought up in circumstances that surround them with people deferential for the sake of what there is, or may possibly be, in it — Davy Hull had the habit of assuming that all the world was as fond of listening to him as he was of listening to himself. So it did not often occur to him to observe his audience for signs of a willingness to end the conversation.
Selma, turning a little further in her nervousness, saw Jane and sprang up with a radiant smile of welcome.
"I'm so glad!'' she cried, rushing toward her and kissing her. "I've thought about you often, and wished I could find time to come to see you.''
Jane was suddenly as delighted as Selma. For Selma's
"I dropped in to see Dorn.''
"You wished to see Victor?'' exclaimed the guileless Selma. "Why didn't you say so? I'd have told you at once that he was in Indianapolis and wouldn't be back for two or three days.''
Jane straightway felt still better. The disgusting mystery of the books that did not come was now cleared up. Secure in the certainty of Selma's indifference to Davy she proceeded to punish him. "What a stupid you are, Davy!'' she cried mockingly. "The instant I saw your face I knew you were here to flirt with Miss Gordon.''
"Oh, no, Miss Hastings,'' protested Selma with quaint intensity of seriousness, "I assure you he was not flirting. He was telling me about the reform movement he and his friends are organizing.''
"That is his way of flirting,'' said Jane. "Every animal has its own way — and an elephant's way is different from a mosquito's.''
Selma was eyeing Hull dubiously. It was bad enough for him to have taken her time in a well-meaning attempt to enlighten her as to a new phase of local politics; to take her time, to waste it, in flirting — that was too exasperating!
"Miss Hastings has a sense of humor that runs riot at times,'' said Hull.
"You can't save yourself, Davy,'' mocked Jane. "Come along. Miss Gordon has no time for either of us.''
"I do want you to stay,'' she said to Jane. "But, unfortunately, with Victor away — '' She looked disconsolately at the half-finished page of copy.
"I came only to snatch Davy away,'' said Jane.
"Next thing we know, he'll be one of Mr. Dorn's lieutenants.''
Thus Jane escaped without having to betray why she had come. In the street she kept up her raillery. "And a working girl, Davy! What would our friends say! And you who are always boasting of your fastidiousness! Flirting with a girl who — I've seen her three times, and each time she has had on exactly the same plain, cheap little dress.''
There was a nastiness, a vulgarity in this that was as unworthy of Jane as are all the unlovely emotions of us who are always sweet and refined when we are our true selves — but have a bad habit of only too often not being what we flatter ourselves is our true selves. Jane was growing angry as she, away from Selma,
"Her dress may have been the same. But her face wasn't — and her mind wasn't. Those things are more difficult to change than a dress.''
She was so angry that she did not take warning from this reminder that Davy was by no means merely a tedious retailer of stale commonplaces. She said with fine irony — and with no show of anger: "It is always a shock to a lady to realize how coarse men are — how they don't discriminate.''
Davy laughed. "Women get their rank from men,'' said he coolly. "In themselves they have none. That's the philosophy of the peculiarity you've noted.''
This truth, so galling to a lady, silenced Jane, made her bite her lips with rage. "I beg your pardon,'' she finally said. "I didn't realize that you were in love with Selma.''
"Yes, I am in love with her,'' was Davy's astounding reply. "She's the noblest and simplest creature I've ever met.''
"You don't mean you want to marry her!'' exclaimed Jane, so amazed that she for the moment lost sight of her own personal interest in this affair.
Davy looked at her sadly, and a little contemptuously.
"What a poor opinion at bottom you women — your sort of women — have of woman,'' said he.
"What a poor opinion of men you mean,'' retorted she. "After a little experience of them a girl — even a girl — learns that they are incapable of any emotion that isn't gross.''
"Don't be so ladylike, Jane,'' said Hull.
Miss Hastings was recovering control of herself. She took a new tack. "You haven't asked her yet?''
"Hardly. This is the second time I've seen her. I suspected that she was the woman for me the moment I saw her. To-day I confirmed my idea. She is all that I thought — and more. And, Jane, I know that you appreciate her, too.''
Jane now saw that Davy was being thus abruptly and speedily confiding because he had decided it was the best way out of his entanglement with her. Behind his coolness she could see an uneasy watchfulness — the fear that she might try to hold him. Up boiled her rage — the higher because she knew that if there were any possible way of holding Davy, she would take it — not because she wished to, or would, marry him, but because she had put her mark upon him. But this new rage was of the kind a clever woman has small difficulty in dissembling.
"Indeed I do appreciate her, Davy,'' said she sweetly. "And I hope you will be happy with her.''
"You think I can get her?'' said he, fatuously eager. "You think she likes me? I've been rather hoping that
"In novels,'' said Jane, pleasantly judicial. "But in real life about the hardest thing to do is for a man to make a woman care for him — really care for him.''
"Well, no matter how hard I have to try — ''
"Of course,'' pursued Miss Hastings, ignoring his interruption, "when a man who has wealth and position asks a woman who hasn't to marry him, she usually accepts — unless he happens to be downright repulsive, or she happens to be deeply and hopefully in love with another man.''
Davy winced satisfactorily. "Do you suspect,'' he presently asked, "that she's in love with Victor Dorn?''
"Perhaps,'' said Jane reflectively. "Probably. But I'd not feel discouraged by that if I were you.''
"Dorn's a rather attractive chap in some ways.''
Davy's manner was so superior that Jane almost laughed in his face. What fools men were. If Victor Dorn had position, weren't surrounded by his unquestionably, hopelessly common family, weren't deliberately keeping himself common — was there a woman in the world who wouldn't choose him without a second thought being necessary, in preference to a Davy Hull? How few men there were who could reasonably hope to hold their women against all comers. Victor Dorn might possibly be of those few. But Davy Hull — the idea was ridiculous. All his advantages — height, looks, money,
"He is very attractive,'' said Jane, "and I've small doubt that Selma Gordon is infatuated with him. But — I shouldn't let that worry me if I were you.'' She paused to enjoy his anxiety, then proceeded: "She is a level-headed girl. The girls of the working class — the intelligent ones — have had the silly sentimentalities knocked out of them by experience. So, when you ask her to marry you, she will accept.''
"What a low opinion you have of her!'' exclaimed Davy. "What a low view you take of life!'' — most inconsistent of him, since he was himself more than half convinced that Jane's observations were not far from the truth.
"Women are sensible,'' said Jane tranquilly. "They appreciate that they've got to get a man to support them. Don't forget, my dear Davy, that marriage is a woman's career.''
"You lived abroad too long,'' said Hull bitterly.
"I've lived at home and abroad long enough and intelligently enough not to think stupid hypocrisies, even if I do sometimes imitate other people and say them.''
"I am sure that Selma Gordon would no more think of marrying me for any other reason but love — would no more think of it than — than you would!''
"No more,'' was Jane's unruffled reply. "But just as much. I didn't absolutely refuse you, when you asked me the other day, partly because I saw no other way of stopping your tiresome talk — and your unattractive way of trying to lay hands on me. I detest being handled.''
Davy was looking so uncomfortable that he attracted the attention of the people they were passing in wide, shady Lincoln Avenue.
"But my principal reason,'' continued Jane, mercilessly amiable and candid, "was that I didn't know but that you might prove to be about the best I could get, as a means to realizing my ambition.'' She looked laughingly at the unhappy young man. "You didn't think I was in love with you, did you, Davy dear?'' Then, while the confusion following this blow was at its height, she added: "You'll remember one of your chief arguments for my accepting you was ambition. You didn't think it low then — did you?''
Hull was one of the dry-skinned people. But if he had been sweating profusely he would have looked and would have been less wretched than burning up in the smothered heat of his misery.
They were nearing Martha's gates. Jane said: "Yes, Davy, you've got a good chance. And as soon as she gets used to our way of living, she'll make you a good wife.'' She laughed gayly. "She'll not be quite so pretty when she settles down and takes on flesh. I wonder how she'll look in fine clothes and jewels.'' She
She left him standing dazedly, looking up and down the street as if it were some strange and pine-beset highway in a foreign land. After taking a few steps she returned to the gates and called him: "I forgot to ask do you want me to regard what you've told me as confidential? I was thinking of telling Martha and Hugo, and it occurred to me that you might not like it.''
"Please don't say anything about it,'' said he with panicky eagerness. "You see — nothing's settled yet.''
"Oh, she'll accept you.''
"But I haven't even asked her,'' pleaded Hull.
"Oh — all right — as you please.''
When she was safely within doors she dropped to a chair and burst out laughing. It was part of Jane's passion for the sense of triumph over the male sex to find keen delight in making a fool of a man. And she felt that she had made a "perfect jumping jack of a fool'' of David Hull. "And I rather think,'' said she to herself, "that he'll soon be back where he belongs.''
So pleased with herself was she that she behaved with unusual forbearance toward Martha whose conduct of late had been most trying. Not Martha's sometimes peevish, sometimes plaintive criticisms of her; these she did not mind. But Martha's way of ordering her own life. Jane, moving about in the world with a good mind eager to improve, had got a horror of a woman's going to pieces — and that was what Martha was doing.
"I'm losing my looks rapidly,'' was her constant complaint. As she had just passed thirty there was, in Jane's opinion, not the smallest excuse for this. The remedy, the preventive, was obvious — diet and exercise. But Martha, being lazy and self-indulgent and not imaginative enough to foresee to what a pass a few years more of lounging and stuffing would bring her, regarded exercise as unladylike and dieting as unhealthful. She would not weaken her system by taking less than was demanded by "nature's infallible guide, the healthy appetite.'' She would not give up the venerable and aristocratic tradition that a lady should ever be reposeful.
"Another year or so,'' warned Jane, "and you'll be as steatopygous as the bride of a Hottentot chief.''
"What does steat — that word mean?'' said Martha suspiciously.
"Look in the dictionary,'' said Jane. "Its synonyms aren't used by refined people.''
"I knew it was something insulting,'' said Martha with an injured sniff.
The only concessions Martha would make to the latter-day craze of women for youthfulness were buying a foolish chin-strap of a beauty quack and consulting him as to whether, if her hair continued to gray, she would better take to peroxide or to henna.
Jane had come down that day with a severe lecture on fat and wrinkles laid out in her mind for energetic delivery to the fast-seeding Martha. She put off the lecture and allowed the time to be used by Martha in telling Jane what were her (Jane's) strongest and less strong — not weaker but less strong, points of physical charm.
It was cool and beautiful in the shade of the big gardens behind the old Galland house. Jane, listening to Martha's honest and just compliments and to the faint murmurs of the city's dusty, sweaty toil, had a delicious sense of the superiority of her lot — a feeling that somehow there must be something in the theory of rightfully superior and inferior classes — that in taking what she had not earned she was not robbing those who had earned it, as her reason so often asserted,
When she was sure that Victor Dorn must have returned she called him on the telephone. "Can't you come out to see me to-night?'' said she. "I've something important — something you'll think important — to consult you about.'' She felt a refusal forming at the other end of the wire and hastened to add: "You must know I'd not ask this if I weren't certain you would be glad you came.''
"Why not drop in here when you're down town?'' suggested Victor.
She wondered why she did not hang up the receiver and forget him. But she did not. She murmured, "In due time I'll punish you for this, sir,'' and said to him: "There are reasons why it's impossible for me to go there just now. And you know I can't meet you in a saloon or on a street corner.''
"I'm not so sure of that,'' laughed he. "Let me see. I'm very busy. But I could come for half an hour this afternoon.''
She had planned an evening session, being well aware of the favorable qualities of air and light after the matter-of-fact sun has withdrawn his last rays. But she promptly decided to accept what offered. "At three?''
"At four,'' replied he.
"You haven't forgotten those books?''
"Books? Oh, yes — yes, I remember. I'll bring them.''
"Thank you so much,'' said she sweetly. "Good-by.''
And at four she was waiting for him on the front veranda in a house dress that was — well, it was not quite the proper costume for such an occasion, but no one else was to see, and he didn't know about that sort of thing — and the gown gave her charms their best possible exposure except evening dress, which was out of the question. She had not long to wait. One of the clocks within hearing had struck and another was just beginning to strike when she saw him coming toward the house. She furtively watched him, admiring his walk without quite knowing why. You may perhaps know the walk that was Victor's — a steady forward advance of the whole body held firmly, almost rigidly — the walk of a man leading another to the scaffold, or of a man being led there in conscious innocence, or of a man ready to go wherever his purposes may order — ready to go without any heroics or fuss of any kind, but simply in the course of the day's business. When a man walks like that, he is worth observing — and it is well to think twice before obstructing his way.
That steady, inevitable advance gave Jane Hastings an absurd feeling of nervousness. She had an impulse to fly, as from some oncoming danger. Yet what was coming, in fact? A clever young man of the working class, dressed in garments of the kind his class dressed
"Our clock says you are three seconds late,'' cried she, laughing and extending her hand in a friendly, equal way that would have immensely flattered almost any man of her own class. "But another protests that you are one second early.''
"I'm one of those fools who waste their time and their nerves by being punctual,'' said he.
He laid the books on the wicker sofa. But instead of sitting Jane said: "We might be interrupted here. Come to the west veranda.''
There she had him in a leafy solitude — he facing her as she posed in fascinating grace in a big chair. He looked at her — not the look of a man at a woman, but the look of a busy person at one who is about to show cause for having asked for a portion of his valuable time. She laughed — and laughter was her best gesture. "I can never talk to you if you pose like that,'' said she. "Honestly now, is your time so pricelessly precious?''
He echoed her laugh and settled himself more at his ease. "What did you want of me?'' he asked.
"I intend to try to get better hours and better wages for the street car men,'' said she. "To do it, I must know just what is right — what I can hope to get. General talk is foolish. If I go at father I must have definite proposals to make, with reasons for them. I don't want him to evade. I would have gotten my information
She had confidently expected that this carefully thought out scheme would do the trick. He would admire her, would be interested, would be drawn into a position where she could enlist him as a constant adviser. He moved toward the edge of his chair as if about to rise. He said, pleasantly enough but without a spark of enthusiasm:
"That's very nice of you, Miss Hastings. But I can't advise you — beyond saying that if I were you, I shouldn't meddle.''
She — that is, her vanity — was cut to the quick. "Oh!'' said she with irony, "I fancied you wished the laboring men to have a better sort of life.''
"Yes,'' said he. "But I'm not in favor of running hysterically about with a foolish little atomizer in the great stable. You are talking charity. I am working for justice. It will not really benefit the working man for the company, at the urging of a sweet and lovely young Lady Bountiful, to deign graciously to grant a little less slavery to them. In fact, a well fed, well cared for slave is worse off than one who's badly treated — worse off because farther from his freedom. The only things that do our class any good, Miss Hastings, are the things they compel — compel by their increased intelligence and increased unity and power. They get what they deserve. They won't deserve more until they compel more. Gifts won't help — not even gifts
She rose with an angry toss of the head. "I didn't ask you here to annoy me with impertinences about my finger nails.''
He rose, at his ease, good-humored, ready to go. "Then you should have worn gloves,'' said he carelessly, "for I've been able to think only of your finger nails — and to wonder what can be done with hands like that. Thank you for a pleasant talk.'' He bowed and smiled. "Good-by. Oh — Miss Gordon sent you her love.''
"What is the matter, Mr. Dorn?'' cried the girl desperately. "I want your friendship — your respect. Can't I get it? Am I utterly hopeless in your eyes?''
A curious kind of color rose in his cheeks. His eyes regarded her with a mysterious steadiness. "You want neither my respect nor my friendship,'' said he. "You want to amuse yourself.'' He pointed at her hands. "Those nails betray you.'' He shrugged his shoulders, laughed, said as if to a child: "You are a nice girl, Jane Hastings. It's a pity you weren't brought up to be of some use. But you weren't — and it's too late.''
Her eyes flashed, her bosom heaved. "Why do I take these things from you? Why do I invite them?''
"Because you inherit your father's magnificent persistence — and you've set your heart on the whim of making a fool of me — and you hate to give up.''
"You wrong me — indeed you do,'' cried she. "I want to learn — I want to be of use in the world. I want to have some kind of a real life.''
"Really?'' mocked he good-humoredly.
"Really,'' said she with all her power of sweet earnestness.
"Then — cut your nails and go to work. And when you have become a genuine laborer, you'll begin to try to improve not the condition of others, but your own. The way to help workers is to abolish the idlers who hang like a millstone about their necks. You can help only by abolishing the one idler under your control.''
She stood nearer him, very near him. She threw out her lovely arms in a gesture of humility. "I will do whatever you say,'' she said.
They looked each into the other's eyes. The color fled from her face, the blood poured into his — wave upon wave, until he was like a man who has been set on fire by the furious heat of long years of equatorial sun. He muttered, wheeled about and strode away — in resolute and relentless flight. She dropped down where he had been sitting and hid her face in her perfumed hands.
"I care for him,'' she moaned, "and he saw and he despises me! How could I — how could I!''
Nevertheless, within a quarter of an hour she was in her dressing room, standing at the table, eyes carefully avoiding her mirrored eyes — as she cut her finger nails.
| III The Conflict | |