The Conflict [44]
buying a foolish chin-strap of a beauty quack and consulting him as to whether, if her hair continued to gray, she would better take to peroxide or to henna.
Jane had come down that day with a severe lecture on fat and wrinkles laid out in her mind for energetic delivery to the fast-seeding Martha. She put off the lecture and allowed the time to be used by Martha in telling Jane what were her (Jane's) strongest and less strong--not weaker but less strong, points of physical charm.
It was cool and beautiful in the shade of the big gardens behind the old Galland house. Jane, listening to Martha's honest and just compliments and to the faint murmurs of the city's dusty, sweaty toil, had a delicious sense of the superiority of her lot--a feeling that somehow there must be something in the theory of rightfully superior and inferior classes--that in taking what she had not earned she was not robbing those who had earned it, as her reason so often asserted, but was being supported by the toil of others for high purposes of aesthetic beauty. Anyhow, why heat one's self wrestling with these problems?
When she was sure that Victor Dorn must have returned she called him on the telephone. ``Can't you come out to see me to-night?'' said she. ``I've something important--something YOU'LL think important-- to consult you about.'' She felt a refusal forming at the other end of the wire and hastened to add: ``You must know I'd not ask this if I weren't certain you would be glad you came.''
``Why not drop in here when you're down town?'' suggested Victor.
She wondered why she did not hang up the receiver and forget him.
But she did not. She murmured, ``In due time I'll punish you for this, sir,'' and said to him: ``There are reasons why it's impossible for me to go there just now. And you know I can't meet you in a saloon or on a street corner.''
``I'm not so sure of that,'' laughed he. ``Let me see. I'm very busy. But I could come for half an hour this afternoon.''
She had planned an evening session, being well aware of the favorable qualities of air and light after the matter-of-fact sun has withdrawn his last rays. But she promptly decided to accept what offered. ``At three?''
``At four,'' replied he.
``You haven't forgotten those books?''
``Books? Oh, yes--yes, I remember. I'll bring them.''
``Thank you so much,'' said she sweetly. ``Good-by.''
And at four she was waiting for him on the front veranda in a house dress that was--well, it was not quite the proper costume for such an occasion, but no one else was to see, and he didn't know about that sort of thing--and the gown gave her charms their best possible exposure except evening dress, which was out of the question. She had not long to wait. One of the clocks within hearing had struck and another was just beginning to strike when she saw him coming toward the house. She furtively watched him, admiring his walk without quite knowing why. You may perhaps know the walk that was Victor's--a steady forward advance of the whole body held firmly, almost rigidly --the walk of a man leading another to the scaffold, or of a man being led there in conscious innocence, or of a man ready to go wherever his purposes may order--ready to go without any heroics or fuss of any kind, but simply in the course of the day's business. When a man walks like that, he is worth observing-- and it is well to think twice before obstructing his way.
That steady, inevitable advance gave Jane Hastings an absurd feeling of nervousness. She had an impulse to fly, as from some oncoming danger. Yet what was coming, in fact? A clever young man of the working class, dressed in garments of the kind his class dressed in on Sunday, and plebeianly carrying a bundle under his arm.
``Our clock says you are three seconds late,'' cried she, laughing and extending her hand in a friendly, equal way that would have immensely flattered almost any man of her own class. ``But another protests that you are one second early.''
``I'm one of those fools who waste
Jane had come down that day with a severe lecture on fat and wrinkles laid out in her mind for energetic delivery to the fast-seeding Martha. She put off the lecture and allowed the time to be used by Martha in telling Jane what were her (Jane's) strongest and less strong--not weaker but less strong, points of physical charm.
It was cool and beautiful in the shade of the big gardens behind the old Galland house. Jane, listening to Martha's honest and just compliments and to the faint murmurs of the city's dusty, sweaty toil, had a delicious sense of the superiority of her lot--a feeling that somehow there must be something in the theory of rightfully superior and inferior classes--that in taking what she had not earned she was not robbing those who had earned it, as her reason so often asserted, but was being supported by the toil of others for high purposes of aesthetic beauty. Anyhow, why heat one's self wrestling with these problems?
When she was sure that Victor Dorn must have returned she called him on the telephone. ``Can't you come out to see me to-night?'' said she. ``I've something important--something YOU'LL think important-- to consult you about.'' She felt a refusal forming at the other end of the wire and hastened to add: ``You must know I'd not ask this if I weren't certain you would be glad you came.''
``Why not drop in here when you're down town?'' suggested Victor.
She wondered why she did not hang up the receiver and forget him.
But she did not. She murmured, ``In due time I'll punish you for this, sir,'' and said to him: ``There are reasons why it's impossible for me to go there just now. And you know I can't meet you in a saloon or on a street corner.''
``I'm not so sure of that,'' laughed he. ``Let me see. I'm very busy. But I could come for half an hour this afternoon.''
She had planned an evening session, being well aware of the favorable qualities of air and light after the matter-of-fact sun has withdrawn his last rays. But she promptly decided to accept what offered. ``At three?''
``At four,'' replied he.
``You haven't forgotten those books?''
``Books? Oh, yes--yes, I remember. I'll bring them.''
``Thank you so much,'' said she sweetly. ``Good-by.''
And at four she was waiting for him on the front veranda in a house dress that was--well, it was not quite the proper costume for such an occasion, but no one else was to see, and he didn't know about that sort of thing--and the gown gave her charms their best possible exposure except evening dress, which was out of the question. She had not long to wait. One of the clocks within hearing had struck and another was just beginning to strike when she saw him coming toward the house. She furtively watched him, admiring his walk without quite knowing why. You may perhaps know the walk that was Victor's--a steady forward advance of the whole body held firmly, almost rigidly --the walk of a man leading another to the scaffold, or of a man being led there in conscious innocence, or of a man ready to go wherever his purposes may order--ready to go without any heroics or fuss of any kind, but simply in the course of the day's business. When a man walks like that, he is worth observing-- and it is well to think twice before obstructing his way.
That steady, inevitable advance gave Jane Hastings an absurd feeling of nervousness. She had an impulse to fly, as from some oncoming danger. Yet what was coming, in fact? A clever young man of the working class, dressed in garments of the kind his class dressed in on Sunday, and plebeianly carrying a bundle under his arm.
``Our clock says you are three seconds late,'' cried she, laughing and extending her hand in a friendly, equal way that would have immensely flattered almost any man of her own class. ``But another protests that you are one second early.''
``I'm one of those fools who waste