Chapter Eight I
No sooner were they back in their Lorillard tenement, than Robert Lloyd came in.
“Well, Cato, where did you drop from?” said Cornelia, who was lazily tidying up the rooms while Janet was doing the breakfast dishes.
“From the Harlem Gorilla in the flat next door.”
“Really! And what did he have to say?”
“Not much. He isn’t a talker like me. He’s a doer. He tried to explain a few tricks in gymnastics to me. But every second sentence or so the word ‘Cornelia’ crept into the explanation. It was decidedly confusing.”
“Pray what has the word ‘Cornelia’ to do with the subject of gymnastics?” asked the owner of the name.
“Ah, what! I asked the Gorilla that question myself. But he simply repeated the name adoringly and looked all sorts of unutterable things. Beware, Cornelia. He thinks the sun rises in one of your eyes and sets in the other. I believe he is planning to carry you off by main force to his cave, his gymnasium cave.”
“A lot he is! He couldn’t carry off a buttercup against its wishes. Really, Araminta, he’s the gentlest and shyest ’wild man’ you ever laid eyes on. How he ever came to take Gorilla for a nickname, I can’t imagine.”
“Nor I,” said Robert. “But don’t forget that he has learnt the art of concentrating his enormous strength on one or two crucial points. Certainly he treated Hutchins Burley to a good exhibition of his mastery, didn’t he? For all that, he’s a very singularly gentle sort of Hercules. If I had to provide one for you, Cornelia, I’d get a much more ferocious specimen, if only to pay you out for kiting away with Janet, after promising me you’d both stay in. I’ve been waiting for you since noon.”
“Poor Cato, I’m terribly sorry. In the excitement of having Janet here, I clean forgot you were coming. Waiting since noon, were you, poor boy! There’s devotion for you, Araminta. Never mind, Rob. Here she is, now. And all’s well that ends well, I hope.”
“I thought you’d like company on your way home, Janet,” said Robert to her directly.
“Thanks very much,” said Janet, not wishing to lose Robert and yet not caring to say that Claude had promised to call for her, if he could possibly get away from business. Before she could say more, Cornelia interposed. She had not expected Robert to wait and had not quite swallowed her chagrin over this surprise.
“How do you happen to be off duty, Rob?” she asked. “Does the Evening Chronicle stop work for you on Saturdays?”
“No. I’ve stopped work for the Evening Chronicle on Saturdays and all other days.”
“What! Don’t tell me Hutchins has discharged you!”
Cornelia gave up the last pretense of working, and sank aghast into an armchair.
“I didn’t give him a chance. I discharged myself.”
“If he had—” she began, setting her teeth vindictively.
“Exactly. In his sober moments, Cornelia, you are apparently the only mortal soul he stands in some fear of. It was only because of a sneaking affection he has for you that he hesitated to fire me.”
“Well, why throw a good bargain away?”
“A nice position it would have left me in. That of an understrapper for Burley to play cat and mouse with. Not if I know it! Burley likes to torture the people in his power as much as you do, the only difference being that his weapon is coarse brutality while yours is insidious charm.”
“Your comparisons, Cato, have the merit of being as unambiguous as they are rude. I trust you gave Hutchins Burley the benefit of a few of them.”
“Oh, no, I always forgive my enemies. Nothing enrages them more. I left Hutchins stunned. But I’ve no doubt he recovered in time to appoint the successor that I sent him.”
“That you sent him?”
“Yes. You don’t know him, but Janet does. Janet, do you remember the tall, thin, aristocratic chap who was always mysteriously turning up and who stopped Burley at the tent?”
“Of course I do. He wore a quaint stand-up collar with two points sticking into his neck. It was he who warned Claude about the raid.”
“Oh, did he? Well, when I was on my way up the stairs here at noon, he suddenly appeared, like a ghost stepping out of the stone wall. It gave me quite a start. I asked him where he was bound for. ‘Nowhere in particular,’ was his answer.”
Robert had got to talking with the mysterious one, who confessed that he had just rented a flat in the model tenements. On Robert’s alluding to the severance of his connection with the Evening Chronicle, his new acquaintance had asked permission to apply for the vacant place. He claimed to have an ear for news and remarked casually that information was always drifting his way.
“As if I had any permission to give!” continued Robert. “I warned him what he’d be up against in the person of Hutchins Burley, and bade him Godspeed.”
“He’s either a detective or the Prince of Zenda in disguise,” said Janet. “Which do you think, Robert?”
“From the speed and completeness with which he obliterates himself, I should favor the detective theory. On the other hand, there’s his get-up! That melancholy, drooping mustache, that semi-clerical collar, and that comical tip-tilted chin! The fellow’s simply unforgettable. He must be a prince incognito.”
“Yes, we’ll have him a prince!” exclaimed Janet, who, at twenty-four, had a normal craving for romantic illusion. “But I should like him in any part.”
“A prince! Nonsense, children!” interjected Cornelia, in her most languid cadences. “He’s probably a burglar.”
“A burglar!”
“Certainly not a detective. Detectives don’t obliterate themselves. They don’t know how to. And they never look like princes in disguise. They’re not clever enough. All the detectives I ever saw looked like butchers on a strike. The only man, rich, skillful and bold enough to take his fellow man at a right royal disadvantage is a first-class burglar. A Raffles, for instance, might be a prince ‘incognito.’”
Cornelia’s wits could work brilliantly under the stimulus of a new friend like Janet.
The door had opened while she was speaking.
“Here’s a prince, Araminta!” she continued, in the same musical vein. “Not incognito, either, to judge by his handsome motor coat.”
Claude Fontaine came in, and the sheer sweep of his personal attractiveness made Cornelia’s slightly ironic phrasing sound quite empty. Janet thought that many a titular prince might be glad to exchange his coat of arms for Claude’s conquering air.
II
Her heart beat faster for more reasons than this. How was she to let Robert down gracefully and without hurting his feelings, after having more than half accepted his offer to accompany her home?
As if in total ignorance of her dilemma, Cornelia, who had begun sketching a design for a new dress, intoned:
“Admirers never come singly. Choose your escort, my dear. Which is it to be? Cato and the subway or Lothario and a limousine?”
They all dissembled very poorly.
Claude, who had not expected rivalry, looked displeased; Robert, though he had already made up his mind to withdraw, felt uneasy; and Janet stood up between the two young men, embarrassed and confused.
Cornelia alone seemed wholly unmoved. She went on sketching imperturbably. But Robert was quite certain that she was not unconscious of the tableau. Janet broke the painful silence.
“Let’s all three go together,” she said, with one of her quick graceful gestures, half conciliatory, half pleading in its effect.
“Certainly, if Robert would like to come,” said Claude, politely, but without enthusiasm.
Robert declined promptly. He explained that he had really been free only for the morning, and that, as long as Claude was to see Janet home, he had better utilize the late afternoon to hunt up another position. There were newspaper offices at which he ought to call. Before supper, he had a speech to rehearse. Perhaps Cornelia would be good enough to let him say it over to her.
“What kind of a speech am I letting myself in for?” asked Cornelia, half flattered, half nettled.
“Wait till you hear it.”
“A sermon, I’ll be bound,” chanted this languid lady.
Yet, not at all languidly, she put her sketch aside and rose, adding:
“A sermon from Cato is as sweet as a billet-doux from any other man. Come, Araminta, let’s show these men how quickly we can get ready.”
They went into Cornelia’s bedroom, leaving the two men alone. Claude said:
“What’s this about hunting up a new position?”
Robert recounted his farewell interview with Hutchins Burley.
“You’re well rid of him,” said Claude. “What do you think the swine called me at the ball? A diamond smuggler. In front of everybody, mind you!”
He paced the room indignantly.
“I tell you, Rob, if these were the good old days of duelling, I’d have run his fat carcass through with a rapier half a dozen times before this. And done it with relish, too. Nowadays, worse luck, it isn’t even good form to give him a thrashing, though Heaven knows he’s the sort of brute that understands no argument but a blow.”
“Blows would only sharpen his wits against you, Claude. Curs bite, as bees sting, by force of nature. The only thing to do is to get out of their way.”
“I’m not in the habit of getting out of any man’s way,” said Claude, haughtily. “However, don’t let’s talk about the beast. I’m extremely sorry you’re out of a job. Tell you what, Rob. Come up to my office on Monday, and we’ll talk the situation over and see what can be done. You’ll find me in the galleries on the top floor.”
“Thanks, Claude, but Monday is impossible,” said Robert, glad of the excuse, for he scented patronage in his friend’s manner. “I’m giving a talk on ‘Unemployment under the National Guild System’ before the Guild Study Club. When I arranged to speak on Unemployment I had no idea I should do so as an experienced hand.”
Possibly Claude was dimly conscious of his friend’s sensitiveness. At all events, he said:
“Well, come on your first free day. I’m always there afternoons. You must come, if only to see my two new Cezannes. I’ve just induced father to buy them. By the way, old chap, what on earth are National Guilds?”
The return of the ladies cut off a reply. Janet’s natural grace redeemed the hang of a not too well-tailored suit. Cornelia was all aglow over a mandarin coat she had put on. It was a wonderful dark green silk with dull gold embroidery. Her clothes had a remarkable effect of clinging to her contours. “Look at me,” her body seemed to call out through its vestments, “did you ever see anything so ravishing?”
Janet walked over to Robert’s side and sought forgiveness without asking for it. And he forgave her without saying so. Her soft, flexible, thrilling voice disturbed him sorely, and he wondered whether its sustained riches were as illusory as he judged the mysterious depths of her gray eyes to be.
Meanwhile, Claude was telling Cornelia in all sincerity that she had never looked more enchanting.
“Flatterer!” she said. “To how many girls have you said that today?”
“Facts don’t flatter, Cornelia. They simply cry out the truth.”
“Lothario, it’s all a matter of the science of pinning and the art of dressing. Or rather, of not dressing.”
For the hundredth time, she assured Claude and Robert that she never wore corsets or underwear, and didn’t believe in these accoutrements.
“What, nothing?” exclaimed Claude, perhaps to see Janet blush.
“We are an art-hating people with ugly ideas,” continued Cornelia, unheeding his interruption, “and so we grow ugly, unsightly bodies. That is why modern fashionable dressmaking has but one aim: to conceal deformities. But dresses that conceal women’s bad points are sure to conceal their good points, too. A tragic loss! Janet is young and charming; she can stand this loss. I’m on the wrong side of thirty; I can’t.”
“Are you poking fun at my Brooklyn clothes again?” asked Janet. “If you go on like this, I shall have to ferret out all the secrets of your art, in pure self defence.”
“We must all take a hand in educating you,” said Cornelia, grandly. “My part will be to make you see life as a world of beautiful lines, rhythms, and colors.”
“What will mine be?” asked Claude.
“Yours? To make her see life as a vale of Cashmere—all roses and wine.”
“And Rob’s?”
“Rob will make her see it as a vale of tears—all sermons and social problems. He’ll be a necessary corrective to you.”
“And to you, too,” said Robert, quickly, amidst a general laugh.
Janet was now ready to go. As she and Claude left, Cornelia kissed her tenderly and said:
“Remember, if anything serious happens at home, I want you, Araminta.”
III
Claude instructed his chauffeur to drive across Manhattan Bridge through Prospect Park and along the Coney Island Road until the signal should be given to turn back to Janet’s home in the Park Slope section. Then he took his seat in the closed car beside his companion.
It was a warm spring day, and an agreeable wind from the bay blew upon them through the open windows as they crossed the East River. The breeze, the river, and the motion joined to chase from Janet’s mind the shadow of the scene that awaited her at home.
Besides, there was the god at her side. Nearness did not rob him of his divinity, it did not make him grow commonplace. And although some of the glamor of his strangeness wore away, she liked him all the better for being a human god and for having human weaknesses that caused his diviner side to seem all the more real. Janet never gushed, and even her most fervent adorations were shot through with a cool streak of matter-of-fact perception.
Claude was very happy, too. Philandering had few new sweets to offer him. Yet Janet was a novelty in every way. What was unique in her was her disinterestedness, a quality he did not consciously credit her with, however, since he did not believe that any woman possessed it. All the young ladies he had ever known had either struck attitudes at his social position or groveled more or less openly before his wealth. According to his view of women, their one aim in life was to get money out of him; by marriage if possible, by fouler means if not.
But Janet was different.
She might have fawned upon him, or thrown herself unblushingly at his head, or used a frigid hauteur to emphasize the point that her station in life was better than appearances indicated. The girls he knew invariably pursued one of these courses. But Janet didn’t. Her whole bearing permeated the atmosphere with a suggestion that Claude was a very wonderful being, dashing, handsome, divine. A most agreeable suggestion! But, since it takes a goddess to detect a god, it was clear that she was quite a wonderful being, too. And what is a matter of divinity among the gods on Olympus. It is like a title among peers of the realm.
It was her simple, natural, unaffected behavior, in short, that kept his fancy intrigued. Without knowing it, his suspicion of women was almost completely disarmed.
Cornelia’s parting words to Janet had given him some concern.
“You’re not thinking of going to live with Cornelia?” he said.
“I may soon be glad of the chance.”
“Why?”
“Because my mother threatens to put me out of her house.”
“But what for?” he said, looking at her in amazement.
“I don’t look like an incorrigible, do I?” she said smiling. “But my mother thinks me one for associating with people like you.”
“With people like me?”
“Well, like you and the other model tenementers.”
“But I’m not like them,” he said, half amused, half annoyed.
“No? Do you know what I’ve noticed? All the people in the model tenements say they are ‘not like them.’ Cornelia says so, Robert says so, and now you say so. Each one thinks he is different, unique.”
“Well, I’m sure that you are,” he said, rather seriously. He added, lightly. “That’s why it would be fatal if you went to live there. Do try to patch it up with your mother, Janet, and give up this plan of Cornelia’s.”
“Patching it up with my mother means complete submission. Her motto is, ‘bend or break.’ And I’ve bent long enough.”
She tried briefly to give him an idea of her mother’s domestic tyranny and of her own rebellion against it.
“You don’t know what it is to live in my mother’s house,” she said.
“I’ve heard what it is to live in Cornelia’s house,” he retorted. “She casts a spell over young girls before they know her well. But she is selfish and moody. Her friendships always end in violent quarrels. She is now on the verge of a break with Mazie Ross.”
“She may have very good grounds for the break.”
“Oh, she’s never at a loss for grounds. That isn’t the point.”
“What is the point?”
“The atmosphere of the Lorillard tenements. It isn’t made for you to breathe in. Have you any idea what the people there are like? Gangsters, anarchists and fake artists or writers, with a very small sprinkling of well-meaning idealists, most of whom are cracked on social questions. The men are all out of business, the women all out of marriage. On the loose, every one of them, either in their actions, or in their beliefs.”
“You mean they don’t believe in marriage? Well, after all I’ve seen of family life, I don’t believe in marriage either.”
This was a confession which, by way of bait, many another girl had made to him.
“That’s the sort of thing for a girl like Mazie to say,” he said coldly, “but not for a girl like you.”
Concern for himself had rapidly taken the place of concern for her.
“Mazie’s way doesn’t impress me any more than the way of all wives,” she said, with a delightful gesture of candor. “I think she is more of a slave to men than most married women are. I want to be mistress of myself.”
His doubts were allayed again. The spring sunshine and Janet’s subtle charm were too strong a team for suspicion to hold out against. As the car sped on through Prospect Park, a delicious breeze, laden with the perfume of flowers and the rising sap of trees, cooled their faces, and fanned their senses warm.
“You are a dear little theorizer,” he said in a tender vibrating tone. “But theories have no interest for me now. I’m too happy to think about them. I want to think only about you.”
“Impossible. You don’t know enough about me. We’ve only just met.”
“Absurd,” he said, taking hold of her hands. “We met when the wood nymphs first danced to the pipes of Pan, when the starlight first threw its enchantment on youth, when lovers first threaded their way over wild hills and woodlands by the rays of the crescent moon. We have known each other for ages.”
“As long as that? Dear me! What an experienced person I must be.”
Had her acknowledged objection to marriage affected him, after all?
“All experiences are nothing to this experience,” he said, putting his arms around her and trying to kiss her.
She resisted him with a quick, firm movement. All he could do was to seize her hands and give them the rapturous embraces intended for her lips.
“Claude!” she called out, more in shyness than reproach.
“But I love you!” he cried, retaining her hands by main force.
“Since yesterday?”
“Yesterday! A million years ago. The moment in which I felt I loved you, Janet, was a world-without-end moment. That is love’s way.”
“Don’t profane the word love,” she said, her voice rich and thrilling. “You can’t love a girl you don’t know.”
“Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?” he said, quoting the line reproachfully, and releasing her hands as he did so.
“Do you believe that love always happens at first sight? What about the feeling that takes hold of us as we slowly learn to know another’s splendid character? The feeling of tenderness and adoration. Isn’t that love, too?”
“No, a thousand times, no! Call it friendship, comradeship, esteem, if you like. Call it glorified toleration. But don’t call it love. Love doesn’t come like that. It comes like the swift lightning that embraces a cloud.”
“How I should love to love like that!” she exclaimed, with a mischievous imitation of rhapsody.
“Then you don’t love me?” he demanded.
She refused to admit that she did. He pressed her for an answer.
“Don’t, Claude,” she said at last, disturbed. “I must keep my wits about me today, or I shall be as putty in my mother’s hands.”
He was bitterly disappointed. Her use of his name was some solace, however; for, as her soft, flexible tones prolonged it, the sound was music to his ears.
“Is that why you won’t let me kiss you?” he pursued hopefully.
“No. I’m not used to it yet,” she said, quite simply.
“Not used to it! You mean you haven’t been kissed by men before?”
“Nothing so silly. I haven’t been kissed by you before.”
“Ah, I might have known the reason wasn’t inexperience,” he said, with incipient jealousy. “Then why balk at me?” he went on, seizing her hands again.
“As I said,” she replied, calmly matter-of-fact. “I haven’t had time to think of it. At least, not much nor for long,” she added impishly. “I must first see whether I can get used to the idea.”
“Indeed! But getting used to the idea won’t get you used to the thing itself. Only practice makes perfect.”
“A rehearsal in dumb show is not to be despised,” was her response.
And so they bantered on and made pretty speeches, while Claude’s car bucked the wind until they turned into President Street and stopped at the corner of her own block.
As Janet got out, she was hard put to it to conceal her sense of loss.
At parting, all her matter-of-factness deserted her; for a few seconds she felt like a prisoner half awakened from an idyllic dream.
The car drove away with Claude less triumphant yet more satisfied than he had ever felt towards a charming girl before. He was profoundly stirred by the magic of Janet’s genuineness, and her rich, clarinet tones lingered disturbingly in his mind.