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CHAPTER XVIII
A DISCOURSE ON SALARIES
Until Miss Winthrop allowed Pendleton to spend with her that afternoon in the park, the period between the close of business on Saturday and the opening on Monday had furnished her with a natural protective barrier. On one side of this stood the business world of Carter, Rand & Seagraves, to which Pendleton himself belonged; on the other side was her own private, personal world. Now that barrier was down. Without realizing at the time the significance of his request,–a request so honestly and smilingly made that it took her off her guard,–she had allowed him, for a period of a couple of hours, to enter that personal world. By her side he had explored with her the familiar paths in the park which until then had been all her own. He had made himself a part of them. Never again could she follow them without, in a sense, having him with her.
She realized this because when, at five o’clock, she had told him to leave her at the foot of the Elevated, she had watched him out of sight, and then, instead of going home as she intended, she had turned and gone back to the park. She had a vague notion that she must put her life back upon its normal basis before returning to her room. If only for a few moments, she must go over the old paths alone.
It was impossible. Everywhere she turned, it was to recall some careless phrase or gesture or expression of his–to react to them again exactly as when he had been with her. And this man had nothing whatever to do with the office of Carter, Rand & Seagraves. She could not force him back there; he insisted upon remaining on the personal side of the barrier.
It was curious how quickly she accepted the situation after her first startled surprise. After all, if she was going to retain her interest in him in any way, it was as necessary to help him outside the office as within. One opportunity had been offered her that very afternoon in making him understand that it was perfectly possible to enjoy a half-holiday without spending all the money in his pocket.
His attitude toward money puzzled her. In one way he seemed to place too much value upon it, and in another way not enough. He overemphasized the importance of a ten-thousand-dollar salary, making that the one goal of his business efforts, and then calmly proposed squandering dollar bills on confectionery and what not as an incident to as simple an amusement as a walk in the park. He neither knew how little a dollar was worth, nor how much. She herself had learned out of hard experience, and if she could only make him understand–well, that at least furnished her with some sort of excuse for allowing this new relationship to continue.
For all any one knows, there may be some divine reason that prompts women to find excuses in such matters–which, in a way, forces them willy-nilly to the making of such excuses.
And yet, she had to admit that it was stretching the excuse pretty far when, a week later, she meekly allowed him to come with her on her usual Sunday outing into the country. By steady cross-examination he had made her divulge the fact that it was her interesting habit to prepare a luncheon of bread and butter and cake, and, taking a train, to spend the day by the side of a brook she had discovered.
“Fine,” he nodded. “Next Sunday I’ll go with you.”
That afternoon he started making his preparations.
Obviously, the first thing necessary was a luncheon basket, and on his way uptown he saw one of English wicker that took his fancy. It had compartments with bottles and a whole outfit of knives and forks and plates and little drinking-cups and what not. What it cost is nobody’s business. Then he stopped at a very nice grocery store on Fifth Avenue and asked the advice of the clerk about the more substantial contents, and the clerk gave his advice very willingly. He bought some French sardines and English marmalade, and some fruit and confectionery and some strictly fresh eggs and dainty crackers and some jelly and olives and cheese and several other little things.
“Now,” suggested the clerk, “a small chicken roasted and served cold would be very nice.”
“Right,” nodded Don.
“I could order it for you from here.”
“Right again,” agreed Don.
It was to be sent to the house, so that Nora could have it roasted that afternoon.
He accomplished these things on his way uptown, and felt quite satisfied with himself. This preparing of a picnic basket was, after all, a very simple matter.
When Miss Winthrop came into the station for the nine-thirty, he was waiting for her with the big wicker basket in his hand.
They rode to a little village hardly large enough to have a name, and getting out there took to the open road.
Don enjoyed the tramp of three miles that followed, but, on the whole, he was glad when they reached the border of the brook. The walking and the flowers and the scenery occupied too much of the girl’s attention. Not only that, but this English wicker basket became heavy in the course of time. At the end of a mile or so it seemed as if the clerk must have lined the bottom of his basket with stones. Don meant to investigate at the first opportunity.
The stream that she had discovered only after several seasons of ardent exploration was not, geographically considered, of any especial importance to the world at large. But behind the clump of alders out of which it crept was a bit of pasture greensward about as big as a room. Here one might lunch in as complete seclusion as if in the Canadian woods or in the heart of Africa.
She was as eager to have him pleased as if this were some house of her planning. “It’s a better dining-place than any in town, isn’t it?” she asked.
“I should say so,” he nodded.
With her permission, he lighted a cigarette and, stretching himself out on the grass, enjoyed it as only a man can who has limited his smokes to so many a day. She sat near the brook, and she too was quite content and very comfortable.
“I don’t see why you didn’t tell me about this place before,” he observed.
“I wasn’t quite sure you’d like it here, for one thing,” she answered.
“Why not?”
“It isn’t a very gay place, is it?”
“It’s considerably gayer than my house on a Sunday,” he answered.
“It’s your own fault you don’t enjoy your house more,” she declared.
“How is it?”
“Why, it’s a wonderful thing to have a house all of your own. I used to pretend this was a house all of my own.”
“Don’t you any longer?”
She was wondering how it would be about that, now that she had allowed him to enter. Of course, she might treat him merely as a guest here; but that was difficult, because the only thing she based her sense of ownership on was the fact that no one else knew anything about the place. She shook her head.
“It’s hard to pretend anything except when you’re alone,” she answered.
He sat up.
“Then you oughtn’t to have let me come here with you.”
She smiled.
“How could I help it? You just came.”
“I know it,” he admitted. “I’m always butting in, and you ought to tell me so every now and then.”
“Would that make any difference?”
“I don’t know as it would,” he admitted. “But it might make me uncomfortable.”
“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. I think you manage to make yourself uncomfortable enough, as it is. And that’s absurd, because just being a man ought to keep you happy all the time.”
“I don’t see how you figure that,” he answered.
“Being a man is being able to do about anything you wish.”
“Don’t you believe it,” he replied. “Having money is the only thing that makes you able to do what you wish.”
“Oh, dear!” she exclaimed. “Are you going back to that ten thousand a year?”
“Pretty soon now it will be September,” he reflected irrelevantly.
“And then?”
“I had rather hoped to get it by then.”
“Well, you won’t, so you’d better forget it. I shouldn’t wonder but what you received a raise to two thousand if Farnsworth gets you out selling, and that ought to satisfy you.”
Don looked up. Somehow, every time she put it that way it did sound enough. Beside the brook it sounded like plenty.
“Look here,” he exclaimed. “Would you marry a man who was only drawing a salary of two thousand?”
For a moment the question confused her, but only for a moment.
“If I was willing to take my chance with a man,” she said, “his salary of two thousand would be the least of my troubles.”
“You mean you think two could live on that?”
“Of course they could,” she answered shortly.
“And have enough to buy clothes and all those things?”
“And put money in the bank if they weren’t two fools,” she replied.
“But look here,” he continued, clinging to the subject when it was quite evident she was willing to drop it. “I’ve heard that hats cost fifty dollars and more apiece, and gowns anywhere from two hundred to five.”
“Yes,” she nodded; “I’ve heard that.”
“Well, don’t they?” he persisted.
“I don’t remember ever getting any bill of that size,” she answered with a smile.
“What do your bills amount to?” he inquired.
Miss Winthrop hesitated a moment.
“If you want to know,” she answered finally, “this hat cost me some three dollars with the trimmings. And if I ever paid more than twenty-five dollars for a suit, I’d want some one to appoint a guardian for me.”
There certainly was a wide margin of difference here in the estimates made by two women–a difference not accounted for, as far as Don could see, in the visible results. He would have liked to continue more into details, but Miss Winthrop rose as if to put an end to this subject.
“I’m hungry,” she announced.
“Right,” he nodded. “There’s my basket over there, and I’ll let you set the table.”
Her idea had been that he was to eat his luncheon and she hers. However, she had no objection to making things ready for him. So she brought the basket over in front of him and opened it. She gave one look into it.
“Did you buy all this?” she demanded.
“Why, yes,” he answered.
She removed the napkin and saw the cold chicken.
“Didn’t you know any better, or were you just trying to see how much money you could throw away?” she inquired.
“Don’t you like chicken?”
“Yes, I like chicken,” she answered.
“There are other things underneath, and hot coffee in the bottles,” he announced.
Just to see how far he had gone, she took out the other things. She caught her breath.
“Well, it’s your own affair,” she commented. “But, if you eat all this, I’m sorry for you.”
She spread a napkin before him and placed the chicken on it, surrounding it with the tin of sardines, the boxes of crackers, the jar of marmalade, the cheese, the confectionery, and other things. Then she unrolled her own package of sandwiches, and proceeded to munch one.
“Look here!” he exclaimed. “You didn’t think I bought this all for myself?”
“I’d rather think that than to think you thought I was silly enough to want you to throw away your money.”
He was carving the chicken, and he handed her a portion upon one of the bright aluminum plates. But she shook her head in refusal.
“You aren’t going to have any of this?”
“No, thank you.”
“I call that rather too bad, because if you don’t it will be wasted.”
“It was wasted when you bought it.”
“But you didn’t tell me what to get.”
“I told you we’d each bring our own luncheon,” she reminded him.
“And so we did; but I don’t call it very friendly of you not to share with me.”
“I have quite enough of my own.”
She seemed determined about the matter, so he put all the things back again in the basket, closed and fastened the lid, and, placing it to one side, lighted a fresh cigarette. She watched him in amazement.
“Aren’t you going to eat your lunch?” she demanded.
“I refuse to eat alone.”
“I’m the one who is eating alone,” she said.
“That seems to be what you want.”
“You’ve no right to do things and then blame me for them,” she protested.
“You’re doing all the blaming yourself,” he returned.
For a moment she continued to eat her sandwich in silence and to watch his set face. She was quite sure he would remain stubborn in the stand he had taken.
“It was silly enough to buy all those expensive things, but it would be even sillier to throw them away,” she asserted.
“It would at least be too bad,” he confessed. “But I can’t help it, can I? I can’t make you eat, you know.”
There he went again, placing the whole blame on her.
“Hand me that basket,” she ordered.
He handed her the basket, and she brought out the delicacies.
“Next time I shall prepare both lunches,” she declared.
“That will be very nice,” he nodded.
CHAPTER XIX
A LETTER
Letter from Miss Frances Stuyvesant to Donald Pendleton, Esq.:–
PARIS, FRANCE, June 20.
DEAR OLD DON:–
I’m having a very good time, Don, dear, and I know you’ll be glad to hear that. Dolly has a great many friends in Paris, and so has Dad, and so has Chic. Between them all we are very gay. But it is raining to-day, and somehow I’ve been worrying about your being in town with nothing to do but work. I do hope you are taking care of yourself and running to the shore or the mountains for the week-ends.
Now I must hurry up and dress; but please remember that I am still, as always,
Your FRANCES.
CHAPTER XX
STARS
At lunch one warm Wednesday, Don suggested to Miss Winthrop that after the close of business they take a car for the beach instead of going to their respective homes.
“We can go down there, have our supper, and then get out of the crowd and smell the ocean awhile,” he said.
He had a knack for putting in a most reasonable light anything he wished to do. It was a feature of his selling gift, and she recognized it as such.
“What do you say?” he pressed her.
She blushed at her own hesitancy.
“Oh, I’ll go,” she answered.
The incident remained uppermost in her thoughts all the rest of the afternoon. If she had known about this excursion the day before, she would have put on a different shirt-waist. She had a new silk waist which was very pretty and which she had meant to wear next Sunday.
He met her at the Elevated station, but it was she who had to direct him to the proper trolley for Coney, or they might have landed anywhere along the Sound.
Stopping only long enough to buy an ice for supper and a bag of peanuts, they sought the beach. He threw himself down full length on the sand, and she sat with her hands clasped over her knees. The salt air swept her cheeks and cooled them, and the waves before her ran up the beach in play and song. This was certainly a decided improvement over such a night in her room.
“See those stars!” he exclaimed, as if this were the first time he had ever seen them.
She lifted her eyes and looked at them.
“I often look at them,” she said.
Then she laughed gently to herself.
“Do you know what I do when I’m silly enough to want jewels?” she asked.
“What?”
“I take a look at those stars, and then I don’t want jewels any more.”
“A man could give away diamonds by the handful if women would take that kind,” he exclaimed. “See that big fellow up there?” He pointed it out, and she nodded.
“I’ll give you that one,” he offered.
She laughed lightly–confidently.
“But I don’t have to come to you or to any one,” she reminded him. “I can just give it to myself.”
“That isn’t quite the same thing, is it?”
No, it was not quite the same thing. She knew it. But she was not telling all she knew.
“It’s a wonder to me you’ve never married,” he said.
She caught her breath. She had come to look for unexpected remarks from him, but this was a trifle more unexpected than usual. She tried to laugh as she usually did, but she could not laugh.
“I suppose you’ve figured out that, with all your free diamonds, you’re better off as you are,” he suggested.
She did not answer.
“Is that the way of it?” he persisted.
She tried to make her voice natural, but there was a tightening in her throat.
“I haven’t done much figuring of any kind along that line,” she said.
He was looking out to sea.
“I don’t know but what both men and women are better off unmarried,” he said.
“They aren’t,” she answered.
It was some one within her rather than she herself who spoke. He turned to look at her, but her eyes were out at sea.
“You mean that?” he said.
“I mean it,” she answered.
“Even if a man hasn’t much money?”
She turned her eyes again to the sky.
“What has money to do with the stars?” she asked.
“Do you think a man in my position has any right to ask a woman to marry him?”
“What has your position to do with it?” she asked.
“It has a lot if the woman wants five times what I’m earning,” he answered.
She gave a little startled cry. The stars swam before her.
“Oh!” she gasped. “You mean–you mean you’re thinking of some one like–like that?”
“Yes,” he answered.
He had a vague notion this was not the sort of thing one ordinarily discussed with another woman. But Miss Winthrop was different from other women: she had both experience and common sense.
“I asked her to marry me a year ago,” he said.
The stars were still swimming before her.
“And–and she said–?”
“She said she thought I ought to wait until I was earning ten thousand.”
“And that’s the reason you–you wanted the ten thousand?”
“Yes. You didn’t think I wanted it for myself, did you?”
“I didn’t know,” she answered.
It was like a load removed from his shoulders. He breathed freer.
“You’re the most sensible woman I ever met, and I thought you could help me.”
She hated that word sensible now, though when Mr. Seagraves had used it to her it had seemed like a compliment.
“You see, I had plenty of money when we were first engaged, and so it didn’t make any difference, even if she had plenty too. Then, when Dad tied up my share, why, it made things different. We talked it over and decided that ten thousand was about right; but–well, I didn’t think it would take so long to get it.”
“Where is–where is she now?” Miss Winthrop demanded.
“She went abroad in June to stay until September.”
“And left you here?”
“Of course. I couldn’t go.”
“And left you here?” she repeated.
“That’s what you get for being in business,” he explained. “We had planned to go together–on our honeymoon.”
The air was getting chill. She shivered.
“Aren’t you warm enough?” he asked.
He started to remove his jacket to throw over her shoulders, but she objected.
“I’m all right.”
“Better put it on.”
“No; I don’t want it.”
They were silent a moment, and then she said, almost complainingly:–
“As long as you couldn’t go, why didn’t she stay here with you?”
The question startled him.
“In town?” he exclaimed.
“Why didn’t she stay here and look after you?”
“Why, she couldn’t do that when she was going abroad.”
“Then she had no business to go abroad,” she answered fiercely.
“Now, look here,” he put in. “We aren’t married, you know. We’re only engaged.”
“But why aren’t you married?”
“We couldn’t afford it.”
“That isn’t true. You could afford it on half what you’re earning.”
He shook his head. “You don’t know.”
“She should have married you, and if she wanted more she should have stayed and helped you get more.”
“And helped?” he exclaimed.
She was looking up at the stars again. They were getting steadier.
“It’s the only way a woman can show–she cares.”
Then she rose. She was shivering again.
“I think we’d better go now.”
“But we haven’t been here a half-hour,” he protested.
“We’ve been here quite a long while,” she answered. “Please, I want to go home now.”
CHAPTER XXI
IN THE DARK
An hour or so later Miss Winthrop lay in her bed, where, with the door tight locked and the gas out, she could feel just the way she felt like feeling and it was nobody’s business. She cried because she wished to cry. She cried because it was the easiest and most satisfactory way she knew of relieving the tenseness in her throat. She burrowed her face in the pillow and cried hard, and then turned over on her pig-tails and sobbed awhile. It did not make any difference, here in the dark, whether the tears made lines down her face or not–whether or not they made her eyes red, and, worst of all, her nose red.
From sobbing, Miss Winthrop dwindled to sniveling, and there she stopped. She was not the kind to snivel very long–even by herself. She did not like the sound of it. So she took her wadded handkerchief and jammed it once into each eye and jabbed once at each cheek, and then, holding it tight in her clenched fist, made up her mind to stop. For a minute or two an occasional sob broke through spasmodically; but finally even that ceased, and she was able to stare at the ceiling quite steadily. By that time she was able to call herself a little fool, which was a very good beginning for rational thinking.
There was considerable material upon which to base a pretty fair argument along this line. Admitting that Don Pendleton was what she had been crying about,–a purely hypothetical assumption for the sake of a beginning,–she was able to start with the premise that a woman was a fool for crying about any man. Coming down to concrete facts, she found herself supplied with even less comforting excuses. If she had been living of late in a little fool’s paradise, why, she had made it for herself. She could not accuse him of having any other part in it than that of merely being there. If she went back a month, or three months, or almost a year, she saw herself either taking the initiative or, what was just as bad, passively submitting. Of course, her motive had been merely to help him in an impersonal sort of way. She had seen that he needed help, but she had not dreamed the reason for it. She had no warning that he had been deserted by her who should have helped him. She had no way of knowing about this other. Surely that ignorance was not her fault.
Here is where she jabbed her handkerchief again into each eye and lay back on her pig-tails long enough to get a fresh grip upon herself. Her skin grew hot, then cold, then hot again. It really had all been more the fault of this other than Mr. Pendleton’s. She had no business to go away and leave him for some one else to care for. She had no business to leave him, anyway. She ought to have married him away back when he first went to work to make a fortune for her. Why didn’t she take the money it cost to go to Europe and spend it on him? She had let a whole year go wasted, when she had such an opportunity as this! Here was a house waiting for her; here was Don waiting for her; and she had gone to Europe!
To put one’s self in another’s place–in a place of so delicate a nature as this–is a dangerous business, but Miss Winthrop did not do it deliberately. Lying there in the dark, her imagination swept her on. The thought that remained uppermost in her mind was the chance this other girl had missed. She would never have it again. In the fall Don would receive his raise and be sent out to sell, and after that his career was assured. It remained only for him to hold steady–an easy matter after the first year–and his income was bound to increase by thousand-dollar jumps until he won his ten thousand and more. And with that there was not very much left, as far as she could see, for a woman to do. The big fight would be all over. A woman could no longer claim a partnership; she would simply be bought.
If last fall she had had the chance of that other, she would have had him out selling a month ago. Give her a year or two, and she would have him in that firm or some other. She could do it. She felt the power that minute.
This raised a new question. What was she to do from now on? Until now she had had the excuse of ignorance; but there was still another month before Don’s fiancée would be back. And this month would count a whole lot to him. It was the deciding month. Farnsworth had been watching him closely, and had about made up his mind; but he was still on the alert for any break. He had seen men go so far and then break. So had she. It was common enough. She herself had every confidence in Don, but she was doubtful about how long it was wise to leave even him alone. Men could not stand being alone as well as women. They had not the same experience. It took a special kind of nerve to be alone and remain straight.
Well, supposing he did break, what was that to her, now that she knew about this other? Here was a perfectly fair and just question. The man had made his selection and given over his future into the care of the woman of his choice, and she alone was responsible. There could be no dispute about this. It was a fair question; and yet, as soon as she framed it, she recognized it as unworthy of her. Furthermore, it led to an extremely dangerous deduction–namely, that her interest, after all, was not entirely impersonal; for if it were what difference did one woman or twenty other women make in her relations with him? To put the matter bluntly, she was acting exactly as if she were in love with him herself!
When Miss Winthrop faced that astounding fact she felt exactly as if her heart stopped beating for a full minute. Then it started again as if trying to make up for the lapse in a couple of breaths. She gasped for breath and, throwing off the bedclothes, jumped up and lighted the gas. Here was something to be met in the light. But, as soon as she caught sight of her flushed cheeks and her staring eyes, she hurriedly turned out the gas again and climbed back into bed. Here she lay like some trapped thing, panting and helpless. Over and over again she whispered, “I’m not! I’m not!” as if some one were bending over her and taunting her with the statement. Then she whispered, “It isn’t true! Oh, it isn’t true!” She denied it fiercely–vehemently. She threw an arm over her eyes even there in the dark.
It was such an absurd accusation! If she had been one of those silly, helpless creatures with nothing else to do in life but fall in love, it might have had some point; but here she was, a self-respecting, self-supporting girl who had seen enough of men to know distinctly better than to do anything so foolish. It had been the confidence born of this knowledge that had allowed her from the start to take an impersonal interest in the man. And the proof of this was that she had so conducted herself that he had not fallen in love with her.
Then what in the world was she crying about and making such a fuss about? She asked herself that, and, with her lips firm together, determined that the best answer was to do no more crying and make no more fuss. So she settled back again upon her pig-tails, and stared at the ceiling and stared at the ceiling and stared at the ceiling.
