The Definite Object

by Jeffery Farnol

  “Excited?” snorted Mrs. Trapes, “I’d pay good money t’ see you like that!”

  “You see, I had an idea—a rather original idea!”

  “Then take care of it, Mr. Geoffrey; nurse it careful, and we’ll have ye doin’ bigger things than push a peanut barrer—peanuts!”

  “Mrs. Trapes, I’ve got a stranglehold on that idea, for it is rather brilliant.”

  “There’s that kettle b’ilin’ at last, thank goodness!” sighed Mrs. Trapes, crossing to the stove, “tea’s a luxury, I suppose, but—oh, drat Mulligan, anyway!”

  So Mrs. Trapes brewed the tea, while Ravenslee gazed at Hermione again, at her shapely arms, her dimpled elbows, her preoccupied face—a face so serenely, so utterly unaware of his regard, of course, until he chanced to look away, and then—Hermione stole a glance at him.

  “There, my dear,” said Mrs. Trapes after a while, “there’s a cup o’ tea as is a cup o’ tea, brewed jest on the b’ile, in a hot pot, and drawed to perfection! Set right down an’ drink it, slow an’ deliberate. Tea ain’t meant to be swallowed down careless, like a man does his beer! An’ why?” demanded Mrs. Trapes, as they sipped the fragrant beverage, all three, “why ain’t you out with your precious—peanuts, Mr. Geoffrey?”

  Ravenslee set down his cup and turned to Hermione.

  “Mrs. Trapes has told you, I think, that I am become—er—an itinerant vendor of the ubiquitous peanut—”

  “Mr. Geoffrey!” gasped Mrs. Trapes, gulping a mouthful of hot tea and blinking, “I never did! Never in all my days would I allow myself such expressions—Mr. Geoffrey, I’m ashamed at you! An’ that reminds me—it was chicken fricassee, wasn’t it? For your supper, I mean?”

  “I believe it was.”

  “Then,” said Mrs. Trapes, rising, “I’ll go an’ buy it. Was you wantin’ anything fetched, Hermy?”

  “If you wouldn’t mind bringing a bunch of asparagus—”

  “Sparrergrass!” exclaimed Mrs. Trapes in horror-struck tones, “why, it’s anywhere from thirty to sixty cents—”

  “But Arthur loves it, dear, and now that he’s working so hard—”

  “Arthur likes!” cried Mrs. Trapes indignantly. “Mr. Geoffrey, it’s been Arthur ever since he was born, an’ her scrinchin’ an’ pinchin’ herself for the sake o’ that b’y. O’ course he likes sparrergrass—so do I—but I make shift with pertatoes or cabbidge or carrots—an’ so should he. Come now, Hermy, you take a bunch o’ carrots instead; carrots is healthy an’ cheap! Come now, is that sparrergrass to be carrots or not?”

  “Ann, that asparagus is to be—asparagus!”

  “Such wicked extravagance, an’ all for that b’y. Hermy, I’m surprised at ye!”

  For a long moment after Mrs. Trapes had departed there was silence, while Ravenslee sat gazing where Hermione stood busy at her pastry again.

  “Mr. Geoffrey,” said she at last, “I want to thank you for watching over my boy. Arthur told me how good you were to him while I was away. I want you to know how grateful I am—”

  “What beautiful hands you have, Hermione—and I shall dream of your arms.”

  “My arms?” she repeated, staring.

  “They’re so—smooth and white—”

  “Oh, that’s flour!” said she, bending over the table.

  “And so—round—”

  “Oh, Mr. Geoffrey! Can’t you find something else to talk about?”

  “Why, of course,” he answered, “there are your feet, so slender and shapely—”

  “In these frightful old shoes!” she added.

  “Worn out mostly in other peoples’ service,” he nodded. “God bless them!”

  “They let the wet in horribly when it rains!” she sighed.

  “So heaven send us dry weather! Then there is your wonderful hair,” he continued, “so long and soft and—”

  “And all bunched up anyhow!” said she, touching the heavy, shining braids with tentative fingers. “Please don’t say any more, Mr. Geoffrey, because I just know I look a sight—I feel it! And in this old gown too—it’s the one I keep to scrub the floors in—”

  “Scrub the floors?” he repeated.

  “Why, of course, floors must be scrubbed, and I’ve had plenty—oh, plenty of experience—now what are you thinking?”

  “That a great many women might envy you that gown for the beauty that goes with it. You are very beautiful, you know, Hermione.”

  “And beauty in a woman is—everything, isn’t it?” she said a little bitterly and with head suddenly averted.

  “Have I offended you?”

  “No,” she answered without looking around, “only sometimes you are so very—personal.”

  “Because the First and Second Persons Singular Number are the most interesting persons in the world, and—Hermione, in all this big world there is only one person I want. Could you ever learn to love a peanut man?”

  “That would all depend—on the peanut man,” she answered softly, “and you—you don’t talk or act a little bit like a real peanut man.”

  “Well, could you stoop to love this peanut man just as he is, with all his faults and failures, love him enough to trust yourself to his keeping, to follow him into the unknown, to help him find that Beautiful City of Perhaps—could you, Hermione?” As he ended he rose to his feet, but swiftly, dexterously, she eluded him.

  “Wait!” she pleaded, facing him across the table, “I—I want to talk to you—to ask you some questions, and I want you to be serious, please.”

  “Solemn as sixty judges!” he nodded.

  “Well, first, Mr. Geoffrey—why do you pretend to sell peanuts?”

  “Pretend!” he repeated, trying to sound aggrieved.

  “Oh, I’m not blind, Mr. Geoffrey.”

  “No, indeed—I think your eyes are the most beau—”

  “Oh, please, please be serious!”

  “As a dozen owls!”

  “I—I know,” she went on quickly, “I’m sure you haven’t always had to live in such—such places as Mulligan’s. I know you don’t belong here as I do. Is it necessity has driven you to live here or only—curiosity?”

  “Well—er—perhaps a little of both,” he admitted.

  “Then you’re not obliged to sell peanuts for a living?”

  “‘Obliged’ is scarcely the word, perhaps; let us call it a peanut penchant, a hobby, a—”

  “You are not quite so—poverty-stricken as you pretend?” Her voice was very soft and gentle, but she kept her head averted, also her foot was tapping nervously in its worn shoe.

  “Oh, as to money,” he answered, “I have enough for my simple needs, but in every other sense I am a miserable pauper. You see, there are some things no money can buy, and they are generally the best things of life.”

  “And so,” said she, interrupting him gently, “you come here to Mulligan’s, you deceive every one into thinking you are very poor, you make a pretence of selling peanuts and push a barrow through the streets—why?”

  “First, because pushing a barrow is—er—very healthy exercise.”

  “Yes, Mr. Geoffrey?” she said in the same soft voice.

  “And second,” he continued, wishing he could see her face, “second, because I find it—er, well—highly amusing.”

  “Amusing!” she cried, turning suddenly, her eyes very bright and her cheeks hot and anger-flushed. “Amusing!” she repeated, “ah, yes—that’s just it—it’s all only a joke to you, to be done with when it grows tiresome. But my life here—our life is very real—ah, terribly real, and has been—sordid sometimes. What is only sport to you for a little while is deadly earnest to me; you are only playing at poverty, but I must live it—”

  “And thirdly,” he continued gently, “because I love you, Hermione!”

  “Love me!” she repeated, shaking her head. “Ah, no, no—your world is not my world nor ever could be.”

  “Why, then, your world shall be mine.”

  “Yes, but for how long
?” she demanded feverishly. “I wonder how long you could endure this world of mine? I have had to work and slave all my life, but you—look at your hands, so white and well-cared for—yours are not the hands of a worker!”

  “No, I’m afraid they’re not!” he admitted a little ruefully.

  “Now look at mine—see my fingers all roughened by my needle.”

  “Such busy, capable hands!” said he, drawing a pace nearer, “hands always working for others, so strong to help the distressed. I love and honour them more just because of those work-roughened fingers.” As he spoke he reached out very suddenly, and clasping those slender hands, stooped and kissed them reverently. Now, glancing up, he beheld her red lips quivering while her eyes were suffused all at once, as, drooping her head, she strove to loose his hold.

  “Let me go!” she whispered, “I—I—ah, let me go!”

  “Hermione,” he breathed, “oh, Hermione, how beautiful you are!” But at this she cried out almost as if he had struck her and, wrenching her hands free, covered her face.

  “Oh, God!—are all men the same?”

  “Hermione,” he stammered, “Hermione—what do you mean?”

  “I mean,” she answered, proud head up-flung, “there were always plenty of men to tell me that—when I was an office scrubwoman. Well?” she demanded fiercely, stung by something in his look, “what did you think I’d been? When a girl is left alone with a baby brother to care for, she can’t wait and pick and choose work that is nice and ladylike; she must take what comes along or starve—so I worked. I used to scrub floors and stairs in an office building. I was very young then, and Arthur hardly more than a baby, and it was either that or starvation or—” she flushed painfully, but her blue eyes met his regard unflinchingly; “anyway, I—preferred to be a scrubwoman. So now you know what I mean by your world not being my world, and I—I guess you see how—how impossible it all is.”

  For a long moment was a silence wherein she stood turned from him, her trembling fingers busily folding and refolding a pleat in her apron while he stared down blindly at the floor.

  “So you preferred the slavery of scrubbing floors, did you, Hermione?” he said at last.

  “Of course!” she answered, without turning or lifting her heavy head.

  “And that,” said he, his voice as placid, as serenely unhurried as usual, “and that is; just why all things are going to be possible to us—yes, even turning my wasted years to profit. Oh, my Hermione, help me to be worthy of you—teach me what a glorious thing life may be—”

  “I?” she said wonderingly, her drooping head still averted, “but I am—”

  “Just the one woman I want to be my own for ever and always, more—far more than I have ever wanted anything in my life.”

  “But,” she whispered, “I am only—”

  “The best, the noblest I have ever known.”

  “But a—scrubwoman!”

  “With dimples in her elbows, Hermione!” In one stride he was beside her, and she, because of his light tone, must turn at last to glance up at him half-fearfully; but those grey eyes were grave and reverent, the hands stretched out to her were strangely unsteady, and when he spoke again, his voice was placid no longer.

  “Dear,” he said, leaning toward her, “from the very first I’ve been dying to have you in my arms, but now I—I dare not touch you unless you—will it so. Ah, don’t—don’t turn from me; let me have my answer—look up, Hermione!”

  Slowly she obeyed, and beholding the shy languor of her eyes, the sweet hurry of her breathing, and all the sighing, trembling loveliness of her, he set his arms about her, drawing her close; and she, yielding to those compelling arms, gave herself to the passion of his embrace. And so he kissed her, her warm, soft-quivering mouth, her eyes, her silken hair, until she sighed and struggled in his clasp.

  “My hair,” she whispered, “see—it’s all coming down!”

  “Well, let it—I’d love to see it so, Hermione.”

  “Should you? Why then—let me go,” she pleaded.

  Reluctantly he loosed her, and standing well beyond his reach, she shook her shapely head, and down, down fell the heavy coils, past shoulder and waist and hip, rippling in shining splendour to her knees. Then, while he gazed spellbound by her loveliness she laughed a little unsteadily, and flushing beneath his look, turned and fled from him to the door; when he would have followed she stayed him.

  “Please,” she said, tender-voiced, “I want to be alone—it is all so wonderful, I want to be alone and—think.”

  “I may see you again to-night, Hermione? Dear—I must.”

  “Why, if you must,” she said, “how can I—prevent you?”

  Then, all at once, her cool, soft arms were about his neck, had drawn him down to meet her kiss, and—he was alone with the pastry board, the rolling-pin and the flour-dredger—but he saw them all through a golden glory, and when he somehow found himself out upon the dingy landing, the glory was all about him still.

  CHAPTER XVII

  HOW GEOFFREY RAVENSLEE MADE A DEAL IN REAL ESTATE

  The morning sun blazed down, and Tenth Avenue was full of noise and dust and heat; children screamed and played and fought together, carts rumbled past, distant street cars clanged their bells, the sidewalks were full of the stir and bustle of Saturday; but Ravenslee went his way heedless of all this, even of the heat, for before his eyes was the vision of a maid’s shy loveliness, and he thrilled anew at the memory of two warm lips. Thus he strode unheeding through the jostling throng at a speed very different from his ordinary lounging gait. Very soon he came to a small drug-store, weather-beaten and grimy of exterior but very bright within, where everything seemed in a perpetual state of glitter, from the multitudinous array of bottles and glassware upon the shelves to the taps and knobs of the soda fountain. Yet nowhere was there anything quite so bright as the shrewd, twinkling eyes of the little grey-haired man who greeted Ravenslee with a cheery nod.

  “Hot enough?” he enquired.

  “Quite!” answered Ravenslee.

  “Goin’ to be hotter.”

  “Afraid so.”

  “Rough on th’ kiddies, an’ ice goin’ up. Which reminds me I sent on the mixture you ordered for little Hazel Bowker.”

  “Good,” nodded Ravenslee.

  “And the pills to Mrs. Sims.”

  “Good again.”

  “An’ the sleeping-draught for old Martin Finlay.”

  “Good once more.”

  “Won’t last long, old Martin, I guess. Never been the same since little Maggie drowned herself, poor child. What d’ye want this morning?”

  “First to pay for the medicine,” said Ravenslee, laying a five-dollar bill on the counter, “and then the use of your ‘phone.”

  “Right there,” said the chemist, nodding toward a certain shady corner, where, remote from all intruding bustle, was a telephone booth into which Ravenslee stepped forthwith and where ensued the following one-sided conversation:

  Ravenslee. “Hello!”

  Telephone. “Buzz!”

  Ravenslee. “Hello, Central, give me Thirty-three Wall, please.”

  Telephone. “Ting-a-ling—buzz!”

  Ravenslee. “Damn this ‘phone—what? No, I said Double-three Wall.”

  Telephone. “Buzz! Ting! Zut!”

  Ravenslee. “Sounded different, did it? Well, I want—”

  Telephone. “Buzz! Zut! Ting!”

  Ravenslee. “Thanks. Hello, that Thirty-three Wall? Dana and Anderson’s Office? Good! I want to speak with Mr. Anderson—say Mr. Ravenslee.”

  Telephone. “Zing!”

  Ravenslee. “Thanks. That you, Anderson?”

  Telephone. “Pang!”

  Ravenslee. “Thanks—very well! What the devil’s wrong with this instrument of torment—can you hear me?”

  Telephone. “Crack!”

  Ravenslee. “Good! Yes—that’s better! Now listen; I want you to do some business for me. No, I’m buying, not selling
. I’m going into real estate. What, a bad speculation? Well, anyway, I’m buying tenement property in Tenth Avenue, known as Mulligan’s, I believe. Oh, you’ve heard of it, eh? Not in the market? Not for sale? Well, I’ll buy it. Oh, yes, you can—what d’ you suppose is his figure? So much? Phew! Oh, well, double it. No, I’m not mad, Anderson. No, nor drunk—I just happen to want Mulligan’s—and I’ll have it. When can you put the deal through? Oh, nonsense, make him sell at once—get him on the ‘phone. Oh, yes, he will, if you offer enough—Mulligan would sell his mother—at his own price. You quite understand—at once, mind! All right, good-by. No, I’m not mad—nor drunk, man; I haven’t tasted a cocktail for a month. Eh—go and get one? I will!”

  So saying, Ravenslee hung up the receiver and hastened out of the stifling heat of the suffocating booth, mopping perspiring brow.

  “You look kinder warm!” ventured the chemist.

  “I feel it.”

  “And it’s going to be warmer. Try an ice-cream soda—healthy and invigorating.”

  “And better than any cocktail on such a day!”

  “I guess! Take one?”

  “Thank you, yes.”

  So the bright-eyed chemist mixed the beverage and handed it over the counter.

  “Chin-chin!” he nodded.

  “Twice,” said Ravenslee, lifting the long glass. “To the Beautiful City of Perhaps!” and he drank deep.

  “Say,” said the chemist, staring, “that sounds t’ me like a touch of the sun. Try a bottle of my summer mixture, good for sunstroke, heat-bumps, colic, spasms, and Hell’s Kitchen generally—try a bottle?”

  “Thanks,” said Ravenslee, “I will.” And grimly pocketing the bottled panacea, he stepped out into the hot and noisy avenue.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  HOW SPIKE HEARKENED TO POISONOUS SUGGESTION AND SOAPY BEGAN TO WONDER

  Spike was on his way from the office, very conscious of his new straw hat and immaculate collar; his erstwhile shabby suit had been cleaned and pressed by Hermione’s skilled and loving fingers, hence Spike turned now and then as he passed some shop window to observe the general effect with furtive eye; and stimulated by his unwontedly smart appearance, he whistled joyously as he betook himself homeward. Moreover in his breast pocket was his pay envelope, not very bulky to be sure, wherein lay his first week’s wages, and as often as he turned to glance at the tilt of the straw hat or heed the set of his tie, his hand must needs steal to this envelope to make sure of its safety. His fingers were so employed when he chanced to espy a certain article exposed for sale in an adjacent shop window; whereupon, envelope in hand, he incontinent entered and addressed the plump Semitic merchant in his usual easy manner.