Chapter III (2)

“No, he never gets back till early mornin’, and so does Mabel, an’ Phil, an’ your pa. None of you ever stays to home to keep _me_ comp’ny.”

“I know you get lonely, ma,” Blanche answered, stroking her mother’s hair for a moment and trying to feel much more concerned than she was. “Didn’t Mrs. O’Rourke, or Katie, come down to-night?”

“They did, sure enough, but it’s not like havin’ your own fam’ly with you,” her mother replied.

Blanche looked at her mother, reflectively. Poor ma, she _was_ kind of stupid, but maybe she had been more intelligent in her younger days and had had it slowly knocked out of her. She didn’t get much out of life, that was a fact, and she worked hard all the time, and she never harmed anybody. Poor ma.... Then Blanche returned to anger at the thought of Harry.

“Just wait’ll I see Harry,” she cried. “I’ll tell him a thing or two, I will!”

“What’s Harry been doin’, now?” her mother asked.

“He followed me to-night till I met Lou Rosenberg, and then he walked up and told Lou to keep away from me, and picked a fight with him. Of course he beat Lou up--he knows all the tricks, and Rosenberg doesn’t. Then a cop came along, and Mister Harry Palmer ran into a cab, like the coward he is! Believe me, I’m going to show all of you, once and for all, that you can’t boss me around, and if you keep it up I’ll leave home in a jiffy.”

“I jes’ know Harry’ll get into jail yet, with all this scrappin’ uh his,” her mother said, alarmedly. “Maybe this Mister Rosinburg will have to go to the hospital, an’ then they’ll come after Harry. Did he hurt him awful bad?”

“No, he just gave him a black eye and cut his mouth, but that was bad enough,” Blanche answered. “The whole thing happened so quick I couldn’t do anything about it, and besides, I never dreamt Harry would dare to pull a stunt like that. I’m so angry I could punch him if he was here!”

“That’s no way to be talkin’ about your own brother,” Mrs. Palmer said. “It’s I that don’t think he did right, I don’t, but still, he only meant it f’r your own good. You shouldn’t be goin’ around with Jews, you shouldn’t, and this fella Rosinburg, he’s been makin’ you act so silly-like, with all them books that nobody c’n make head ’r tail of. You’re gettin’ to be ’n old girl now, Blanie, you are, and it’s time you were thinkin’ of marryin’ a good man to keep you in comfort.”

“Why isn’t a Jew as good as anybody else?” Blanche asked. “I don’t love Rosenberg, but believe me, ’f I did, none of you could keep _me_ away from him. I’m going to stop seeing him ’cause I don’t want him to get into trouble all for nothing, but I won’t stand for any more orders--I’m a free person, and I make my own living, and ’f I think I’m doing right, that’s all I care about.”

“Blanie, you’re talkin’ somethin’ terribul,” her mother answered, sadly aghast. “You oughta have more respect for your pa ’n’ ma, you ought. We raised you up from a kid, an’ we give you everythin’ we could, an’ we only want to see you do the right thing. You’ve got to settle down and have a fine, good-looking, Christian fellow, who’s earnin’ good wages. Course, you must be lovin’ him first--I’d never want you to marry no one you didn’t care for, I wouldn’t, but that’s not everythin’ either. I’d like to see you livin’ like a lady, I would, an’ havin’ a fine home, ’n’ servants, ’n’ the best uh everythin’.”

“Marry, marry, that’s all you ever think about,” Blanche replied. “You mean well, ma, but you can just see so far and no farther. What did you ever get out of marrying, I’d like to know? Nothing but work, and trouble, and worrying around.”

“That’s why I want to see you do better, that’s why,” her mother responded. “It’s I that knows how foolish I was, I know it, and I don’t want you to go through all the strugglin’ I’ve had. ’F you marry a man like Mister Campbell, now, you’ll live in a swell apartment an’ you’ll have the things you want.”

“You don’t know what I want, ma,” Blanche said, sadly. “I want to be somebody, and find out what’s the reason for things, and use my head for something besides a hat-rack. Any girl can marry and let a man use her--there’s no trick in that. I’m tired of being just like other people--I want to act, ’r write, ’r paint, and make a name for myself. You think a woman shouldn’t do anything except have children and be as comfortable as she can. You can’t understand what I’m looking for, ma.”

“It’s I that can’t, it’s all foolishness to me,” her mother replied, perplexedly. “I don’t see why a woman should be anythin’ ’cept a good wife ’n’ a good mother, ’f she finds a man that’ll treat her right ’n’ provide f’r her. This bein’ somebody you’re always talkin’ about, I don’t see how it’ll ever make you happy, I don’t. It’s your heart that counts most, an’ nothin’ else. You never talked like this ’fore you met that Rosinburg. I’m glad you’re not goin’ to meet him again.”

“We’re both just wasting our words--let’s cut it out,” Blanche said, depressedly, as she walked into her room.

Her mother looked after her with a sorrowful, uncomprehending expression. What was her poor daughter coming to, with all this unlady-like nonsense, and all this refusing to listen to the counsel of her family, who only wanted her to have a happy and respected future. Well, maybe she’d change, now that she wasn’t seeing that Jew-fellow any more. Jews were human beings, but they were tricky and queer and always out after the money, and they had no right to be picking on Gentile girls.... Of course, if Blanche didn’t change, then her pa and Harry would have to take hold of her. She mustn’t be allowed to go to the dogs and ruin herself and her chances. While she, the mother, would never let the menfolks abuse her daughter or lay their hands on her, she still felt that they would have to act sternly to bring Blanche to her senses. It couldn’t be helped as long as Blanche refused to behave.

When Blanche rose on the following morning, Harry was still asleep, and they did not collide until she returned from work that night. The family were seated around the supper-table, and Mabel looked at Blanche, with curiosity and reproach interwoven, while her father squinted questioningly at her, and Philip squirmed in his chair, like some one waiting for a dynamite detonation. He hated family quarrels--you couldn’t agree with both sides and yet you were always expected to. He felt that the others were “too hard” on Blanche, and he hoped that she would give them a piece of her mind.

Harry had a nonchalant mien which placated the fear within him which he did not quite admit to himself--there was something about Blanche that he couldn’t fathom, and no matter how much he sought to squelch this alien foe, with word and action, it never died--a derided but still-threatening specter.

Blanche was silent until she had seated herself at the table, and then she burst forth.

“Harry, I’m going to tell you something--’f you ever beat up any one I’m with again, and try to order me around, I’ll break something over your head! Just try it once more and see what happens!”

“I’ll do that little thing,” Harry answered. “The last person I was afraid of, he died ten years ago.”

“That’s just how I feel,” Blanche replied. “’F I’m not left alone from now on, I’m going on the war-path.”

“Bla-anie, you mustn’t talk that way, an’ you, too, Harry,” Mrs. Palmer said. “I never, never heard of a brother an’ sister carryin’ on like this! I do think Blanche oughta listen more to what we tell her, I do, but breakin’ things over y’r heads, why I never heard the like of it. You won’t help things that way.”

“See here, Blanche, we’ve got to lay down the law to you,” her father said. “No more goin’ around with Jews, and no more talkin’ back all the time. I’m your father an’ I’m gonna put my foot down. You’re not a bad kid, I don’t say that, but you’re too fresh, an’ you think you know it all. You better stop readin’ them phony books and pay attention to yourself, an’ act like a reg’lar girl.”

“Suppose I leave home, what’ll you do about it?” Blanche asked.

“I can’t stop you from doin’ that, but ’f you do, don’t think you can come back here again--not ’less you’re married, anyway,” her father replied. “We’ll all be through with you then, an’ you’ll be no daughter uh mine.”

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Blanche,” Mabel said. “You don’t seem to have any sense nowadays.”

“Of course you don’t,” answered Blanche. “All you care about is having a good time, and working men for all they’re worth, and hunting around for a fellow with money who’ll marry you. I want to do something that counts, and I want to look into things. That’s all a mystery to you.”

“Is that so-o?” Mabel asked, bridling up. “I’ve got just as good a head as you have, even ’f I don’t go around with a chip on my shoulder, like you do, and tell people I’m better than they are. I’m gonna be a rich lady and be up in the world ’fore I’m through with the game, but you’ll wind up with nothing but that hot air you’re always spouting.”

“Well, I think you’re all too rough on Blanche,” Philip said. “Maybe she ought to marry and settle down, but it’s her look-out. ’F she wants to make a name for herself, and study something, I don’t see anything so awful about it.”

“You’re the best one in this fam’ly, Phil,” said Blanche, with a grateful look. “You’re not so wise, but you do believe in letting people alone.”

“Yes, you an’ him are twins, all right,” Harry interposed, “but he knows enough to keep quiet most of the time, and you don’t.”

“Now, Harry, what did I ever do against you?” Philip asked.

“Not a thing, but you wouldn’t side with Blanche all the time ’f you wasn’t like she is,” Harry answered.

The argument went on, with Blanche subsiding to a hopeless silence, but as the meal ended, it became more indifferent. Their appeased appetites brought the others a brief, sluggish contentment, and they felt sure that it was all just a “lot of jawing,” and that Blanche would never really revolt--she was a Palmer, after all.

The next week passed quietly enough, with Blanche and Harry casting disdainful looks at each other but rarely speaking, and the rest of the family persuaded that it might be better to leave Blanche alone as long as she failed to do anything definitely objectionable. Then, one evening, just after Blanche had returned from work, a loud rapping sounded on the front door, and after her mother had responded, Blanche heard a gruff voice asking: “Is this where Mabel Palmer lives, huh?” When her mother had answered yes, the gruff voice continued: “Well, we’re detectives from the Sixth Precinct, and we want to have a talk with you people.”

“Oh, Lord, what’s the matter--what’s happened to Mabel?” Mrs. Palmer asked, agitatedly, as she entered the living-room, with the two detectives walking behind her.

They were tall, burly men, in dark, ill-fitting suits, slouch hats of brown, and heavy, black shoes, and one of them had a florid, impassive face, while the other was tanned and more openly inquiring. They sat down in chairs and looked the Palmers over. Harry and his father sought to appear calm and careless but could not repress an involuntary nervousness--there were several shady spots in their lives that shrank from the impending searchlight, but these bulls wouldn’t be acting this way if they really _knew_ anything--while Philip looked warmly innocent--they didn’t have anything on _him_--and Mrs. Palmer wrung her hands and told herself that all of her dire prophecies had been fulfilled. Blanche was curious but undisturbed--little Mabel Know-Everything had gotten into trouble at last, but what was it?

“Your girl’s locked up at Arlington Market,” the florid detective said. “You know why, don’tcha?”

“My poor little Mabel, what’s happened to her?” Mrs. Palmer asked. “I don’t know a thing that she’s done, I swear I don’t!”

“That’s straight, we don’t know what it’s all about,” Harry said, and his father eagerly corroborated him.

“Well, we nabbed her this afternoon on Broadway,” the other detective replied. “She’s been mixing up with a lotta bond-thieves, and we think she’s one of their go-betweens. She’s been seen all the time with the brains uh the gang, hanging around cabarets with him. We got him yesterday, and we’ll scoop in the rest of them before to-morrow. If you people don’t know anything about this, it’s mighty funny you let your daughter associate with a gang like that.”

“Yeh, why do you let her run loose all the time?” the florid detective asked.

“I’ve always told her not to be so wild, I’ve always,” answered Mrs. Palmer, “but she never listened to me. She’s really a good girl off’cer, she didn’t mean any harm, but she likes to have men payin’ attentions to her. I know she hasn’t done anything wrong, I know it. She prob’bly thought those men was honest, that’s it, an’ she b’lieved all the lies they told her.”

“That’s what they all say,” the other detective replied, gruffly.

“You’re wrong, Mabe’s a straight kid,” Mr. Palmer said. “She got into bum comp’ny an’ didn’t know it, that must be it.”

“That’s what _you_ say, but we got a diff’rent idea,” the florid detective retorted. “Sure, you’d take up for her, that’s an old trick.”

“I cert’nly will,” the father answered, spiritedly. “’F you’ve got any evidence against her, all right, but I’ll have to hear it first ’fore I b’lieve it. I’ll take up for my own daughter any time, any time.”

“Sure, I understand,” the other detective said, more amiably. “All we know’s that she went around with that gang, hitting up the night clubs, but we haven’t connected her with anything yet. It looks bad for her, that’s all.”

“We’ll put her through a grilling to-night and find out more about it”--the florid detective suddenly turned to Blanche. “What d’you do for a living?”

“I work at Madame Jaurette’s Beauty Parlor, on Fifth Avenue near Twenty-sixth,” Blanche responded, coolly. “Come down there some day and I’ll curl your blond locks for you. They need it.”

The detective grinned and replied: “We’ll look you up, don’t worry.”

“And you, what’s your trade?” he asked her father.

“I don’t do much now ’cause my leg’s on the bum,” Mr. Palmer replied. “I used to be a bartender in the old days when we had a little freedom in this town.”

“Well, you’d better stop loafing around and get a job,” the detective advised.

“I always work when I’m able to,” said Mr. Palmer. “I used to manage my boy here, Harry, Battling Murphy--maybe you’ve seen him scrap somewheres. He got a raw deal an’ they barred him from the ring, but he’ll be back there ’fore long, don’t worry.”

The florid detective looked closely at Harry and then said: “Damned if it isn’t Bat’ Murphy himself! I won some dough on you once when you was fighting Kid Morley down at the Terrace. Why didn’t you tell us who you was?”

“You was askin’ my folks questions an’ I didn’t wanna butt in,” Harry replied as he shook hands, warmly, with the detective.

“I hear you been cutting up with a bad gang lately, Bat’,” the other detective interposed, in a tone of friendly reproof. “Better cut it out and get back into condition again. We wouldn’t like to pull you in, y’know.”

“You c’n lay a bet I will,” Harry replied. “I’m no has-been yet, I’m tellin’ you I knocked a coupla fellas out at the gym the other day.... An’ now about this poor kid sister uh mine. She isn’t a bad one, but you know how fellas c’n fill a girl up with a lotta phony gab. I don’t think she knew a damn thing about what was goin’ on.”

“You can bail her out, all right, when we’re through putting the question to her,” the other detective said. “Know any one to go to?”

“Know any one, I’ll say we do,” Harry answered. “Why, Bill O’Brien, the Wigwam chief in this district’s a good friend uh the old man, an’ me too. He’ll put up the coin in a second.”

“All right, come down to Arlington Market court to-morrow morning, ten sharp, when she’s arraigned, and we’ll see what we can do,” the detective said, with respect in his voice, as both of them rose. “And by the way, who’s this man in the corner?”

“He’s my brother Phil, works in a drug store a coupla blocks away,” Harry answered.

“A-all right, I guess you’re all straight enough,” the detective replied, genially. “Only, if your kid sister gets out of this, you better keep a strict tab on her. She’s a flighty one and no mistake.”

“It’s sure I am that this’ll teach poor Mabel a lesson,” Mrs. Palmer said, with a sad eagerness. “An’ to think she’s sittin’ in a cell right now. It’s terribul, it is!”

“We-ell, don’t take it to heart, she may be out soon,” the other detective answered.

The detectives departed, and after Harry had cautiously opened the door and assured himself that they had gone, he came back and said: “We’ve gotta get poor Mabe outa this. I’m gonna run over to Tenth Avenue now an see ’f I c’n get ahold of O’Brien.”

“I wonder whether they’ve got the goods on her,” his father said. “I can’t think a wise girl like Mabel would lay herself open to five years in the pen. It don’t seem reas’nable. She musta had the wool pulled over her eyes.”

“It’s li’ble to happen to any girl,” Harry answered. “When a girl goes out with a guy, how’s she to know whether he’s a crook ’r not? Besides, if Mabel was in on it she’d have been flashin’ a roll around here, and if she’s got one she’s sure been hidin’ it well, I’ll say.”

“Well, I do think she oughta be more careful ’bout who she goes with,” Mrs. Palmer said. “I swear, between Mabel and Blanche, I’m goin’ right to my grave, I am.”

“Aw, don’t take on so, Kate,” her husband answered. “Mabel’s not like Blanche anyway--she don’t put on the dog an’ tell her folks they don’t know nothin’. She jus’ wants to have a good time an’ land a good man f’r herself, and she’ll get over this mess all right. She made a mistake in the crowd she went with--they prob’bly told her they was rich business men.”

“I suppose I’ll have to get arrested before any of you’ll think I know something,” Blanche broke in, disgustedly. “I’m sorry Mabel got into this fix, but if you try to play men for their money, you’ve got to expect that they’ll turn the tables on you, the first chance they get.”

“G’wan, you’re jes’ jealous uh her,” Harry said. “You’d do the same thing ’f you had nerve enough.”

“Now, now, this is no time f’r scrappin’,” his father interposed. “We’ve got to hustle around to O’Brien an’ see what he c’n do f’r us.”

The two Palmers departed, and Blanche and Philip tried to soothe the mother, who had begun to weep and rock in her chair. Blanche felt a dab of malice toward her sister--Mabel was so dreamless, and never tried to understand Blanche’s hopes and desires, and was always scoffing and sneering--but it was swallowed up by a sense of enforced compassion. Perhaps Mabel was just a misguided girl whose head had been turned by the flatteries of men, and perhaps she would wake up now and begin to think, and question herself and her life, to a small degree at any rate. In addition, Blanche was relieved at this turn in events, since it might distract the attention of her family and make them drop for a time their insistence upon marriage, and their naggings about Campbell, and their jeers at the books that she read. She went to bed early that night, and reclined awake for a long time, spinning her hopes from the dark texture of the room. After all, why did she waste so much time in arguing with her family? They would never understand her in a million years, and they meant well in spite of all of their meanness, but she had simply passed beyond them. They wanted her to be like them, and share their ideas of happiness and propriety, and they used cruel methods and threats without knowing how cruel they were because they felt that the end could apologize for the means. It was all inevitable, and the best thing that she could do would be quietly to pack her belongings some day and move out to some rooming-house uptown before they knew what was happening. Then let them rave all they wanted--what could they do?

Besides, her leaving would convince them that she “meant business,” and most of their bullying was probably due to the fact that they still thought that they could force her to obey them. When she was finally living in a place of her own, she’d go to some art or dramatic school at night--maybe she could learn to draw after all, since she had been very clever with sketches when she was a child at school, and still poked around with a pencil now and then. Or again, why couldn’t she be able to act on the stage, if she were only taught how to handle her voice and her limbs. These famous actresses, they hadn’t been perfect and accomplished in their cradles, and if she studied English and learned how to speak more correctly, she might have as good a chance as they had had. Nothing ever came to you unless you had a desperate faith in yourself. She would have to work long and hard at these things, she knew that, but she worked hard every day as it was, without deriving any satisfaction from it.

An image of Rosenberg slipped back to her. Poor boy, wonder what he was doing now? She owed a great deal to him, and the only payment that she had given had been to jilt him. Was it always as one-sided as this between men and women--always a kind of slave-and-master affair, with one person taking everything and the other person hanging on because he couldn’t think of any one else and was grateful for the scraps that were thrown to him? She hadn’t meant to hurt this boy--he had wanted feelings that were impossible to her, and her body had often endured his hands out of pity, and her only reason for guilt was that she had kept on seeing him. But she had needed, oh, she had needed all of the spurrings-on, and answers, and thoughts, and beliefs in her, which he had poured out--yes, it had been selfishness on her part, but she was beginning to think that people could never avoid being selfish to each other in some respect, even though they hid it behind all kinds of other names and assertions. They _could_ make it aboveboard, though, by confessing the unevenness of their relations, and by not demanding anything that each person was not compelled to give of his own accord. The ideal, of course, would be a man and a woman who selfishly craved all of each other, for deeply permanent reasons, in which case each one would become a happy plunderer--did such a thing ever quite come off?... Her thoughts trailed out into sleep.

On the next morning at the Beauty Parlor, Blanche was distracted, and a little uneasy about her sister--after all, the poor kid was just conceited and flighty, with no real harm in her--and when Philip came in at noon and told her that Mabel had been released, for lack of evidence, Blanche was glad that the matter had blown over. When Blanche returned from her work that night, Mabel was seated in the one armchair in the apartment, with the rest of the family grouped admiringly around her. Now that it was all over, they regarded her as something of a heroine--one who had tussled with their never-recognized but potent enemy, the law, and emerged scot-free--and although they qualified this attitude with warnings and chidings, it dominated them, nevertheless. The mother remained an exception--she hoped that her daughter would act more soberly now, and leave her nightly dissipations, and mingle with more honest men.

“Gee, I’m glad you’re out,” Blanche said, after kissing her sister. “Did they treat you rough after they arrested you?”

“They wasn’t so bad,” Mabel answered. “They put me through a coupla third degrees, first when they brought me in, and then another one ’bout nine in the ev’ning, tryin’ to trip me up, y’know. They said they knew I was a prostitute, jes’ to get my goat, and I started to cry and said it was a darn lie--I jes’ couldn’t help it.”

“They pull that off on ev’ry girl,” Harry said. “’F she is one, then she’ll own up cause she thinks they know all about it--that’s the game.”

“How’d you happen to get in with a crowd like that?” Blanche asked.

“I didn’t know what they was,” Mabel replied, aggrievedly. “Gee whiz, you can’t follow a fella around an’ see what he’s doin’, can you? This Bob Sullivan, now, he told me he was a book-maker at the races, an ev’rybody I knew seemed to think he was. Then he had a friend, Jack Misner, said he was a jockey--a little runt of a guy. Bob swore all the time he was gone on me. He’s a nice fella at that, he is, an’ I’m darn sorry they got him.”

“Well, you shouldn’t be,” her mother said. “When any one’s dishonest they oughta get punished for it, they ought. This world would be a fine world, it would, ’f ev’rybody went round and robbed ev’rybody else. An’ what’s more, I do hope you’ll stay home more now, Mabel dear, an’ keep outa trouble, I do.”

“Aw, pipe down, Kate,” her husband broke in. “She’s gotta size up her men better fr’m now on, sure, but you can’t expect her to sit around here all night. She c’n have all the fun she wants, I don’t mind, long as she looks them over more careful an’ don’t swallow all their gab.”

“It’s jes’ no use f’r me to say anythin’,” Mrs. Palmer answered, dolefully. “None uh you ever pays any attention to Kate Palmer till it’s too late, and then it’s ma do this f’r me, an’ ma do that.”

“I’ll watch out more, ma, I will,” Mabel said. “When I meet a fella with a big wad I’m gonna find out how he makes it ’fore I let him take me out. A girl’s gotta protect herself, that’s a fact.”

“It wouldn’t hurt you to go out with a few men that work for a living--just for a change,” Philip said. “Maybe they won’t take you to swell joints, maybe not, but they’ll get you into less trouble all right.”

“Don’t wish any uh Blanche’s kind on me,” Mabel retorted. “When I want to go to a sixty-cent movie-house, ’r sit down on a bench in the park, I’ll have my head tested to see ’f I’m all there.”

Her little, straight nose turned up, and her loosely small lips drew together to a tight complacency. Her plump face was more drawn, and hollows were under her eyes, and a trace of fright still lingered in the black eyes, but the expression on her face was one of rebuked but still ruling impudence. She told herself that she had been stung once by men--an incredible incident--and would henceforth set out to revenge herself upon them. It was all just a fight to see which side would get the best of the other, and she wouldn’t be caught napping twice. Her goal was to marry a man with money and good looks, and she wouldn’t allow anything to deter her. Beneath these determinations, sentimentalities and fears, aroused by the shock of her arrest, told her that she was flirting too closely with danger, and that it might be better to look for a stalwart youth with a laughable “line” and a movie-hero face--she was tired, after all, of letting homely, slow-tongued fellows kiss and hug her because they spent money to give her the gay nights that were due to every girl, and then again, she really ought to consider her poor ma, who was always fretting about her. Aw, well, she _would_ slow down just a little and stay home once in a while, and select her escorts with more of an eye to their safety and their physical attraction, and with money alone no longer all-supreme, but she would never subside to a back-number--not she. Plenty of girls ended by catching rich young men with a dash to them, and she could do the same thing if she kept a level head.

As Blanche listened to her sister, a disapproving sadness welled up within her--same old Mabel, not a hairbreadth changed. People seemed to be born in one way and to stick to it for the rest of their lives. She herself had never been quite like Mabel, even when she, Blanche, had been much more stupid than she might be now. She had always hunted for something without knowing what it was, and had always been “easier,” and more unhappy, and more concerned with the “inside” of herself.

“Men and men, that’s all you’ve got on your mind,” she said to her sister, softly. “’F you were ever wrecked now on some island, like I read about once, with nothing but another girl to keep you company, I think you’d go mad. You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself.”

“I’d like to know who would,” Mabel answered. “Why, even you, smarty, you’ve got to step out with diff’rent fellas, I notice. I suppose I’ll have to excuse myself f’r being a woman, next thing I know.”

“That’s your only excuse,” Blanche said, as she turned away.

“Well, it’s a good enough one to suit me,” Mabel retorted, irascibly.

Blanche walked into her room without replying. What was the use of speaking to people when your words went into one of their ears and instantly flew out of the other? Her future course of action had been determined. If her family ceased to bother her, she would continue to live with them, and go to some school at least five nights out of each week and reserve the other two for sessions with men and for relaxation. She wouldn’t live like a nun, that was ridiculous, but she would make a serious effort to master some profession or form of expression that would be much higher and more inwardly satisfying than doing the same thing with her hands every day. And if her family continued to be meddlesome and dictating, she would move out some morning when the menfolk were away.

During the next two days her existence was undisturbed. The Palmers had been somewhat chastened by Mabel’s arrest, and they had to admit that, in spite of the disagreeable mystery that Blanche had become, she _did_ manage to keep herself out of difficulties. Their confidence in Mabel was not as great as it had been, and it affected to a moderate degree their temporary reactions toward Blanche.

On the third afternoon, Campbell telephoned Blanche at the Beauty Parlor and arranged to meet her that night. She wanted to tell him that he would have to remain content with her friendship and that otherwise she could not see him again, and that her promise to “think over” his offer of an apartment and a shrouded alliance had been caused merely by her desperation in the face of barriers that withheld her from her desires. She intended to tell him frankly that she had resolved to permit him no greater physical liberties than a kiss now and then, and that she had made up her mind to reserve herself for the advent of an actual love. If he still wanted to take her out under those conditions, she’d be willing to see him once a week at most--he _was_ a jolly sedative in his way--but he would have to show her that he had a serious mind and a sincere love for her before she would reconsider his pleas. After all, there was such a thing as slowly falling in love with a man, if he made you entirely reverse your previous image of him. Campbell would never closely approach her ideals, she knew that, but perhaps he might make a respectable progress toward it, in which case she might accept him as the best real prospect possible to her.

She dressed to meet him that night, with a division of cautious and sanguinely impertinent feelings seething within her. As they were walking down Ninth Avenue, he looked admiringly at her round white felt hat, trimmed with a zigzag dash of black velvet, and her plain yellow pongee dress that had an air of subdued sprightliness about it, and her long, black coat with squirrel fur at the bottom. These girls, working for twenty-five a week, or thirty at most, how on earth did they manage to doll up like Peggy Hopkins Joyce? Funny too, they never seemed to retain this penny-transforming ability after they were married!

“You look like a million bucks, to-night,” he said. “I’d give a week’s salary to know how you do it.”

“Well, listen to Mister Innocent--never heard about instalment plans, and bargain hunting, and getting things cheap ’cause you know the head buyer.”

“Oh, even at that it’s the world’s eighth wonder to me,” he replied. “I’m afraid to take you any place to-night. Everybody I know’ll be trying to horn in on us.”

“Why, I thought competition was your middle name,” she said, brightly.

“No, it’s only an alias--too much of it’s as bad as too little,” he answered. “Anyway, don’t you get tired of scrimping and putting yourself out for clothes all the time?”

“What ’f I do?” she asked.

“Well, you know what I told you time before last,” he said. “I’ll pay all the bills and like it, any time you’re ready. You said you were going to think it over--remember?”

“Yes, I do,” she replied, soberly. “I’ll talk to you about it later on to-night. And don’t call a cab, Joe. Let’s walk a few blocks, for a change. You always act like you hated to use your legs.”

“I use ’em enough behind the lights to make up for all the riding I do,” he answered, amused.

They strolled over to Broadway, and were silent most of the time, save for commenting on some of the people striding past them. When they reached the corner of Broadway and one of the Forties, he said: “Say, Blanche, a friend of mine, Jack Donovan, ’s pulling a party to-night in his place. There’ll be two ’r three chorines from the Passing Gaieties show, and a couple of respectable crooks--um, I mean bootleggers--that kind of thing. I said I’d be up about eleven-thirty but I won’t go if you don’t want to. We could drop in at The Golden Mill and kill time until then.”

“Sure I’ll come, ’f it’s not going to be too wild,” she replied. “I never was much on those parties where they try to pass you around like you was a dish of ice cream.”

“Strictly pairs at Jack’s place, and the same pair lasts through the night,” he said. “Stick to the woman you’re with ’r take the elevator down--that’s the rule.”

“’F there’s too much booze flowing, that elevator-boy sure must be kept busy,” she retorted, with a laugh.

“Oh, we run it ourselves--we’re accommodating,” he said, with a grin.

After they were seated at a table in The Golden Mill and had finished half of their highballs, she said: “Joe, I’m going to talk serious to you. I was just in a silly mood when I said last time I’d think about living with you. It wouldn’t work out--it never does unless two people really love each other. ’F I ever fall hard in love with you, Joe, I’ll do it in a minute. I’m not afraid, but I don’t love you now. Besides, it’s not just a question of some man, with me. I’ve made up my mind to try and be an artist or an actress--don’t laugh now--and I wonder whether you could help me any.”

He listened to her with chagrin and amusement--going after her was like wading for eels, and she certainly had this “higher aspiration” bug with a vengeance. These girls now, they were amenable enough when their only desires were a good time, fine clothes, and a man who wouldn’t give them the shivers, but the moment they started to get this “self-expression,” I-want-to-be-different craze, boy, what a tough proposition they became. Still, even that could be turned to your advantage if you “yessed” it along and insinuated that you alone could cause it to succeed. In addition, in spite of his cynical feelings, he could not quite down his respect for her determination to struggle out of her present life. She was no ordinary girl, that was certain, and in a way she was a marvel, in view of the family that she came from and the half-dirty, low-down flat in which she’d been raised. She probably had no acting ability--they hardly ever did--but you could never be sure about _her_; she was little Miss Surprise herself. Well, if he could only land her first, he’d be willing to help her along--why not?

He looked at her eager face, that was not quite pretty but boldly attractive and well-spaced, and the almost full drop of her bosom rising and falling more quickly as she talked, and the restrained sturdiness of her lips. Beyond a doubt, he’d give his right hand to have her, and yet he couldn’t absolutely tell himself why.

“Well, well, Blanchie’s gone and got stage-struck,” he answered, lightly. “You know I’ll do anything for you, you know that, but I don’t want to see you wasting your time. This acting game’s a long, hard proposition--some get in overnight but they’re damn few in number. I know girls who’ve been in it for years, and all they’ve got is a diamond ring in pawn and a favorite chair at the booking agencies. A girl’s got to have more than ambition to make any one notice her on Broadway, nowadays. How d’you know you’re fit to be an actorine?”

“I don’t, but I want a try-out just the same,” she replied. “How’ll I ever know what I’m cut out for unless I go to it and see what I can do? ’F I turn out to be a frost as ’n actress, I’ll take up drawing ’r something else. There must be something I can do as good as other people, besides working like a nigger every day.”

“Sure there must,” he said, soothingly. “I’m with you all the time--I like to see a girl who can think of something else besides putting on the glad rags and lifting the glasses. You’ve got the stuff in you, and it’s never had a chance to come out, and I’m the one man you know who can help you in the acting line, don’t forget that. I’ll get you a try-out for some play--just a little part, y’know, where you walk across the stage ’n’ say ‘Madame, will you have the tea served now, or next Monday?’ I’ll make them take you, too.”

“Will you?” she asked, eagerly. “Say, you’re a brick, Joe!”

“Not my head, anyways,” he said, smiling. “D’you know, I’m really gone about you. It took two years to turn the trick--little Joe hates to be caught, he does--but ’f I’m not in love with you now, it’s so close, I can feel the breath on my neck. Why don’t you hook up with me and let me have you meet the right people and push you along? You’re not in love with me now, but you like me pretty well at that, don’t you?”

“I do,” she answered, “but I want to find out first whether you really mean all of this, and whether you’re really int’rested in the same things I am. You mustn’t be angry at this. It’s a serious thing to me, and I want to be sure. Besides, ’f you do care for me, why can’t you help me even ’f we _are_ just friends?”

“Of course I will,” he responded, with an easy heartiness. “It’s not like a business transaction to me.”

If she became more and more dependent upon his assistance, she couldn’t hold out forever.... They departed from the cabaret, after another highball, and went to the apartment of his friend, Jack Donovan. Donovan was a sturdy man of forty, whose five-feet-eleven were supported by flat feet and buttressed by the girth of a paunch. His head was one-quarter bald and his black hair was wetly combed down, and the oval of his face, rising from an almost double chin, was a morbid calculation, as though he were weary of his stage-laughs and smiles, and wondering what in the devil was so funny about life, anyway, except that people liked to pay money to be joshed into believing that it was. He did a monologue in vaudeville--one of those acts in which a portly “Senator Callahan,” in a frock coat and a high hat, cracks jokes about the events and foibles and personages of the day, with many a crudely ironical fling at grafting officials and high prices and prohibition, with lower puns and slapstick harangues against the prevailing immodesty of feminine attire--“They’d wear ’em two feet above the knees if they weren’t afraid it would completely discourage a guy.” He greeted Joe with an off-hand amiability, and looked at Blanche, after the introduction, with a side-long intentness. Joe knew how to pick ’em, all right--she wasn’t a doll-baby but she had class to her.

The two front parlors of the apartment had an ebony baby-grand piano, and Louis Sixteenth furniture picked up at auctions and standing beside the squat, varnished products of Grand Rapids--an oak sideboard with large, glass knobs and an oak settee. Some bottles and other accessories were on the sideboard, and Donovan returned to his interrupted task of making a round of cocktails. The other guests had already arrived--the two chorus girls mentioned by Campbell, and another woman whose occupation might not have desired a public announcement, and two business men who dabbled in liquor-selling on the side.

One of the chorus girls, Flo Kennedy, looked like the wax clothes dummy that can be observed in shop-windows, and hardly showed much more animation, except that when she spoke, the figure became slightly more crude and less aloof. Her round face was inhumanly symmetrical below her dark-brown hair, and its expression was, well, a no-trespassing sign, over the composed expectation of masculine advances. She wore a short-skirted thing of terra-cotta silk and cream lace, and flesh-colored stockings rolled just below the knees, and black pumps. Her companion, Grace Henderson, was a short, slender, Jewish girl in a jauntily plain black gown, with bobbed, blondined hair and a mincing, sensuous glisten on her face--pretty in spite of the tell-tale curve at the end of her nose. The third woman, Madge Gowan, was silent and dark, with a half-ugly, long face, whose shapely cheeks and chin partly diminished the opposite effect, and a fully curved, strong body.

One of the business men, Sol Kossler, a Jew in his early forties, was roly-poly and half bald, with a jowled, broad-nosed face on which smug and sentimental confidences were twined--one of those merchants who succeed more through luck than because of hard shrewdness--while the other, Al Simmonds, was robust but not stout and had a shock of wavy black hair, and the depressed face of a man who knew that he was hoodwinking himself, in his life and thoughts, but could not spy any other recourse. In their neatly pressed and creased gray suits, both of the men looked as though their objective were the immaculate erasure of individuality.

The conversation reverberated with continual laughter. The men expected each other to utter wise-cracks, and digs at each other’s weaknesses, and humorous tales, and each one was constantly egging the other on to self-surpassing retorts. The women were not expected to do much except listen, and laugh or smile at the right places, and join in the intervals of more placid gossip about theatrical people, and indicate a sexual responsiveness without becoming demonstrative (sex would have been boresome to all of them without the assumption of gayly parrying uncertainties, even though they knew in advance what the night’s outcome would be, pro or con).

To Blanche, they were an emptily hilarious lot, out for the usual things that men and women wanted from each other, and merely laughing and idling on the way to them--not at all interested in the big, serious things of which she had had a revealing glimpse--but they _were_ funny at times, and it _was_ pleasant to be a young woman patently desired by men, and the chance to be amused and self-forgetful for one night was not to be sneezed at. She joined in the repartee between Kossler and Donovan.

“I hear you sold some shirts to Mayor Kelly the other day,” Donovan said. “One more vote shot to hell.”

“I voted for him last time when he bought them from Sax and Mulberry,” Kossler retorted. “Li’l’ Sol can’t be corrupted, ’less it’s some one of the other sex, and even then, corrupted wouldn’t be exactly the word, y’know.”

“Yes, interrupted would be better there,” Donovan replied, as the others laughed.

“Why d’you want to vote for a fellow like Kelly?” Blanche asked. “He’s just a wind-bag--always telling how much he’s going to do for the public, but that’s where he ends.”

Kossler lifted his eyebrows--women were not supposed to be interested in politics (middle-aged club-women, and professionals in both parties, and socialists excepted).

“Now, girlie, what d’you know about it?” he asked, indulgently. “They’ve all got to promise a lot--that’s in the game--but old Kelly’s better than the rest of them at that. He’s dead honest and he can’t be bought.”

“So’s ’n elephant,” Blanche retorted. “You can buy one cheap at the Bronx zoo and put him up at the next election.”

Donovan looked pityingly at her and said: “My Gawd, another socialist.”

“I’m not, but I come from the Hell’s-Kitchen district and I’m wise to politics, all right,” Blanche answered.

“Everything you say is right with me,” Simmonds interjected. “It’s a foxy-pass, anyway, to argue with a woman at a party--you’ll end up by singing: ‘Sitting in a co-orner, that’s all I do-o.’”

“Maybe it is,” said Blanche, while the others laughed.

Flo and Grace regarded her with a petulant suspicion--she was of the smart, snippy kind, and furthermore, she’d better not try to go after _their_ men; they’d pull her hair out if she did.

“Now, you all stop razzing my Blanche,” Campbell broke in. “She’s just a little girl trying to make both ends connect in the big, wicked city.”

“Razzing her!--it’s just the other way,” Simmonds said. “D’you ever balance a hot coal on the tip of your nose?”

“It only looks that way--I was out on a party last night,” Campbell replied. “I heard a good one, though, the other day. Tom Jarvey was walking along the street, and he runs into Hammond, the village cut-up. ‘I hear you was seen walkin’ with your grandmother the other day--that’s a nice thing to do,’ said Hammond. Jarvey comes back: ‘She didn’t look that way when I married her--you know how it is.’”

The rest of them laughed, and Grace said: “That’s like the husband I ditched last year. He was a prize-package until I saw him putting his false toofies in a glass uh water one night. Hot snakes!”

“Let’s call it a draw and put the phonograph on, and fox-trot,” Flo said.

The party broke into dancing, with regular intervals in which rounds of cocktails circulated. The silently dark woman sat on a couch, with a fixed smile, and occasionally chatted with Donovan, and seemed to be outside of the party, as though she were viewing it with a satiated and good-natured patience. Blanche sat beside her for a short time.

“You don’t seem to be enjoying yourself,” Blanche said, “or maybe this is how you do it.”

“Oh, I’m a good listener, and I don’t dance if I can help it,” Madge Gowan replied. “I’m not down on the world, it’s not that, but I like to sit in the audience now ’n’ then. It’s fine for your nerves and you get a different slant at what’s going on around you.”

“I’m a little like that, myself,” Blanche answered, “but this is my night for mixing in, I guess.”

Campbell pulled her away for another dance, and she reflected on the dark woman, through the touch of haze forming in her own head. Was that the way you became around thirty-five, if you couldn’t stay blind to the world and the people in it?

The party became more boisterous, and the innuendoes grew warmer and less attired, and the chorus girls sat beside Kossler and Simmonds and exchanged kissing and impolite embraces that were not quite direct. Donovan had his head on Madge Gowan’s shoulder, while she caressed his hair. Blanche, who was standing beside the phonograph, with Campbell’s arm around her waist, felt confused, and merrily indifferent to everything except the unsteady exaltation in her body and the singing carelessness of her emotions. As she had done so many times before, she made an effort to pull herself together and resume some portion of her secret wariness, but the effort was a weak one, this time, and her “silly,” lightly unarmored feelings persisted and grew stronger.

“Let’s leave, Joe dear, I’m so-o-o diz-z-zy,” she said.

“Sit down a while, you’ll feel better,” he replied, leading her to the couch.

The two chorus girls departed with Kossler and Simmonds, after a loudly gay _mêlée_ of words had flown back and forth, and Blanche, by this time, was too limp and dazed to bid them good-bye. When Donovan returned from the front door, Blanche had slumped back upon the couch, and Campbell said: “Darned if she hasn’t passed out, Jack.”

Donovan grinned at his friend.

“We’ll put her on the bed in the spare room and let her sleep it off. I’m going to turn in, now, with Madge. Don’t do anything your mother wouldn’t approve of, Joe.”

Madge Gowan rose and looked steadily at Campbell.

“How about leaving the poor kid alone, to-night?” she asked.

“Don’t be foolish, she’s ’n old flame uh mine,” Campbell answered. “We’ve been crazy about each other for more than two years now.”

“Well, let her sleep with me, anyway,” Madge persisted. “You can see her to-morrow morning.”

“Now Ma-adge, don’t butt in where it’s not needed,” said Donovan chidingly.

“Yes, cut out the guardian-angel stuff,” Campbell said, in a careless voice. “She’s ’n old sweetie uh mine, I’m telling you.”

Madge turned and looked down at Blanche, in a dully sad way.

“Oh, well, it’s no business of mine,” she said.

* * * * *

When Blanche woke up on the next morning, she looked at the strange room with an uncomprehending, ferocious ache in her head. Then, in a detached fashion, incidents of the past night began to bob up in her head, and she pieced them slowly together, in a stumbling, erratic way. She’d met Campbell and gone to a party with him, and then she had become drunk and everything had grown slowly darker. She remembered vaguely that she had begged him to take her home.... Then, an indefinable stirring within her heart told her what had happened.... So, he had sneaked off, afraid to face her now--the coward, the coward. But perhaps he was still in the place, and ... where was she, anyway? She opened the door and walked unsteadily down the hallway. Yes, this was the same parlor where the party had taken place--same piano and furniture. Perhaps Campbell was sleeping in another room in the apartment.