The Conflict [50]
with a girl like Selma Gordon, you look down on me.''
``Don't you, yourself, feel that any woman who is self-supporting and free is your superior?''
``In some moods, I do,'' replied Jane. ``In other moods, I feel as I was brought up to feel.''
They talked on and on, she detaining him without seeming to do so. She felt proud of her adroitness. But the truth was that his stopping on for nearly two hours was almost altogether a tribute to her physical charm--though Victor was unconscious of it. When the afternoon was drawing on toward the time for her father to come, she reluctantly let him go. She said:
``But you'll come again?''
``I can't do that,'' replied he regretfully. ``I could not come to your father's house and continue free. I must be able to say what I honestly think, without any restraint.''
``I understand,'' said she. ``And I want you to say and to write what you believe to be true and right. But--we'll see each other again. I'm sure we are going to be friends.''
His expression as he bade her good-by told her that she had won his respect and his liking. She had a suspicion that she did not deserve either; but she was full of good resolutions, and assured herself she soon would be what she had pretended--that her pretenses were not exactly false, only somewhat premature.
At dinner that evening she said to her father:
``I think I ought to do something beside enjoy myself. I've decided to go down among the poor people and see whether I can't help them in some way.''
``You'd better keep away from that part of town,'' advised her father. ``They live awful dirty, and you might catch some disease. If you want to do anything for the poor, send a check to our minister or to the charity society. There's two kinds of poor--those that are working hard and saving their money and getting up out of the dirt, and those that haven't got no spunk or get-up. The first kind don't need help, and the second don't deserve it.''
``But there are the children, popsy,'' urged Jane. ``The children of the no-account poor ought to have a chance.''
``I don't reckon there ever was a more shiftless, do-easy pair than my father and mother,'' rejoined Martin Hastings. ``They were what set me to jumping.''
She saw that his view was hopelessly narrow--that, while he regarded himself justly as an extraordinary man, he also, for purposes of prejudice and selfishness, regarded his own achievements in overcoming what would have been hopeless handicaps to any but a giant in character and in physical endurance as an instance of what any one could do if he would but work. She never argued with him when she wished to carry her point. She now said:
``It seems to me that, in our own interest, we ought to do what we can to make the poor live better. As you say, it's positively dangerous to go about in the tenement part of town--and those people are always coming among us. For instance, our servants have relatives living in Cooper Street, where there's a pest of consumption.''
Old Hastings nodded. ``That's part of Davy Hull's reform programme,'' said he. ``And I'm in favor of it. The city government ought to make them people clean up.''
``Victor Dorn wants that done, too--doesn't he?'' said Jane.
``No,'' replied the old man sourly. ``He says it's no use to clean up the slums unless you raise wages--and that then the slum people'd clean themselves up. The idea of giving those worthless trash more money to spend for beer and whisky and finery for their fool daughters. Why, they don't earn what we give 'em now.''
Jane couldn't resist the temptation to say, ``I guess the laziest of them earn more than Davy Hull or I.''
``Because some gets more than they earn ain't a reason why others should.'' He grinned. ``Maybe you and Davy ought to have less, but Victor Dorn and his riff-raff oughtn't to be pampered. . . . Do you want me to cut your allowance down?''
She was ready for him. ``If you can get as satisfactory a housekeeper for less, you're a fool to overpay the one you have.''
``Don't you, yourself, feel that any woman who is self-supporting and free is your superior?''
``In some moods, I do,'' replied Jane. ``In other moods, I feel as I was brought up to feel.''
They talked on and on, she detaining him without seeming to do so. She felt proud of her adroitness. But the truth was that his stopping on for nearly two hours was almost altogether a tribute to her physical charm--though Victor was unconscious of it. When the afternoon was drawing on toward the time for her father to come, she reluctantly let him go. She said:
``But you'll come again?''
``I can't do that,'' replied he regretfully. ``I could not come to your father's house and continue free. I must be able to say what I honestly think, without any restraint.''
``I understand,'' said she. ``And I want you to say and to write what you believe to be true and right. But--we'll see each other again. I'm sure we are going to be friends.''
His expression as he bade her good-by told her that she had won his respect and his liking. She had a suspicion that she did not deserve either; but she was full of good resolutions, and assured herself she soon would be what she had pretended--that her pretenses were not exactly false, only somewhat premature.
At dinner that evening she said to her father:
``I think I ought to do something beside enjoy myself. I've decided to go down among the poor people and see whether I can't help them in some way.''
``You'd better keep away from that part of town,'' advised her father. ``They live awful dirty, and you might catch some disease. If you want to do anything for the poor, send a check to our minister or to the charity society. There's two kinds of poor--those that are working hard and saving their money and getting up out of the dirt, and those that haven't got no spunk or get-up. The first kind don't need help, and the second don't deserve it.''
``But there are the children, popsy,'' urged Jane. ``The children of the no-account poor ought to have a chance.''
``I don't reckon there ever was a more shiftless, do-easy pair than my father and mother,'' rejoined Martin Hastings. ``They were what set me to jumping.''
She saw that his view was hopelessly narrow--that, while he regarded himself justly as an extraordinary man, he also, for purposes of prejudice and selfishness, regarded his own achievements in overcoming what would have been hopeless handicaps to any but a giant in character and in physical endurance as an instance of what any one could do if he would but work. She never argued with him when she wished to carry her point. She now said:
``It seems to me that, in our own interest, we ought to do what we can to make the poor live better. As you say, it's positively dangerous to go about in the tenement part of town--and those people are always coming among us. For instance, our servants have relatives living in Cooper Street, where there's a pest of consumption.''
Old Hastings nodded. ``That's part of Davy Hull's reform programme,'' said he. ``And I'm in favor of it. The city government ought to make them people clean up.''
``Victor Dorn wants that done, too--doesn't he?'' said Jane.
``No,'' replied the old man sourly. ``He says it's no use to clean up the slums unless you raise wages--and that then the slum people'd clean themselves up. The idea of giving those worthless trash more money to spend for beer and whisky and finery for their fool daughters. Why, they don't earn what we give 'em now.''
Jane couldn't resist the temptation to say, ``I guess the laziest of them earn more than Davy Hull or I.''
``Because some gets more than they earn ain't a reason why others should.'' He grinned. ``Maybe you and Davy ought to have less, but Victor Dorn and his riff-raff oughtn't to be pampered. . . . Do you want me to cut your allowance down?''
She was ready for him. ``If you can get as satisfactory a housekeeper for less, you're a fool to overpay the one you have.''