III
The brother and sister dined alone. Clayton was, finding his club a morecomfortable place than his home, in those days of his wife'sdisillusionment and hesitation about the future. Many weak creatures arecuriously armed for the unequal conflict of existence--some withfleetness of foot, some with a pole-cat weapon of malignance, some withporcupine quills, some with a 'possumlike instinct for "playing dead."Of these last was Fitzhugh. He knew when to be silent, when to keep outof the way, when to "sit tight" and wait. His wife had discovered thathe was a fool--that he perhaps owed more to his tailor than to any othersingle factor for the success of his splendid pose of the thoroughgentleman. Yet she did not realize what an utter fool he was, so cleverhad he been in the use of the art of discreet silence. Norman suspectedhim, but could not believe a human being capable of such fathomlessvacuity as he found whenever he tried to explore his brother-in-law'sbrain.
After dinner Norman took Ursula to the opera, to join the Seldins, andafter the first act went to Josephine, who had come with only a deaf oldaunt. Josephine loved music, and to hear an opera from a box one must bealone. Norman entered as the lights went up. It always gave him afeeling of dilation, this spectacle of material splendor--the women,whose part it is throughout civilization to-day to wear for publicadmiration and envy the evidences of the prowess of the males to whomthey belong. A truer version of Dr. Holmes's aphorism would be that ittakes several generations in oil to make a deep-dyed snob--wholly todestroy a man's or a woman's point of view, sense of the kinship of allflesh, and to make him or her over into the genuine believer in casteand worshiper of it. For all his keenness of mind, of humor, Norman hadthe fast-dyed snobbishness of his family and friends. He knew that castewas silly, that such displays as this vulgar flaunting of jewels andcostly dresses were in atrocious bad taste. But it is one thing to know,another thing to feel; and his feeling was delight in the spectacle,pride in his own high rank in the aristocracy.
His eyes rested with radiant pleasure on the girl he was to marry. Andshe was indeed a person to appeal to the passion of pride. Simply andmost expensively dressed in pearl satin, with only a little jewelry, shesat in the front of her parterre box, a queen by right of her father'swealth, her family's position, her own beauty. She was a largewoman--tall, a big frame but not ungainly. She had brilliant dark eyes,a small proud head set upon shoulders that were slenderly young now and,even when they should became matronly, would still be beautiful. She hadgood teeth, an exquisite smile, the gentle good humor of those who,comfortable themselves, would not have the slightest objection to allothers being equally so. Because she laughed appreciatively and repeatedamusingly she had great reputation for wit. Because she industriouslypicked up from men a plausible smatter of small talk about politics,religion, art and the like, she was renowned as clever verging onprofound. And she believed herself both witty and wise--as do thousands,male and female, with far less excuse.
She had selected Norman for the same reason that he had selected her;each recognized the other as the "grand prize." Pity is not nearly soclose kin to love as is the feeling that the other person satisfies tothe uttermost all one's pet vanities. It would have been next door toimpossible for two people so well matched not to find themselves drawnto each other and filled with sympathy and the sense of comradeship, sofar as there can be comradeship where two are driving luxuriously alongthe way of life, with not a serious cause for worry. People without halfthe general fitness of these two for each other have gone through to theend, regarding themselves and regarded as the most devoted of lovers.Indeed, they were lovers. Only one of those savage tests, to which inall probability they would never be exposed, would or could reveal justhow much, or how little, that vague, variable word lovers meant whenapplied to them.
As their eyes met, into each pair leaped the fine, exalted light ofpride in possession. "This wonderful woman is mine!" his eyes said. Andher eyes answered, "And you--you most wonderful of men--you are mine!"It always gave each of them a thrill like intoxication to meet, after aday's separation. All the joy of their dazzling good fortune burst uponthem afresh.
"I'll venture you haven't thought of me the whole day," said she as hedropped to the chair behind her.
It was a remark she often made--to give him the opportunity to say,"I've thought of little else, I'm sorry to say--I, who have a career tolook after." He made the usual answer, and they smiled happily at eachother. "And you?" he said.
"Oh, I? What else has a woman to think about?"
Her statement was as true as his was false. He was indeed all she had tothink about--all worth wasting the effort of thought upon. Buthe--though he did not realize it--had thought of her only in theincidental way in which an ambition-possessed man must force himself tothink of a woman. The best of his mind was commandeered to his career.An amiable but shakily founded theory that it was "our" career enabledhim to say without sense of lying that his chief thought had been she.
"How those men down town would poke fun at you," said she, "if they knewyou had me with you all the time, right beside you."
This amused him. "Still, I suspect there are lots of men who'd beexposed in the same way if there were a general and complete show-down."
"Sometimes I wish I really were with you--working with you--helping you.You have girls--a girl--to be your secretary--or whatever you callit--don't you?"
"You should have seen the one I had to-day. But there's always somethingpathetic about every girl who has to make her own living."
"Pathetic!" protested Miss Burroughs. "Not at all. I think it's fine."
"You wouldn't say that if you had tried it."
"Indeed, I should," she declared with spirit. "You men are entirely toosoft about women. You don't realize how strong they are. And, of course,women don't resist the temptation to use their sex when they see howeasy it is to fool men that way. The sad thing about it is that thewoman who gets along by using her sex and by appealing to thesoft-heartedness of men never learns to rely on herself. She's likely tocome to grief sooner or later."
"There's truth in all that," said Norman. "Enough to make it dangerouslyunjust. There's so much lying done about getting on that it's no wonderthose who've never tried to do for themselves get a wholly false notionof the situation. It is hard--bitterly hard--for a man to get on. Mostmen don't. Most men? All but a mere handful. And if those who do get onwere to tell the truth--the _whole_ truth--about how theysucceeded--well, it'd not make a pleasant story."
"But _you've_ got on," retorted the girl.
"So I have. And how?" Norman smiled with humorous cynicism. "I'll nevertell--not all--only the parts that sound well. And those parts are theleast important. However, let's not talk about that. What I set out tosay was that, while it's hard for a man to make a decent living--unlesshe has luck--and harder still--much harder--for him to rise toindependence----"
"It wasn't so dreadfully hard for _you_," interrupted Josephine, lookingat him with proud admiration. "But then, you had a wonderful brain."
"That wasn't what did it," replied he. "And, in spite of all myadvantages--friendships, education, enough money to tide me over thebeginnings--in spite of all that, I had a frightful time. Not the work.Of course, I had to work, but I like that. No, it was the--themaneuvering, let's call it--the hardening process."
"You!" she exclaimed.
"Everyone who succeeds--in active life. You don't understand the system,dear. It's a cutthroat game. It isn't at all what the successfulhypocrites describe in their talks to young men!" He laughed. "If I hadfollowed the 'guides to success,' I'd not be here. Oh, yes, I've madeterrible sacrifices, but--" his look at her made her thrill withexaltation--"it was worth doing. . . . I understand and sympathize withthose who scorn to succeed. But I'm glad I happened not to be born withtheir temperament, at least not with enough of it to keep me down."
"You're too hard on yourself, too generous to the failures."
"Oh, I don't mean the men who were too lazy to do the work or toocowardly
to dare the--the unpleasant things. And I'm not hard withmyself--only frank. But we were talking of the women. Poor things, whatchance have they got? You scorn them for using their sex. Wait tillyou're drowning, dear, before you criticise another for what he does tosave himself when he's sinking for the last time. I used everything Ihad in making my fight. If I could have got on better or quicker by theaid of my sex, I'd have used that."
"Don't say those things, Fred," cried Josephine, smiling but half inearnest.
"Why not? Aren't you glad I'm here?"
She gave him a long look of passionate love and lowered her eyes.
"At whatever cost?"
"Yes," she said in a low voice. "But I'm _sure_ you exaggerate."
"I've done nothing _you_ wouldn't approve of--or find excuses for. Butthat's because you--I--all of us in this class--and in most otherclasses--have been trained to false ideas--no, to perverted ideas--to asystem of morality that's twisted to suit the demands of practical life.On Sundays we go to a magnificent church to hear an expensive preacherand choir, go in expensive dress and in carriages, and we never laugh atourselves. Yet we are going in the name of One who was born in a stableand who said that we must give everything to the poor, and so on."
"But I don't see what we could do about it--" she said hesitatingly.
"We couldn't do anything. Only--don't you see my point?--the differencebetween theory and practice? Personally, I've no objection--no strongobjection--to the practice. All I object to is the lying and fakingabout it, to make it seem to fit the theory. But we were talking ofwomen--women who work."
"I've no doubt you're right," admitted she. "I suppose they aren't toblame for using their sex. I ought to be ashamed of myself, to sneer atthem."
"As a matter of fact, their sex does few of them any good. The reverse.You see, an attractive woman--one who's attractive _as_ a woman--canskirmish round and find some one to support her. But most of the workingwomen--those who keep on at it--don't find the man. They're notattractive, not even at the start. After they've been at it a few yearsand lose the little bloom they ever had--why, they've got to take theirchances at the game, precisely like a man. Only, they're handicapped byalways hoping that they'll be able to quit and become married women. I'dlike to see how men would behave if they could find or could imagine anyalternative to 'root hog or die.'"
"What's the matter with you this evening, Fred? I never saw you in sucha bitter mood."
"We never happened to get on this subject before."
"Oh, yes, we have. And you always have scoffed at the men who fail."
"And I still scoff at them--most of them. A lot of lazy cowards. Orelse, so bent on self-indulgence--petty self-indulgence--that theyrefuse to make the small sacrifice to-day for the sake of the largeadvantage day after to-morrow. Or else so stuffed with vanity that theynever see their own mistakes. However, why blame them? They were bornthat way, and can't change. A man who has the equipment of success andsucceeds has no more right to sneer at one less lucky than you wouldhave to laugh at a poor girl because she wasn't dressed as well as you."
"What a mood! _Something_ must have happened."
"Perhaps," said he reflectively. "Possibly that girl set me off."
"What girl?"
"The one I told you about. The unfortunate little creature who wastypewriting for me this afternoon. Not so very little, either. A curiousfigure she had. She was tall yet she wasn't. She seemed thin, and whenyou looked again, you saw that she was really only slender, andbeautifully shaped throughout."
Miss Burroughs laughed. "She must have been attractive."
"Not in the least. Absolutely without charm--and so homely--no, nothomely--commonplace. No, that's not right, either. She had a startlingway of fading and blazing out. One moment she seemed a blank--pale,lifeless, colorless, a nobody. The next minute she became--amazinglydifferent. Not the same thing every time, but different things."
Frederick Norman was too experienced a dealer with women deliberately tomake the mistake--rather, to commit the breach of tact andcourtesy--involved in praising one woman to another. But in this case itnever occurred to him that he was talking to a woman of a woman.Josephine Burroughs was a lady; the other was a piece of officemachinery--and a very trivial piece at that. But he saw and instantlyunderstood the look in her eyes--the strained effort to keep thetelltale upper lip from giving its prompt and irrepressible signal ofinward agitation.
"I'm very much interested," said she.
"Yes, she was a curiosity," said he carelessly.
"Has she been there--long?" inquired Josephine, with a feignedindifference that did not deceive him.
"Several months, I believe. I never noticed her until a few days ago.And until to-day I had forgotten her. She's one of the kind it'sdifficult to remember."
He fell to glancing round the house, pretending to be unconscious of thefurtive suspicion with which she was observing him. She said:
"She's your secretary now?"
"Merely a general office typewriter."
The curtain went up for the second act. Josephine fixed her attention onthe stage--apparently undivided attention. But Norman felt rather thansaw that she was still worrying about the "curiosity." He marveled atthis outcropping of jealousy. It seemed ridiculous--it _was_ ridiculous.He laughed to himself. If she could see the girl--the obscure,uninteresting cause of her agitation--how she would mock at herself!Then, too, there was the absurdity of thinking him capable of such astoop. A woman of their own class--or a woman of its correspondingclass, on the other side of the line--yes. No doubt she had heardthings that made her uneasy, or, at least, ready to be uneasy. But thispoorly dressed obscurity, with not a charm that could attract even a manof her own lowly class--It was such a good joke that he would haveteased Josephine about it but for his knowledge of the world--aknowledge in whose primer it was taught that teasing is both bad tasteand bad judgment. Also, it was beneath his dignity, it was offense tohis vanity, to couple his name with the name of one so beneath him thateven the matter of sex did not make the coupling less intolerable.
When the curtain fell several people came into the box, and he went tomake a few calls round the parterre. He returned after the second act.They were again alone--the deaf old aunt did not count. At onceJosephine began upon the same subject. With studied indifference--howamusing for a woman of her inexperience to try to fool a man of hisexperience!--she said:
"Tell me some more about that typewriter girl. Women who work alwaysinterest me."
"She wouldn't," said Norman. The subject had been driven clean out ofhis mind, and he didn't wish to return to it. "Some day they willventure to make judicious long cuts in Wagner's operas, and then they'llbe interesting. It always amuses me, this reverence of little people forthe great ones--as if a great man were always great. No--he _is_ alwaysgreat. But often it's in a dull way. And the dull parts ought to beskipped."
"I don't like the opera this evening," said she. "What you said a whileago has set me to thinking. Is that girl a lady?"
"She works," laughed he.
"But she might have been a lady."
"I'm sure I don't know."
"Don't you know _anything_ about her?"
"Except that she's trustworthy--and insignificant and not too good ather business."
"I shouldn't think you could afford to keep incompetent people," saidthe girl shrewdly.
"Perhaps they won't keep her," parried Norman gracefully. "The headclerk looks after those things."
"He probably likes her."
"No," said Norman, too indifferent to be cautious. "She has no'gentlemen friends.'"
"How do you know that?" said the girl, and she could not keep a certainsharpness out of her voice.
"Tetlow, the head clerk, told me. I asked him a few questions about her.I had some confidential work to do and didn't want to trust her withoutbeing sure."
He saw that she was now prey to her jealous suspicion. He was uncertainwhether to be amused or irritated. She had
to pause long and withvisible effort collect herself before venturing:
"Oh, she does confidential work for you? I thought you said she wasincompetent."
He, the expert cross-examiner, had to admire her skill at that highscience and art. "I felt sorry for her," he said. "She seemed such aforlorn little creature."
She laughed with a constrained attempt at raillery. "I never should havesuspected you of such weakness. To give confidential things to a forlornlittle incompetent, out of pity."
He was irritated, distinctly. The whole thing was preposterous. Itreminded him of feats of his own before a jury. By clever questioning,Josephine had made about as trifling an incident as could be imaginedtake on really quite imposing proportions. There was annoyance in hissmile as he said:
"Shall I send her up to see you? You might find it amusing, and maybeyou could do something for her."
Josephine debated. "Yes," she finally said. "I wish you would sendher--" with a little sarcasm--"if you can spare her for an hour or so."
"Don't make it longer than that," laughed he. "Everything will stopwhile she's gone."
It pleased him, in a way, this discovery that Josephine had such acommon, commonplace weakness as jealousy. But it also took awaysomething from his high esteem for her--an esteem born of the lover'sidealizings; for, while he was not of the kind of men who are on theirknees before women, he did have a deep respect for Josephine,incarnation of all the material things that dazzled him--a respect withsomething of the reverential in it, and something of awe--more than hewould have admitted to himself. To-day, as of old, the image-makers areas sincere worshipers as visit the shrines. In our prostrations andgenuflections in the temple we do not discriminate against the idols weourselves have manufactured; on the contrary, them we worship withpeculiar gusto. Norman knew his gods were frauds, that their divinequalities were of the earth earthy. But he served them, and what mostappealed to him in Josephine was that she incorporated about all theirdivine qualities.
He and his sister went home together. Her first remark in the auto was:"What were you and Josie quarreling about?"
"Quarreling?" inquired he in honest surprise.
"I looked at her through my glasses and saw that the was all upset--andyou, too."
"This is too ridiculous," cried he.
"She looked--jealous."
"Nonsense! What an imagination you have!"
"I saw what I saw," Ursula maintained. "Well, I suppose she has heardsomething--something recent. I thought you had sworn off, Fred. But Imight have known."
Norman was angry. He wondered at his own exasperation, out of allproportion to any apparent provoking cause. And it was most unusual forhim to feel temper, all but unprecedented for him to show it, no matterhow strong the temptation.
"It's a good idea, to make her jealous," pursued his sister. "Nothinglike jealousy to stimulate interest."
"Josephine is not that sort of woman."
"You know better. All women are that sort. All men, too. Of course, somemen and women grow angry and go away when they get jealous while othersstick closer. So one has to be judicious."
"Josephine and I understand each other far too well for such pettiness."
"Try her. No, you needn't. You have."
"Didn't I tell you----"
"Then what was she questioning you about?"
"Just to show you how wrong you were, I'll tell you. She was asking meabout a poor little girl down at the office--one she wants to help."
Ursula laughed. "To help out of your office, I guess. I thought you'dlived long enough, Fred, to learn that no woman trusts _any_ man about_any_ woman. Who is this 'poor little girl'?"
"I don't even know her name. One of the typewriters."
"What made Josephine jealous of her?"
"Haven't I told you Josephine was not----"
"But I saw. Who is this girl?--pretty?"
Norman pretended to stifle a yawn. "Josephine bored me half to deathtalking about her. Now it's you. I never heard so much about so little."
"Is there something up between you and the girl?" teased Ursula.
"Now, that's an outrage!" cried Norman. "She's got nothing but herreputation, poor child. Do leave her that."
"Is she very young?"
"How should I know?"
"Youth is a charm in itself."
"What sort of rot is this!" exclaimed he. "Do you think I'd drop down toanything of that kind--in _any_ circumstances? A little working girl--andin my own office?"
"Why do you heat so, Fred?" teased the sister. "Really, I don't wonderJosephine was torn up."
An auto almost ran into them--one of those innumerable hairbreadthescapes that make the streets of New York as exciting as a battle--andas dangerous. For a few minutes Ursula's mind was deflected. But afatality seemed to pursue the subject of the pale obscurity whose veryname he was uncertain whether he remembered aright.
Said Ursula, as they entered the house, "A girl working in the officewith a man has a magnificent chance at him. It's lucky for the men thatwomen don't know their business, but are amateurs and too stuck onthemselves to set and bait their traps properly. Is that girl trying toget round you?"
"What possesses everybody to-night!" cried Norman. "I tell you thegirl's as uninteresting a specimen as you could find."
"Then why are _you_ so interested in her?" teased the sister.
Norman shrugged his shoulders, laughed with his normal easy good humorand went to his own floor.
On top of the pile of letters beside his plate, next morning, lay a notefrom Josephine:
"Don't forget your promise about that girl, dear. I've an hour before lunch, and could see her then. I was out of humor last night. I'm very penitent this morning. Please forgive me. Maybe I can do something for her. JOSEPHINE."
Norman read with amused eyes. "Well!" soliloquized he, "I'm not likelyto forget that poor little creature again. What a fuss about nothing!"
The Grain of Dust: A Novel Page 3
