Chapter VI: Margaret

I

Margaret made the faintest little grimace of dismay at the long florist’s box for which she had just signed the receipt presented by the messenger. It wasn’t a grimace of displeasure but a puzzled look as if the particular calculation involved was an unresolved doubt. Then she cut the pale green string and lifted the flowers out.

There were flowers for every corner, fresia, daffodils, narcissus--everything that the florist’s windows were blooming with during this second week of May. She touched them with delight, sorted them, placed them in every bit of crockery she could find. But Mrs. Thorstad sat in a chair drawn up before the mission oak table in Margaret’s little rented apartment and waited. She was impatient that the flowers should have come at a moment when their discussion hinged on a crisis. And as if her respect for Margaret had fallen a little, she eyed the display without appreciation. Margaret talked, as she placed the flowers, however, as if she could separate her mental reactions from her esthetic.

“Well,” she said, “you saw the way the thing went. It was absolutely cut and dried. I knew there was no chance of getting a woman elected as one of the regular delegates to the National Convention. Pratt and Abbott were the slate from the beginning. Every one knew Gage Flandon wanted them and every one knew that meant they were Joyce’s choice if Flandon wanted them. I had talked to Mr. Flandon about it but he wouldn’t tell me anything really revealing. Except that the slate was made up and while they were very glad to have the women as voters that it might be better to wait another four years before they gave them a chance to sit in at a National Convention. He didn’t intend to have a woman and especially he didn’t intend to have one because he knew there was some agitation to send his own wife.”

“That was what the mistake was, I think, Miss Duffield. I think another candidate might have done better.”

“But they never even mentioned any woman,” exclaimed Margaret. Then as if she got the other woman’s meaning, she gave her a searching look.

Mrs. Thorstad talked blandly on. Margaret finished her work of beauty and came back to the table, tapping the surface of it with her regained pencil.

“What we must propose is a woman with a national ideal, a woman thoroughly interested in the district, conversant with its needs and with a democratic personality.”

Thus definitely did Mrs. Thorstad outline what she believed to be her virtues, but Margaret did not seem to understand them as solely hers.

“Helen Flandon combines all those things.”

“Personally,” broke in the other woman, “I have always admired Mrs. Flandon immensely. But I have always felt that her interest in all these matters was perhaps a little transitory. That is no reflection on her, of course” (Margaret nodded acquiescence) “but a woman with so many domestic duties and with so much society life must necessarily not be able to give her whole mind to the work.”

“She’d give her whole mind if she got interested enough and I think she is nearly interested enough now. Helen Flandon is big material, Mrs. Thorstad. She has the genius of leadership. It’s a bit banked with ashes just now but it could be fanned into flame.”

“Won’t the fact that she is Gage Flandon’s wife work against her?”

“Not materially, I think. Of course that’s one thing that bothers Gage. He thinks he’ll be accused of using influence to get his wife in. Told me the thing was impossible on that account. Let him be accused of it. It doesn’t matter. Her name will please the men. They’ll think they’re pleasing Flandon by letting her in and that’s of course a thing he can’t deny.”

Mrs. Thorstad apparently did not get all the subtleties of those statements. A settled darkness had come over her face--a kind of clouded vision.

Margaret went blithely on.

She talked easily, wisely, giving the wounded hopes of Mrs. Thorstad a chance to get over their first bleeding, giving her a chance to get her hopes fixed a little on that political future which, although she was apparently not to be made delegate at large, still loomed ahead. She suggested that Mrs. Thorstad should surely be at the Convention in some capacity. And she went on, telling of the Washington leaders, the section leaders, of the general plans for work and education in politics among women. Then she spoke of Freda.

“Is she going to stay here after all? I do hope so.”

“Well, I go home to-morrow. Mrs. Flandon has been interested in Freda’s staying. She thought there must be things Freda could do here and Freda wants to stay. Freda doesn’t typewrite but at the Republican headquarters there may be a place for her. Mr. Flandon has promised to speak to the chairman about taking Freda on as secretary. At first there’d be only a certain small amount of correspondence but later they say they could put her in the campaign headquarters. I must go back to Mohawk. Freda stays for a day or so at Mrs. Brownley’s--then if she takes this position, Mrs. Flandon will help her find a place to live. It’s extremely kind of all of you to be so interested in Freda.”

“She’s a very wonderful young person. I only hope she gets more interested in us.”

“She has all the irresponsibility of youth,” said her mother, sententiously.

“Oh, by the way,” said Margaret, “I promised to lend your Freda a book. Here it is.” She took a book from the table and gave it to Mrs. Thorstad who eyed it a little questioningly.

“It’s very stimulating if not altogether sound,” said Margaret.

“So much of our literature is that.” The older woman compressed her lips a little. “Not that I am not a Modern. But we are a little inclined to lose sight of the fact that our fathers and mothers--”

This time her little platform manner was interrupted by the ringing of the house phone. Margaret spoke into it, briefly.

“Why, yes, I’m nearly ready. I didn’t realize it was so late. No, indeed not. Come in and wait for me.”

“Don’t hurry, Mrs. Thorstad,” she added, hanging up the receiver. “Mr. Carpenter can wait.”

But Mrs. Thorstad did hurry. And as she went out she met Walter Carpenter going in. She gave him her reserved little bow.

The two Thorstads were still at the Brownley house. The visit had turned out so much better than Freda had feared that two weeks had slipped away quickly for her while her mother was working and planning and making speeches to small clubs and circles along the lines her hostess desired. Freda was out with Allison Brownley on this particular afternoon and the two guest rooms were empty as Mrs. Thorstad entered them.

She sat down in a straight chair (the habit of relaxing had long since failed her) and fell into thought, idly turning the pages of the book she had borrowed from Miss Duffield. A letter slipped out and fell to the floor. It had no envelope and as Mrs. Thorstad picked it up she read clearly the scrawl of writing in black, heavy masculine characters across the back of the page. It was a love letter to Margaret signed with a black sprawling male signature, “Gregory.” So Mrs. Thorstad would phrase it with a little repression of her lips. There were words of passion--there was a flavor of intimacy--

She read no more than that back page. Then, holding the letter as if it offended her, she placed it in one of Mrs. Brownley’s envelopes and addressed it to Margaret.

II

“Did I drive away a visitor?” asked Walter.

“No--she was through with me. You’re rather a relief.”

Margaret could smile with the most complete friendliness of any woman he had ever seen, thought her visitor. She lifted her head and smiled straight at you. There were no evasions in her way of showing that she was glad to see you. She didn’t hold her gladness as a prize, but made you a straight gift of it. He liked the dress she was wearing--a fawn colored cloth dress that outlined the straight lines of her figure--he liked the way her hair grew away from its boyish side parting with a little curve here and there.

“I think I am a little early,” he said, looking at his watch, “but I thought since I was through at the office I’d come up, and you might be willing to come out for a ride before we dine. It’s just five o’clock.”

“That sounds very nice. Sit down and amuse yourself while I get my hat.”

He obeyed, finding a book which did not seem to interest him at all but which gave him a chance to turn pages while she put on her hat and piled the papers on her desk. She turned to him as she was doing that.

“You spoil me.”

“I’d like to spoil you.”

“Spoil me by treating me like a human being--forgetting that I’m a woman and that you’ve been taught to flatter women.”

“If I do that I can’t remind you that I’m a man and it might be I’d like you to think of that.”

It was very light. Their tones were the perfectly controlled tones of those who have emotions thoroughly in check. But the note of seriousness was there and they were both too wise to pretend that it wasn’t.

“I’m quite ready to go,” said Margaret.

He helped her with her cloak and they went down the stairway. Once in the car, with Margaret bundled in robes he turned to the boulevards and they fell into talk again. They liked to talk to each other. They elucidated things between them. They liked the calmness of each other’s reactions, the sense of mutual control they had as they held a subject poised on their reflections, as they explored the sensitive delicacy of some thought. Politics, people, books--but always their talk strayed back to men and women. As if in that kind of talk they got most pleasure from each other, as if the subject were inexhaustible.

Walter had told Margaret a great deal about himself and she had listened with interest. Then little by little under that cloak of the impersonal she had told him something of herself, her interest in women. “Not that I idealize them. I don’t. But they are far more interesting than any work--their problems are the biggest in the world.”

“Are you looking for still further concessions?”

“You mustn’t use that word. We’re looking for the truth in the situation. You think because we vote that the game’s up, don’t you? It’s not. If women are ever going to be--women, Mr. Carpenter, they’ve got to develop all the qualities they’ve been letting rot and decay for hundreds of years. A few women have preserved the strength all women should have. But most of them--Do you dream that most of them have an idea of doing any real work--want any real work? Do you think they’re going to give up their security of support without a struggle? They don’t want independence in the majority of cases. They want certain rules relaxed for their convenience. But do you think that basically they want to give up their claim developed through ages as a ‘weaker sex’?”

She stopped, at the little smile in his eyes. “You think I’m as oratorical as Mrs. Thorstad, don’t you?”

“I do not, but I was thinking that it was time we had some dinner.”

They stopped at one of the hotels and maneuvered their way through a crowded, ornate dining-room to a little table on the side of the room, Walter bowing gravely to a great many people as they went along.

“You’re a very solid citizen, aren’t you?” asked Margaret.

“I like solid citizens,” he answered, “are they too on your list of obnoxious people and things?”

“Of course they are not.”

“I was a little worried after that list began developing. I don’t want to be on the list of people you don’t like.”

But it was not until they had finished dinner and were drinking coffee that he developed that thought.

“I wonder if you know how hard you women are making things for men,” he said, not abruptly but as if stating his brief.

“Perhaps it was too easy before.”

“Perhaps. But you make it so difficult--you stand so aggressively strong--so independent of us that we can’t find a thing with which to recommend ourselves. You don’t want our protection--our support--you mistrust our motives.”

“I told you this afternoon that I thought most women did cling to protection and support.”

“Not the women we may want. You don’t want the things I have to offer.”

His tones had hardly raised. In her first moment of embarrassment Margaret fumbled for words but he went on in that same quiet tone.

“I thought it was as well to be frank with you. I couldn’t see that I would gain anything by conventionalities of courtship. And I’m a little old to indulge in certain forms of wooing anyhow. I have never seen any woman I wanted to marry so much. I like your mind. And I mention it first because it is the thing which matters least. I like more than that the way you smile. I would always have the greatest enjoyment from you as a woman of intellect. But the real reason I want you to marry me is because you are a woman of flesh and blood--and all that that means.”

She had flushed a little and as he ended in that controlled way, though for all his control he could not conceal the huskiness in his voice, she leaned forward a little to him, as if in sympathy. But she did not speak. Her eyes fell away from his.

“I care for you just as all men have a way of caring for women, Margaret--I love you very much.”

“I’m a very poor person to love,” she answered, slowly.

“You’re a wonderful person to love. Do you think you could care for me--ever? After you’d trained me a bit?”

“I like you to talk to--to be with as much as any one I’ve ever known,” she said at last. “We’ve had a great deal of sympathy for each other. Of course I guessed you liked me. I rather hoped you wouldn’t love me. Because”--and curiously enough her voice dropped as if in shame, almost to a whisper--“I’m so cold, Walter. I don’t feel things like most women.”

“Let’s get out of here,” said Walter, rising abruptly.

But he was unlucky. At the very door they were hailed by a passing automobile and discovered the Flandons, Jerrold Haynes and three other people, had seen them. They were invited to come along to the theater where there were a couple of vacant seats in the boxes the Flandons had taken. It seemed ridiculous to refuse. The play was conspicuously good, it was too cold a night for driving and they all knew that Margaret had no home to which they were going. So, unwillingly, Walter found himself made part of the larger group. For the rest of the evening he heard Margaret arguing with Gage, whom Walter noted, seemed very bitter on the matter of his wife’s discussed entry into politics. He heard Helen say, suddenly and very quietly, after some rather blustering declaration of Gage’s, “If the women want me, I shall go, Gage.” Walter was conscious that there seemed an altercation beneath the surface, that the geniality of relation between Helen and Gage was lessened. For a few minutes he thought Helen was flirting rather badly with that ass of a Jerrold Haynes.

As he took Margaret home she talked at length of sending Helen to the Convention.

“You’ve shelved me, haven’t you?” he asked as they entered the tiny apartment so fragrant with his flowers.

“I didn’t mean to. Come in and we’ll talk about you.”

“About you and me.” He came in, readily.

“I didn’t understand that was what you wanted.”

She did not let him touch her and in the isolation of her room he could not persist. For a while he sat silent and she told him about herself and her lack of feeling. She had fine, clear, experienced phrases to tell of it. Yet she was conscious of making no impression.

“I’ve passed the marrying time,” she said.

“Why?”

“It involves things which have passed me by--that I no longer need.”

“You mean--children?”

“No--I haven’t a lot of sentimental yearnings about them. But of course I would like to have children. There’s an instinct to do one’s duty by the race, in every woman.”

He actually laughed.

“You chilled young woman. Well--what then has passed by you?”

She did not tell him. Perhaps there were no words, no definite thoughts in her own mind. She must have been full of strange inhibitions. Analysis crowded so close on the heels of feeling with her that she never could have the one without the other. All her study, her watching of men, all her study and analysis of women had made her mind a laboratory with her own emotions for victims of analysis.

Gregory had told her that in that sprawlingly written letter, now in the post office, being sent back to her from Mrs. Thorstad.

Gregory held her thought for a moment. Then she looked at Walter with fresh appreciation. She liked to be with Walter. He didn’t oppress her. His mind met hers without pushing. She felt protected in his companionship from that rude forcing of emotion which had been so hard on her.

He was going now. At the door he held her hand.

“I could be very good to you,” he said, quietly. “Let me try.”