Chapter SEVEN: I (2)

“You have a genius for that kind of thing, my dear; you managed that beautifully,” said Miss Reynolds to Grace as they assisted in pouring chocolate and passing sandwiches. “You saved the evening! Dear me! There’s something wrong with this. As an effort to interest young people in the church this club can’t say much for itself. Girls won’t go where there are no young men; I imagine young men are not easy to lure into church parlors to hear poetry read to them, particularly poetry that doesn’t mean anything. And this cellar and the piano and drum can’t compete with a big dance hall and a real jazz band. This has been going on about like this for several years, but without as many girls as came tonight. I don’t know what could be done, but this doesn’t seem worth while.”

“I don’t know the answer either,” said Grace, who, more or less consciously, was observing this attempt to do something for working girls with reference to her own problems. Her reading had made her familiar with the efforts of church organizations to meet the social needs of the changing times. It seemed to her that these all presupposed a degree of aspiration in the class sought to be helped. And knowing herself to have enjoyed probably the best opportunities as to education of any girl in the room she was troubled, knowing how feeble was her hold on such ideals of conduct as only a little while ago she had believed herself to possess.

“Maybe,” said Miss Reynolds, “those people are right who say we’re running too much to organizations. We start a club like this and stick it in a church basement and are terribly pleased with ourselves. These girls are all good girls; naughty girls wouldn’t come; they can have a better time somewhere else. And they’re just the ones we’ve got to reach. Am I right about that?”

“I think you are,” replied Grace, wondering what Miss Reynolds would say if she could read her thoughts. To drop Trenton while it was still possible would make it necessary to reconcile herself to the acceptance of just such pleasures as Ethel thought sufficient social stimulus for girls who worked for a living.

“Why don’t the church members come to these meetings?” Miss Reynolds demanded, “or send their sons and daughters? The minister of this church has sense and I’ll wager he sees that side of it. A miserable thing like this only strengthens class feeling. I don’t believe there’s any way of making such a club go. The church is put in the position of tagging the rich and the poor so nobody can mistake one for the other. I think I’ll spend my time and money on individual cases--find a few young people who really need help and concentrate on them!”

At eleven o’clock the musicians left and the entertainment came to an end.

“I’m so grateful to you, Grace, for helping; this is the best meeting we’ve ever had,” said Ethel after she had pressed a folder describing the church’s activities upon the last of the company. “Don’t you think our work well worth while, Miss Reynolds?”

“I was greatly interested,” Miss Reynolds replied evasively.

She took Grace and Ethel home in her car but did not encourage Ethel’s attempt to discuss the evening. However, in bidding Ethel good-night she said she would send her a check for one hundred dollars for the girls’ club.

“Your work is important, Miss Durland; I sympathize with the purpose; but I don’t think you’ve got quite the right plan. But I confess that I have no suggestion worth offering. I realize that it’s not easy to solve these problems.”

VI

Grace was not happy! Much as she tried to avoid the flat conclusion, the best she could do was to twist it into a question. Love was a worthless thing if its effect was merely to torture, to inflict pain. She had told Trenton that she loved him and had virtually agreed to accept him on his own terms. Why, as the days passed, was she still doubting, questioning, challenging her love for him?

At the end of a rainy day that had been full of exasperations Grace left the store to take the trolley home. The rain had turned to sleet that beat spitefully upon her umbrella and the sidewalks were a mass of slush. She was dreading the passage home in the crowded car and the evening spent in her room, thinking of Trenton, fashioning her daily letter. She had begun to hate her room where every object seemed to be an animate, malevolent embodiment of some evil thought. She had half decided to persuade her father to brave the weather and return down town after supper to go to a picture show when, turning the corner, she heard her name called.

“Hello, there, Grace!”

“Why, Bob, is it you?” she cried peering out at Cummings from under her umbrella.

He took her umbrella and fell into step with her.

“Don’t look so scared; of course it’s I. Frankly this isn’t just chance alone; I’ve been lying in ambush!”

“This will never do!” she cried, but in spite of herself she was unable to throw any resentment into her tone.

“I’ve got a grand idea!” he said. “I’m playing hooky tonight. Evelyn called me up this afternoon to ask if I’d go to dine with an uncle of hers who’s having a birthday. These family parties are bad enough at Christmas and Thanksgiving but when they begin ringing in birthdays I buck. So I told Evelyn I was too tired to go and that I had a business engagement anyhow, and would get my dinner down town.”

“Do you realize that I’m getting wet? You beat it for your family party; I’m going home.”

“Please, Grace, don’t desert me!” he replied coaxingly. “Let’s have a cozy supper together and I’ll get you home early.”

“I told you I’d never see you again!” she said indignantly. “You have no excuse for waylaying me like this. It’s unpardonable!”

“Don’t be so cruel!” he pleaded. “I’ll be awfully nice--honestly I will! You won’t have a thing to be sorry for.”

Firm as her resolution had been not to see him again she was weighing the relief it would be to avoid going home against the danger of encouraging him.

“Where are your manners, sir? You haven’t even offered to drive me home.”

“God pity us homeless children in the great city tonight!” he cried, aware that she was relenting. “My car’s parked yonder by the Sycamore Tavern. The night invites the adventurous spirit. We’ll dare the elements and ride hard and fast like king’s messengers.”

“Will you keep that up--just that way--pretending we’re two kids cutting up, as we used to do?”

“Of course, Grace; you may count on it.”

“Well, I’m tired and bored with myself, and was dreading the ride home--I’ll go! But whither?”

“To McGovern’s house of refreshment at the border of a greenwood, known to Robin Hood in olden times!” cried Cummings, elated by her consent. “We’ll stop at the Sycamore and I’ll telephone the varlet to make the coffee hot.”

“I supped there once, years agone! But the crowd was large and boisterous,” she replied, now entering fully into the spirit of the proposed adventure. Their attempt at archaic speech recalled their youthful delight in the Arthurian legends in days when their world was enfolded in a golden haze of romance.

It was impossible to think of Cummings otherwise than as a boy, and a foolish boy, but amusing when the humor was on him as now, and to have supper with him would work injury to no one.

While he talked to McGovern she went into a booth and explained to her mother that she wouldn’t be home for supper, saying that she was going to a movie with a girl friend.

“All set?” asked Cummings. “That’s fine. We’ll move right along. You’ll be in early; that’s a cinch. Evelyn’s sure to be home by ten and I’ll be practising Chopin furiously when she gets back from her uncle’s. Mac wasn’t keen about taking us in as he shuts down at the first frost. But that’s all the better; nobody else would think of going there on such a night!”

They were planning with much absurd detail the strategy of their approach to a beleaguered capital when they reached McGovern’s and were warmly welcomed by the proprietor.

“It gets mighty lonesome out here in the winter,” he said. “The missus thought you’d like having supper right here in the living room so you could sort o’ chum with the fire.”

“That’s a heavenly idea,” said Grace, eyeing the table with covers laid for two. Mrs. McGovern, a stout woman whose face shone with good nature, appeared and bade her husband help bring in the dishes. Whereupon Cummings and Grace rushed to the kitchen to assist and filed in behind him, bearing serving dishes and singing a song they had learned in their childhood:

“It’s over the river to feed the sheep,
It’s over the river to Charlie;
It’s over the river to feed the sheep
And measure out the barley!”

VII

The wind whined in the chimney and somewhere a shutter banged spitefully.

“That’s the only touch we needed to make a perfect evening!” said Grace, her cheeks glowing. “I expect to hear a stage coach come tearing into the yard any minute pursued by highwaymen. How did you ever come to think of McGovern’s?”

“Just one of my little happy thoughts! Now that we’ve found the way there’s no reason why we can’t repeat,” said Cummings.

“There you go! This doesn’t establish a precedent; it belongs to those experiences it’s better never to try again. But, it’s certainly jolly so far as we’ve gone. What if somebody should come prancing in?”

“It’s not a good night for prancing. McGovern said there hadn’t been a soul here for a week. That’s why he let us come, I suppose.”

“I can think of certain persons who wouldn’t add much to the joy of this particular party,” said Grace musingly.

“A little danger adds to the fun! You seem to forget that I thought it all up; I’m ready to go right on round the world!”

“Yes, you are!” she retorted teasingly. “It sounds awful but sometimes I think it’s cowardice that keeps most of us good! If you were a philosopher I’d ask your opinion on that subject but I see you haven’t a ghost of an idea!”

He frowned. There had always been a serious side to Grace. In her high school days she was constantly dipping into books that were beyond her, treatises on social science and the like that only depressed him. He didn’t know, of course, how eagerly she had caught at the opportunity of spending the evening with him merely to enjoy a few hours freedom from the turmoil of her own soul. It interested her for a moment to sound him as to whether by any chance he was conscious of the general transformation of things or knew that their visit to McGovern’s in itself had a significance; but he was a dreamer who responded only to the harmonies of life and avoided all its discords. He was caught up in the whirligig of apparently changing conditions just as she knew herself to be. Were they really breaking down the old barriers? Or was the world, aided by gasoline and jazz, moving so rapidly that in the mad rush it required a more alert eye to discern the danger signs?

The fact that she was eating supper with another woman’s husband in a place frankly chosen for its isolation interested her, as so many social phenomena had interested her since she left the University.

“Oh, thunder!” he said with a shrug. “There’s no use in our worrying. Let the old folks do that. I guess we’ve all got a right to be happy and tastes differ as to what happiness is. That’s all.”

This, of course, wasn’t all, but she refrained from saying so. A look came into his eyes that warned her to have a care. She must guard herself from an attempt on his part, which she saw was impending, to take advantage of the hour to make love to her.

“Grace,” he resumed, “every time I get blue it’s you I want to see.”

“Tush, tush! I’d never have come if I’d thought you were going to be foolish. Don’t you get the notion into your silly head that you can run to me every time you get down in the mouth. There’s no reason why I should hold your hand when you’re sorrowful; I don’t want the job!”

She was eating with an honest appetite that discouraged his hope of interesting her in sentiment.

“Wow! I thought you’d jump at the offer!”

“Have another biscuit! I want to laugh! How silly this is, Bob! I supposed you brought me out here to show me a good time and we’re almost at the point of quarreling.”

“Now, Grace, we’ll never do that! I didn’t think you’d mind the compliment! But,” dolefully, “I suppose you get so many!”

He became tractable, obedient, anxious to please her. She knew that she could do with him very much as she pleased; but there was no satisfaction in the exercise of her power over so unstable a character. She was sorry for him, much as she would have been sorry for a child who never quite learned his lessons; and there were lessons Bob Cummings would never learn.

After they had eaten their dessert they started the victrola and danced, and Bob was again the good play-fellow. They began burlesquing classic dances, and laughed so boisterously at their success in making themselves ridiculous that McGovern and his wife came in to watch them. They had brought themselves to a high pitch of merriment when McGovern, who was assisting his wife in clearing the table, darted across the room and stopped the music.

“Good Lord; it’s some one knocking!” cried Bob, as the outer door shook under a heavy thumping.

“Just keep quiet,” said McGovern. “I guess it’s some one who’s got into trouble on the road.”

“People stop for a little gas to help ’em out sometimes,” said Mrs. McGovern. “Mac’ll get rid of ’em.”

McGovern, with his shoulder against the door threw a look of inquiry at Cummings and Grace. Cummings lifted his head as the voice again demanded admittance.

“Sounds like Atwood,--a chap I know,” he said to Grace. “Who’s with him, Mac?”

As McGovern opened the door a few grudging inches a male voice called him by name.

“Let us in, Mac: we’re freezing to death!”

“Sorry, but we’re closed for the season,” McGovern answered.

“That doesn’t go, Mac! You can’t turn _me_ down,” replied the voice.

Before McGovern could answer a vigorous pressure flung the door open and a young man stepped in followed by a young woman in a fur coat and smart toque.

“Never thought you’d shut the door in my face, Mac!” said the young man reproachfully. “We’ve got to have some coffee and sandwiches. Hello, Mrs. Mac: how’s everything?”

The young woman, blinking in the light, was walking toward the fireplace when she became aware that McGovern and his wife had been entertaining other guests. She paused and stared, her gaze passing slowly from Cummings to Grace. Her companion, finding that McGovern and his wife were receiving coldly his voluble expressions of regard, now first caught sight of the two figures across the room.

“Hello-o-o!” he exclaimed. “Look who’s here!”

“Why, Jimmie, is that you?” said Cummings with a gulp.

“I call it some night! And Mac, the old pirate, didn’t want to let me in!”

The McGoverns were hastily retiring toward the kitchen, Mac tiptoeing as though leaving a death chamber. The weight of his grievous error was upon him; never before had he precipitated a wife upon a husband in so disturbing a fashion.

Grace was watching the young woman, who pulled a chair away from the table that still bore evidences of the recent repast and sank into it. She was tall and slender and the light struck gold in her hair. Feeling perhaps that Grace’s eyes were upon her, she bent and plucked a raveling, real or imaginary, from the skirt of her coat. She unbottoned her coat and drew off her gloves with elaborate care.

Her companion stood with his hands thrust into the pockets of his overcoat, grinning. An old-fashioned clock on the mantel began to strike to the accompaniment of queer raspings of its mechanism. The hands indicated the hour as ten but in the manner of its kind the hammer within pounded out twelve. There was a suggestion of insolence in the protracted thumping of the bell. As the last torturing sound was dying Grace turned her head slightly to look at Cummings, who was staring blankly at the lady in the fur coat.

“What a funny clock!” Atwood remarked with the jubilant tone of one who has made a discovery of great value to mankind.

“It’s a dreadful liar!” said Grace.

“My grandfather used to have one just like it, with a basket of fruit painted on the door,” said Atwood, advancing toward Grace, beaming with gratitude for her response to his attempt to promote conversation. He was short, plump and blond, with thin fair hair already menaced by baldness. He was not far advanced in the twenties and looked very much like an overgrown school boy. Grace appraised him as a person of kindly impulses and possibly not wholly without common sense.

Having planted himself beside Grace he remarked further upon clocks and their general unreliability, while he rolled his eyes first toward Cummings and then in the direction of the lady in the fur coat. Grace had already assumed without the aid of this telegraphy that the lady was Bob’s wife. Atwood seemed to be appealing to Grace to assist him in terminating a situation that was verging upon the intolerable, but she was unable to see that it was incumbent upon her to take the initiative. But Mrs. Cummings might sit there forever unless something happened. Bob continued to wear the look of one condemned and awaiting the pleasure of the executioner. Grace felt strongly moved to walk up to him and shake him. She had read of such unfortunate meetings between husband and wife and they were usually attended with furious denunciations and sometimes with pistols. Without the sustaining presence of Atwood she would have retired to the domestic end of the McGovern establishment and waited for the storm to blow over, but the storm, if such impended, was slow in developing.

“This can’t last forever,” said Grace in a low tone.

“If _something_ doesn’t happen in a minute I’m a dead man,” Atwood whispered.

“I think it would be nice if we all got acquainted. I’m Miss Durland, Mr. Atwood,” said Grace in a tone audible throughout the room.

“Thank you so much! I was just dying to know your name!” he declared fervidly. “Oh, Evelyn----”

Evelyn lifted her head and looked at him defiantly, but he squared himself and said:

“Mrs. Cummings, Miss Durland. I really supposed you had met before.”

His voice rose to an absurd squeak as he expressed this last hopeful sentiment.

Evelyn bit her lip and nodded, a nod that might have been intended for Grace or quite as definitely for an enlarged photograph of an ancestral whiskered McGovern in a gilt frame that adorned the wall behind her.

Grace glanced at Bob, still rooted to the floor, and he remarked with badly-feigned cheerfulness.

“Well, I suppose we might as well go home--” a suggestion not without ambiguity, as there were four persons in the room and two at least, having just arrived and awaiting refreshments, might be assumed to prefer to linger.

“Not just yet!” said Grace, walking slowly toward Evelyn. “There’s something I’d like to say to Mrs. Cummings.”

“Oh, _really_----”

“We’re going in a minute,” interposed Cummings, with sudden animation. “I think maybe, Grace----”

“Grace!” Evelyn repeated scornfully. “I’m going home. Jimmy, I want you to take me home.”

“Yes, Evelyn; of course we’ll go whenever you like,” said Atwood. “But, we ought to explain things a little. I mean you and I ought to explain them,” he elaborated as he saw her lips tighten. “I wouldn’t want Bob to think----”

“I don’t care what Bob thinks!” she flared. “He lied to me; he told me he had a business engagement, to get out of taking me to Uncle Fred’s! And this was the engagement!”

“But everything’s going to be explained,” Atwood persisted. “You know there’s always an explanation for everything, and Bob’s the best fellow in the world--you know that Evelyn.”

“I know nothing of the kind! I’ll let him know at the proper time and place what I think of him.”

“Well, of course, Evelyn,” said Atwood with his odd little pipe of a laugh. But he was very earnest; he brought Cummings to his side by an imperious gesture. As the man for the hour he was not acquitting himself so badly; he looked at Grace for her approval, wasn’t sure that she gave it, but with his hand resting on Cummings’s shoulder, he spoke directly to the point.

“I’m awfully sorry about this, Bob. You know I’m in and out of your house a lot and you never seem to mind. And tonight I tried to get you on the telephone to see if we could do something, the three of us I mean,--run down to see a picture or any old thing--and the maid said you were at Colonel Felton’s; both of you, I thought she meant. And I called up there about the time I thought the party would be over and found you weren’t there and asked Evelyn to let me come for her. And I thought it would be good fun to take a little dash through the storm and I knew you wouldn’t care. There couldn’t be any harm in that; we’ve all been out here together lots of times.”

“Why, that’s perfectly all right, Jimmie!” exclaimed Cummings with a flourish of magnanimity which did not, however, awaken the grateful response he may have expected from Evelyn, who had murmured an indifferent, “Thank you, Jimmie,” when Atwood concluded.

“There’s nothing tragic about this,” Cummings began a little defiantly. “Miss Durland and I have known each other all our lives. She’s an old friend. She came out with me just as a lark; just as you and Jimmie came. I don’t want you to think----”

“That will do!” said Evelyn rising so suddenly that Cummings backed away from her in alarm. “Anything you have to say to me needn’t be said before this old friend of yours.”

“But, Evelyn, you’re not fair!” cried Cummings hotly. “It isn’t fair to Miss Durland. The whole fault of her being out here is mine. I’ll not have you think----”

“You’re terribly anxious about what I think!” Evelyn interrupted. “I’ll think what I please!”

Grace, on her way to the sofa on which she had left her coat and hat, swung round, her face aflame.

“It may not occur to you, Mrs. Cummings, that what you think isn’t of the slightest importance.”

“You act as though you thought it was!” Evelyn flung back.

“I’m not acting; you’re doing enough of it!”

“You’ve probably had far more experience in such scenes!”

“With much better actors than your husband, I hope!”

“Humph! I don’t believe we’re going to like each other.”

“The regret is not mine, I assure you!”

Grace turned to a mirror to straighten her hat. Her preparations for departure were provocative of thought in Atwood’s mind. He expressed the thought immediately, evidently with the laudable hope of lessening the tension.

“Oh, Miss Durland, won’t you let _me_ take you home? I can run you into town without the slightest trouble.”

Evelyn’s surprise at this suggestion betrayed itself in a spurt of coffee that missed the cup she was filling and spread in an amber stain on the table cloth.

Grace was walking toward the veranda door drawing on her gloves.

“Thank you ever so much, Mr. Atwood,” she said evenly. “But Mr. Cummings is going to take me home!”

Cummings glanced at his wife, uncertainty plainly written on his face.

“Why, yes--yes--” he mumbled.

“I’m waiting, Bob!” said Grace.

He gathered up his raincoat and cap. Grace waited for him to open the door for her.

“Good-night, Mr. Atwood!” she flung over her shoulder, and the door closed.

“Well, there was that!” Cummings said after they were in the highway.

“I hope you’re satisfied with yourself,” said Grace angrily.

“Good Lord! Didn’t I do the best I could about it?”

“You couldn’t have done worse if you’d had a week to plan it! Instead of standing there like a fool when your wife came in, why didn’t you walk right up to her like a man and introduce me? You were scared to death; you thought of nothing but how you were going to square yourself with her. You did everything you could to give her the idea that you were ashamed of me.”

“Why, Grace, you can’t mean this!” He slowed down the car the better to talk. “God knows I did the best I could. I couldn’t help being surprised when they came in. And you never can tell how Evelyn’s going to take anything.”

“Oh, yes; it was Evelyn you were troubled about; you weren’t at all worried about me! When you came out of your trance and tried to explain how I came to be there the mischief was already done. Of course she wouldn’t listen to you then. You certainly made a mess of it.”

“I don’t understand you at all! I swear I did the best I could.”

“Well, it was a pretty poor best! Please mind what you’re doing; you’re still so nervous you’ll land in the ditch in a minute.”

Thus admonished he steadied himself at the wheel. Her anger had expended itself and she was now silently staring ahead at the snow covered road.

No word had passed between them for several minutes and Grace, absorbed in her own thoughts, was hoping that he wouldn’t attempt to discuss the matter further. Her respect for him was gone; she disliked him cordially, seeing him only as a timid, evasive person whose primary impulse was self-protection. He might play on the wrong side of a forbidden wall but the moment he was discovered he would scramble for safe territory.

He touched her hand so suddenly that she started and snatched it away with a feeling of aversion.

“We’ve both been thinking about what happened back there,” he began. “I don’t know just where it leaves me; I don’t know how Evelyn is going to take it.”

He paused, bending forward while he waited for some encouragement to go on.

“I don’t care how Evelyn is going to take it! I thought I’d made it clear that I didn’t want to talk of your private affairs any more. They don’t interest me in the least.”

“Of course if Evelyn wants a row----”

“Oh, Bob! _Please_, be quiet!”

“But I can’t leave it this way! You’ve meant too much to me for us to part like this. What I was going to say was--is----”

She sighed despairingly and resettled herself in her place.

“What I want you to know is that I care a lot for you, Grace--and if there’s a row--if we break up, Evelyn and I, I mean----”

“I think you’ve lost your mind!” she cried furiously.

“But, you don’t see--you don’t understand----”

“Oh, but I do! If Evelyn turns you out you think maybe you’d like to give _me_ a trial! That’s certainly an idea! I suppose you have visions of me figuring in your divorce suit--Cummings against Cummings! I don’t believe you used to be like this. It’s astonishing how you’ve deteriorated!”

“I didn’t expect this from you, Grace!” he replied bitterly. “I’ve felt that I could always count on you to----”

The engine began to cough peevishly and he stopped to investigate.

“Here’s luck!” he exclaimed spitefully as he got back into the car. “Just about enough gas to pull us to that garage half a mile ahead. I guess somebody’s pinned a jinx on the evening!”

“I’ll wait outside,” she said when the car had been coaxed to the garage.

“Only a minute, Grace. I’m awfully sorry.”

As she stood on the cement driveway the whistle followed by a flash of the headlight of an incoming interurban car on the track that ran parallel with the highway caught her attention. Across the road several people were waiting on the platform and she resolved to board the car if it stopped before Cummings reappeared. She was in a humor to annoy him if she could and as the car slowed down she began to walk slowly toward the platform and then with a glance over her shoulder ran and swung herself aboard. As the car got under way she caught a glimpse of the roadster as Cummings backed it out. She derived no small degree of satisfaction from the reflection that her departure in this fashion expressed her scorn of him more effectually than anything she could have said.

She left the car at the interurban station and walked home. Her knowledge of life was broadening and that too in divisions of the Great Curriculum of whose very existence she had had only the haziest consciousness. Her freedom, the independence she so greatly prized, was not without its perils. Her thoughts took a high range; she wondered whether after all the individual could, without incurring serious hazards, ignore the warnings and safeguards established for the protection of society.

She wanted to laugh over the encounter at McGovern’s, but in the quiet street it was not so easy to laugh at it. What society had done to educate her, to fortify and strengthen her for the battle of life--a phrase she detested from her mother’s frequent use of it--counted for naught. She was alarmed to find that she never really reached any conclusion in attempting to settle her problems. When she thought she had determined any of the matters that rose with so malevolent an insistence for decision some unexpected turn left her still beset by uncertainties.

Two policemen standing on a corner stopped talking as she passed and she felt their eyes following her. They symbolized the power of the law; they were agents of society, they were representatives of the order of things against which she had been trying to persuade herself she was in rebellion. She now seriously questioned the desirability of being a rebel; such a status had its disagreeable and uncomfortable side.

When she reached her room she sat down thinking she would write her usual daily letter to Trenton; but with paper before her and a pen in her hand she was unable to bring herself to it. The disturbance at McGovern’s had shaken her more than she liked to believe.

In her cogitations, as she lay in the dark unable to sleep, she wondered whether the incident at McGovern’s might not be a warning, which she would do well to heed, to discourage Trenton’s further attentions. Trenton might in a similar circumstances behave no better than Bob had behaved and she was not anxious to subject herself to the ire of another indignant wife.