U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [397]
box dizzingly the compass
-126-MARY FRENCH
For several weeks the announcement of a lecture had caught Mary French's eye as she hurried past the bul etin-board at Hul House: May 15 G. H. Barrow, Europe: Problems of Postwar Reconstruction. The name teased her memory but it wasn't until she actual y saw him come into the lecturehal that she remembered that he was the nice skinny redfaced lecturer who talked about how it was the workingclass that would keep the country out of war at Vassar that winter. It was the same sincere hesitant voice with a little stutter in the beginning of the sentences some-times, the same informal way of stalking up and down the lecturehal and sitting on the table beside the waterpitcher with his legs crossed. At the reception afterwards she didn't let on that she'd met him before. When they were intro-duced she was happy to be able to give him some informa-tion he wanted about the chances exsoldiers had of finding jobs in the Chicago area. Next morning Mary French was al of a fluster when she was cal ed to the phone and there was Mr. Barrow's voice asking her if she could spare him an hour that afternoon as he'd been asked by Washington to get some unofficial information for a certain bureau.
"You see, I thought you would be able to give me the real truth because you are in daily contact with the actual peo-ple." She said she'd be delighted and he said would she meet him in the lobby of the Auditorium at five.
At four she was up in her room curling her hair, won-dering what dress to wear, trying to decide whether she'd go without her glasses or not. Mr. Barrow was so nice. They had such an interesting talk about the employment situation which was not at al a bright picture and when Mr. Barrow asked her to go to supper with him at a little Italian place he knew in the Loop she found herself say-ing yes without a quiver in spite of the fact that she hadn't
-127-been out to dinner with a man since she left Colorado Springs after her father's death three years ago. She felt somehow that she'd known Mr. Barrow for years. Stil she was a bit surprised at the toughlooking place with sawdust on the floor he took her to, and that they sold liquor there and that he seemed to expect her to drink a cocktail. He drank several cocktails himself and ordered red wine. She turned down the cocktails but did sip a little of the wine not to seem too oldfashioned. "I admit," he said,
"that I'm reaching the age where I have to have a drink to clear the work out of my head and let me relax.
. . . That was the great thing about the other side . . . having wine with your meals. . . . They real y under-stand the art of life over there." After they'd had their spumoni Mr. Barrow ordered
himself brandy and she drank the bitter black coffee and they sat in the stuffy noisy restaurant smel y of garlic and sour wine and tomatosauce and sawdust and forgot the time and talked. She said she'd taken up socialservice work to be in touch with something real but now she was be-ginning to feel coopedup and so institutional that she often wondered if she wouldn't have done better to join the Red Cross overseas or the Friends Reconstruction Unit as so many of the girls had but she so hated war that she didn't want to do anything to help even in the most peaceful way. If she'd been a man she would have been a C.O., she knew that.
Mr. Barrow frowned and cleared his throat: "Of course I suppose they were sincere, but they were very much mistaken and probably deserved what they got.""Do you stil ,think so?""Yes, dear girl, I do. . . . Now we can ask for anything; nobody can refuse us, wages, the closed shop, the eighthour day. But it was hard differing with old friends . . . my attitude was much misunderstood in cer-tain quarters. . . ."
-128-"But you can't think it's right to give them these dread-ful jail sentences."
"That's just to scare the others. . . . You'l see they'l be getting out as soon as the excitement quiets down . . . Debs's pardon is expected any day."
"I should hope so," said Mary.
"Poor Debs," said Mr.