Chapter I (2)

He kissed her good-night, and she let his lips stay for a while, out of pity, and then broke away from him. As she went to bed, she had a muddled, wondering feeling--why did she always turn down boys that were “good” and willing to marry her, and why didn’t she object to the embraces of “bad” men, who were just looking for an easy prospect? Maybe she was a little “bad” herself--a little like May Harrigan, whose name was the jest of the neighborhood, and who grabbed any young fellow that came along.... Her perturbations faded out into sleep.

On the next morning she was still a bit glum at the cafeteria, but it was no more than the least of shadows as she exchanged glances and repartee with various customers who paid their checks. When she sat before the cash register, her business-like tension extended even to the sexual side of her, and she uttered her set phrases merely to dispose of the men who talked to her, and with little interest in their faces and words. During the lull-hours, however, between two and four in the afternoon, she relaxed, and the appraising tingles of her sex came back, and she entered into badinage with the proprietor and the counter-men and stray customers whom she knew. Her confined perch on the cashier’s stool had to be forgotten in some way.

The cafeteria had rows of brightly varnished chairs with broad arms, and tables with white, enameled tops, and a sprinkle of sawdust on the tiled floor. Pyramids of oranges and grapefruit stood in the windows, and the glass-walled food counters were heaped with pastry, cold meats and trays of salads and puddings. The smell of soggy, overspiced food and body-odors possessed the air, and a spirit of dreamless, hasty, semidirty devouring hung over the place. On this afternoon, Blanche was chatting with the proprietor, a tall Jew of forty years, with a jowled, bloodless face, killed black eyes that were always shifting about in the fear that they might be missing something, and the thickest of lips. His coat was off and he wore an expensive, monogramed silk shirt of green and white stripes, and had a cigar forever in his mouth or hand.

“Check up yet on the accounts?” he asked.

“Yep, ev’rything’s straight,” she answered.

“Say, I bought a beauty of uh coat f’r my wiff yesterday,” he said. “She can’t say I ever hold out on _her_.”

“Well, isn’t that nice--she must be tickled to death,” said Blanche, giving him the flattering words that he wanted to hear. “Nobody ever slips me any swell coats.”

“Well, if they don’t it’s your fault,” he replied. “You could work a fellow f’r anything you wanted--you’ve got the goods, all right.”

“Aw, quit your kidding,” she said. “I wouldn’t take no prizes in a beauty show.”

“You would if I was one uh the judges,” he answered.

He poked her in the side, playfully, and she smiled carefully. You had to take such things from your boss--it was all in the game--but you wished that he would keep his hands to himself--the fat old lobster.

“Any time you wanna take a little ride in my machine, it’s there,” he said.

“Gee, I’d be afraid of you,” she retorted. “I think you’re _some_ devil, you are.”

He chuckled at the praise of his masculine gifts, and walked back to the kitchen in response to a call. The cafeteria was located in a manufacturing and wholesale district where practically all of the trade occurred around the noon hour, and it closed its doors at 6 P.M. When Blanche returned to the apartment, Harry, Philip and Mabel were sitting at the supper-table (the father happened to be visiting one of his cronies uptown).

“Say, I met a guy to-day said he saw you at Dreamland las’ night,” said Philip, when Blanche came to the table.

“Uh-huh, I was there,” said Blanche.

“Well, I wouldn’t be seen in a bum joint like that,” Mabel commented. “You certainly have a gift f’r pickin’ out the penny-squeezers, Blanie. Me f’r the Club Breauville, ’r places like that. They put on the best show you ever saw--Hawkins ’n Dale, straight from the Palace Theater, and a big, A-number-one chorus.”

“Aw, rats, you’re always worrying what a fella’s going to spend on you,” said Blanche. “They’ve got a peach of a jazz-band at Dreamland, and a dandy floor--that’s all I care about.”

“Your tastes ’r sim-ply aw-ful,” Mabel answered, “and what’s more, why shouldn’t a girl go with high-class fellas and have ’em spend piles on her? That’s what they’re made for.”

“Well, I don’t blame you none,” said Philip, “but believe me, I’d never pick out a wife like you. You sure would keep a fella on the go digging it up for you.”

“Mabel don’t mean anything by it,” said his mother, who had come in from the kitchen, “but I wish she wouldn’t stay out so late. I get to worryin’ when she comes home three an’ four an’ five in the mornin’. You never can tell what’ll happen to a girl in this city.”

“Aw, ma, don’t fret, I can take care of myself,” Mabel said.

“That’s what they all say,” Harry broke in. “I was talkin’ to a fella to-day, said his kid sister got into a scrape out in Jersey. Two guys started scrappin’ over her in a machine, and one of ’em’s dyin’ in the hospital, and the bulls ’r after her. It was in the papers yesterday. You better watch y’r step, Mabe.”

“Listen, no girl ’cept a fool would go out in a machine with two guys,” answered Mabel. “I’ll take ’em one at a time, believe me.”

“Well, I do think you’re too free with the men, an’ you only eighteen,” her mother said, looking at Mabel in a ruefully helpless way. “It’s I that can’t hold you down, and it’s I that never could, but I’m wishin’ you’d stay home once’n a while. How’ll you ever get a decint man to make a decint proposal to you, how’ll you ever, runnin’ round with that fast crowd uh yours?”

“G’wan, she’ll land a big one yet, ’fore she’s through,” said Harry. “Mabe’s a wise girlie, and I’m with her all the time!”

“Same here,” Mabel answered affectionately, as she pulled her brother’s hair.

“I s’pose I’m the boob uh this fam’ly,” said Blanche, “but I won’t lose no sleep over it. ’F I like the way a man talks, ’n how he looks, I don’t care what’s the size of his roll.”

“You got it from me, you did,” her mother said, with a dully soft look. “It’s I that married your father when he hadn’t a cent to his name. ’Twas the way he could blarney, ’twas that, and ’twas the face of him that made me take him.”

“Aw, pa’s all right, but he’s shy on brains,” Mabel said. “’F I ever get hooked up with any man he’s got to have plenty uh money, and then some. I’m worth all the dough in the world ’cordin’ to my way uh thinkin’, and I’m not scrubbin’ floors for no fella this year ’r next. This lovin’-up stuff don’t get you much.”

“Yeh, Blanche is a mut with alla her Rosinburgs, ’n Kellies, ’n all the rest uh them tin-horn pikers,” said Harry. “I know how she’ll wind up, all right. Some guy’ll have her washin’ his clothes an makin’ her like it!”

“Ma’s been washing yours and pa’s for years, but you’re not kicking about that,” answered Blanche. “Anyway it won’t be some one like you. You think that row-mance is something people clean their shoes with, you do. You’ve got a heart like a oyster, I’ll say.”

“Row-ma-ance, that’s good,” answered Harry, derisively. “Try an’ cash in on it at the butcher shop an’ see what you get.”

“Well, I’m on Blanie’s side,” said Philip, who liked his older sister because she was “softer” than the other members of the family. “When I marry a girl she’s got to love me, first, last, ’n’ all the time. I’m strong for the jack, sure, but there’s other things hanging around.”

“Say, isn’t Joe Campbell comin’ up to-night?” asked Mabel, turning to Blanche.

“Yeh, I’ve got a date with him f’r eight-thirty.”

“Now there’s a guy you oughta play up to,” said Harry. “He takes down a good three hundred a week f’r that turn he does up at The Golden Mill. Joe’s as wise as they make ’em--a wise-crackin’ baby. I’m gonna stick around when he comes up here to-night. He c’n get a laugh outa me any day in the year.”

“Joe’s there, all right,” Mabel said. “I wish he wasn’t so sweet on Blanche.”

“Well, go after him, dearie, if that’s how you feel,” Blanche answered. “It won’t be breaking my heart.”

As she dressed herself for the coming engagement, Blanche had an uneven, up-in-the-air song in her blood. Another man would soon be courting her, and casting “I’d-like-to-get-you” looks at her, and deferring to her just as much as if she had been famous or wealthy, and praising her to lead up to attempted caresses, while she sat in judgment on the proceedings, with a queenly “I’ll-have-to-see-about-this” sensation, and remarks made of “slams” and retirings to put him on his mettle, and the feeling of owning the world for a few, high-keyed hours, until she returned to her bed and the more level-headed endurance-test at the cafeteria. Her head was totally empty for a time, and she sang the popular tunes of the day, in a low, contralto voice, as she fussed about with her toilette. Then glimpses of Joe Campbell appeared in her head, and she wondered whether she would ever marry him. She liked him physically, and she respected his money-making talents, but her response toward him was much stronger when he was with her. His absence seemed to remove a black-art spell, and to leave in its place doubts and confusions. Then, beneath all of his good-humors and effulgent generosities, she divined an insincerity and something that spoke of shrouded, patiently crouching intentions. What they were she did not know. Her mind was not capable of delving into this reaction, and it told her only that he wasn’t “coming out” with his real self. Her brother had introduced him to her six months previous to this night, and since then Campbell had pursued her in an irregular way, since he frequently left New York on vaudeville-bookings. She had allowed him certain physical liberties and had admonished herself afterwards for being “too easy,” but the matter had rested there, since he had never been remarkably insistent in his efforts to vanquish her.

When he came up, and airily saluted her, Harry and Mabel, who were in the living-room, greeted him effusively. They considered it an honor that this minor Broadway favorite, whose name was occasionally in electric lights, should be so willing to visit them and “step out of his class.”

“’Lo, Joe, still bringin’ down the house?” asked Mabel.

“Nothing but,” he replied. “The bulls came running into the place last night, looking for a free-for-all fight, the clapping was that loud.”

Mabel and Harry laughed, and Harry said: “C’mon, I bet you coulda heard a maxim-silencer after you got through.”

“That’s the same gun they shoot off when you get through fighting, isn’t it?” asked Campbell, with a solemn look.

“You win,” answered Harry, laughing again.

“Well, I’ve got to go now,” Mabel said. “Papa doesn’t like to be kept waitin’, you know.”

“Be sure and don’t leave him anything,” Campbell replied. “A girl got expelled from the Flappers’ Union the other day--they all got sore at her because she overlooked a ten-spot in the upper vest-pocket.”

“You’re talkin’ to the president of the Union--don’t be funny,” answered Mabel.

Blanche joined in the laughter now and then--Campbell’s humor was hard to resist. A stocky man of medium height, whose feet were always tapping the floor as though they had a light itch to be dancing, he rarely ever departed from the bon-mots that constituted his chief stock-in-trade. His mind was intelligent in worldly ways, and a blank otherwise, but he was quite aware of his ignorances and careful not to expose them. He had a long, narrow face, with a slanting nose, mobile lips, and a twinkling, lazy cruelty in his eyes. His thick brown hair was burnished and pasted down on his head, and he wore the latest, loose-trousered clothes, in shades of gray and brown, with multicolored scarves, and a diamond ring on one of his fingers. He was a coarse sensualist grown careless from many feminine captures, and he had held back in Blanche’s regard from the feeling that she would “have to come to him first.” Still, he was becoming aware of an increasing urge toward her, moved by something in her face and figure that “hit it off just right.” She wasn’t nearly as pretty as tens of Broadway girls whom he knew, but she had an unspoiled swerve and sturdiness that attracted him, and in addition, he felt that she knew much more than many other women of his acquaintance--that she was not quite as shallow, or as palpably scheming, as most of his retinue were.

He left the apartment with her, and they hailed a taxicab and were driven to his cabaret off Upper Broadway. His turn only came on at eleven o’clock when the after-theater crowd poured into the place, and he sat with Blanche at one of the tables, and endlessly greeted his “friends,” and adulterated glasses of ginger-ale with the contents of a silver flask carried in his hip-pocket.

The Golden Mill was a resplendent, baroque cabaret, with a large, electrically lit windmill, made of gold silk stretched over a framework, standing over the stage. The jazz-band sat just below the stage, between the carpeted runways on which the performers descended to the dance floor. Men and women, half of them in evening clothes, chattered and laughed at the surrounding tables, with a macabre heartiness that sometimes lessened to betrayals of the underlying dullness.

The whisky began to knock about in Blanche’s heart to a cruelly victorious feeling--Campbell thought he was so darn smart, didn’t he? Well, he’d have to go some to get her, just the same. Girls were always falling for a celebrity of his kind, and she’d treat him to a novelty. Still, he made her laugh and forget the rest of her world, and she didn’t mind if he caressed her to a certain extent (not too much and not too little).

“Y’know, you’re a royal-flush to me,” said Campbell. “I’d win the pot with you, any day in the year.”

“You’ll win the air ’f you get too gay,” she answered, merrily.

“Now is that nice?” he queried, in tones of mock-reproach. “Daddy’ll do anything for you--anything you want.”

“I’m not taking things from men this year,” she replied.

“Isn’t she smart--keeps count of the years ’n’ everything,” he said. “You’ll stop counting when you get to be thirty, old dear.”

“Is that the place where you stopped?” she asked.

Campbell winced secretly--he was thirty-five and not particularly elated about it. Blanche always talked better under the influence of liquor--it loosened her tongue and unearthed an effervescence in her mind: keen as far as it went.

“Take that knife away, Annette;--it’s killing me,” he responded, in quavering, melodramatic tones.

Blanche took another sip from her highball.

“D’y’know, I may get crazy some time and ask you to marry me,” he said.

“That’s too bad--it must be worrying you a lot,” answered Blanche. “I never lose my head that way, so look out.”

“But really, I’m strong for you,” he went on. “It’s all in fun most of the time with me, but you’re at the top of the list.”

“I’d hate to bet on your meaning it,” said Blanche, a bit more softly.

“Don’t do it, you couldn’t get any odds,” he answered.

He chucked her under the chin and she slapped his hand.

“What nervous ha-ands you’ve got,” she said.

“Come on, act as though you didn’t like it,” he retorted.

“That’s the best thing I do,” she replied.

They continued the bantering, with the occasional interruption of a fox-trot, until his “turn” came on, when he left her with an acquaintance of his--a harmless, hero-worshiping chorus man in a dark suit, whose ruddy, regular-featured face had a look that was perilously near to a pout. Then Campbell appeared in white duck trousers, a dark blue coat, black shoes, and a panama-straw hat, and did clog-dances, and sang in a hard tenor voice, at the head of a bare-legged chorus dressed in very short boyish trousers of red, and indigo low-necked vests, and gaudy caps slanting on their heads. He was a nimble dancer and had a powerful voice, and could have risen to a point near the head of his profession, if laziness and undue dissipation had not held him down. When his act had finished and he had cleaned the make-up from his face, he returned to the table and remained there with Blanche until 2 A. M. After they left the place they entered a cab and he said: “What d’you say to coming up to my joint for a while--I’m harmless, girlie, I won’t make you cry on mother’s shoulder.”

“You are, and you’re going to stay that way,” she answered. “C’mon now, tell James to drive over to Ninth Avenue, old dear.”

He made a grimace and did as she requested. He’d get her yet, no fear, but there was no need for hurrying. It was always a fatal move to expostulate with a woman at such a juncture. Again, she wasn’t important enough to _him_ for any come-downs.

In the taxicab, he hugged and kissed her, and though she made little resistance, an alertness contended against the liquor-fumes in her head and counseled her to “look out.” As they stood in the hallway of her building he became a trifle bolder, and she was passive for a while and then stopped him. It wasn’t easy to hold out against him, and she had barely been able to check the rising dizziness within her, but she simply couldn’t let him win her as lightly as this. She had not drunk sufficiently to reach a gigglingly helpless mood, although everything _did_ seem to be jovially unimportant, and a dislike of him rose within her. He was too confident, he was. She’d teach him a lesson, she would, in spite of all of his physical appeal and his pleasant nerviness.

“You’re a little too fast--I can’t keep up with you,” she said. “Besides, I’m getting the willies standing here all the time. Be a good boy now, and let me go upstairs.”

“All right, girlie--game’s over,” he replied, gracefully taking his defeat. “How about next Saturday--eight ’r so?”

“That suits, I’ll be on deck,” she said.

He kissed her again and went out to the waiting taxicab. As she entered her room she had a droopy, misty feeling. Oh, well, another man turned down--what did _she_ get out of it, anyway? It was funny, you wanted to and you didn’t want to at the same time. She blinked at herself in the mirror, and then turned out the light and went to sleep.