The Conflict [19]
at home long and did not realize what she was doing.
What should she wear?
Her instinct was for an elaborate toilet--a descent in state--or such state as the extremely limited resources of Martin Hastings' stables would permit. The traps he had ordered for her had not yet come; she had been glad to accept David Hull's offer of a lift the night before. Still, without a carriage or a motor she could make quite an impression with a Paris walking dress and hat, properly supported by fashionable accessories of the toilet.
Good sense and good taste forbade these promptings of nature. No, she would dress most simply--in her very plainest things--taking care to maintain all her advantages of face and figure. If she overwhelmed Dorn and Miss Gordon, she would defeat her own purpose--would not become acquainted with them.
In the end she rejected both courses and decided for the riding costume. The reason she gave for this decision-- the reason she gave herself--was that the riding costume would invest the call with an air of accident, of impulse. The real reason.
It may be that some feminine reader can guess why she chose the most startling, the most gracefully becoming, the most artlessly physical apparel in her wardrobe.
She said nothing to her father at lunch about her plans. Why should she speak of them? He might oppose; also, she might change her mind. After lunch she set out on her usual ride, galloping away into the hills--but she had put twenty-five dollars in bills in her trousers pocket. She rode until she felt that her color was at its best, and then she made for town--a swift, direct ride, her heart beating high as if she were upon a most daring and fateful adventure. And, as a matter of fact, never in her life had she done anything that so intensely interested her. She felt that she was for the first time slackening rein upon those unconventional instincts, of unknown strength and purpose, which had been making her restless with their vague stirrings.
``How silly of me!'' she thought. ``I'm doing a commonplace, rather common thing--and I'm trying to make it seem a daring, romantic adventure. I MUST be hard up for excitement!''
Toward the middle of the afternoon she dropped from her horse before the office of the New Day and gave a boy the bridle. ``I'll be back in a minute,'' she explained. It was a two-story frame building, dingy and in disrepair. On the street floor was a grocery. Access to the New Day was by a rickety stairway. As she ascended this, making a great noise on its unsteady boards with her boots, she began to feel cheap and foolish. She recalled what Hull had said in the carriage. ``No doubt,'' replied she, ``I'd feel much the same way if I were going to see Jesus Christ--a carpenter's son, sitting in some hovel, talking with his friends the fishermen and camel drivers--not to speak of the women.''
The New Day occupied two small rooms--an editorial work room, and a printing work room behind it. Jane Hastings, in the doorway at the head of the stairs, was seeing all there was to see. In the editorial room were two tables--kitchen tables, littered with papers and journals, as was the floor, also. At the table directly opposite the door no one was sitting-- ``Victor Dorn's desk,'' Jane decided. At the table by the open window sat a girl, bent over her writing. Jane saw that the figure was below, probably much below, the medium height for woman, that it was slight and strong, that it was clad in a simple, clean gray linen dress. The girl's black hair, drawn into a plain but distinctly graceful knot, was of that dense and wavy thickness which is a characteristic and a beauty of the Hebrew race. The skin at the nape of her neck, on her hands, on her arms bare to the elbows was of a beautiful dead-white--the skin that so admirably compliments dead-black hair.
Before disturbing this busy writer Jane glanced round. There was nothing to detain her in the view of the busy printing plant in the room beyond. But on the walls of the room before her were four
What should she wear?
Her instinct was for an elaborate toilet--a descent in state--or such state as the extremely limited resources of Martin Hastings' stables would permit. The traps he had ordered for her had not yet come; she had been glad to accept David Hull's offer of a lift the night before. Still, without a carriage or a motor she could make quite an impression with a Paris walking dress and hat, properly supported by fashionable accessories of the toilet.
Good sense and good taste forbade these promptings of nature. No, she would dress most simply--in her very plainest things--taking care to maintain all her advantages of face and figure. If she overwhelmed Dorn and Miss Gordon, she would defeat her own purpose--would not become acquainted with them.
In the end she rejected both courses and decided for the riding costume. The reason she gave for this decision-- the reason she gave herself--was that the riding costume would invest the call with an air of accident, of impulse. The real reason.
It may be that some feminine reader can guess why she chose the most startling, the most gracefully becoming, the most artlessly physical apparel in her wardrobe.
She said nothing to her father at lunch about her plans. Why should she speak of them? He might oppose; also, she might change her mind. After lunch she set out on her usual ride, galloping away into the hills--but she had put twenty-five dollars in bills in her trousers pocket. She rode until she felt that her color was at its best, and then she made for town--a swift, direct ride, her heart beating high as if she were upon a most daring and fateful adventure. And, as a matter of fact, never in her life had she done anything that so intensely interested her. She felt that she was for the first time slackening rein upon those unconventional instincts, of unknown strength and purpose, which had been making her restless with their vague stirrings.
``How silly of me!'' she thought. ``I'm doing a commonplace, rather common thing--and I'm trying to make it seem a daring, romantic adventure. I MUST be hard up for excitement!''
Toward the middle of the afternoon she dropped from her horse before the office of the New Day and gave a boy the bridle. ``I'll be back in a minute,'' she explained. It was a two-story frame building, dingy and in disrepair. On the street floor was a grocery. Access to the New Day was by a rickety stairway. As she ascended this, making a great noise on its unsteady boards with her boots, she began to feel cheap and foolish. She recalled what Hull had said in the carriage. ``No doubt,'' replied she, ``I'd feel much the same way if I were going to see Jesus Christ--a carpenter's son, sitting in some hovel, talking with his friends the fishermen and camel drivers--not to speak of the women.''
The New Day occupied two small rooms--an editorial work room, and a printing work room behind it. Jane Hastings, in the doorway at the head of the stairs, was seeing all there was to see. In the editorial room were two tables--kitchen tables, littered with papers and journals, as was the floor, also. At the table directly opposite the door no one was sitting-- ``Victor Dorn's desk,'' Jane decided. At the table by the open window sat a girl, bent over her writing. Jane saw that the figure was below, probably much below, the medium height for woman, that it was slight and strong, that it was clad in a simple, clean gray linen dress. The girl's black hair, drawn into a plain but distinctly graceful knot, was of that dense and wavy thickness which is a characteristic and a beauty of the Hebrew race. The skin at the nape of her neck, on her hands, on her arms bare to the elbows was of a beautiful dead-white--the skin that so admirably compliments dead-black hair.
Before disturbing this busy writer Jane glanced round. There was nothing to detain her in the view of the busy printing plant in the room beyond. But on the walls of the room before her were four