Chapter V

Maud had her own plans for Horatia. She herself was finding life very pleasantly successful and she followed her leaders carefully, trusting no habits of life which they did not trust and indeed regarding all other types of living as either impossible to attain or impossible to endure. She was developing the best possible setting for herself and her family. Her house broke none of the rules laid down in “House and Garden,” with its striped cretonnes and plain linens and comfortable furniture. It was not too ostentatious because the young people around her were not ostentatious, but it was a beginning. And she saw her future before her with delightful clearness through a succession of increasingly expensive automobiles, through a succession of increasingly elaborate gowns up to the day when she would own a great brick house in the city and a winter home in California. She did not take great credit to herself for this ambition. It was due to her own astuteness and Harvey’s cleverness.

So she gave dinner parties to people whom she knew and liked and other dinner parties to people who were useful to her husband, and enjoyed her progress along the reasonable way of luxury and importance. The things Horatia talked about, odd things picked up in her newspaper office, of a new spirit in the world, of the relentless advance of the hordes of workers, bothered her not at all. She knew that servants were increasingly hard to get and to keep “in their place” and that there were “labor troubles” in some of the manufactories managed by people whom she knew and that “everybody was striking.” But she knew too that Harvey placed the responsibility on the war for much of the trouble, and she had no doubt that, the war being over, those little matters would adjust and allow the right people to run things as they should be run. Horatia talked a great deal but Maud had no doubts about her sister’s ultimate destiny. Somewhere along the line, and not too far along, she meant to marry Horatia to some desirable man. She had discovered that Horatia was an asset at a dinner party just as she was a blight at a bridge. She was one person when she was making inexcusable and enraging blunders at a bridge-table and another when she appeared at a tea, able and willing to talk of the newest local interest or problem to important and serious-minded ladies or when, in some queer effective dinner-dress, she sat with her bright, grave face turned in constant interest to the man beside her.

“Horatia plays up to men awfully well,” Maud told her husband. And was wholly wrong. Horatia was too interested to play up to anyone, man or woman. She had come from her University into a world vastly more stimulating than she had imagined. It was, as Langley had told her, a world tired and worn by war, a world in vast upheaval over the division of material things, but through the weariness and worn places relentless new life, undiscouraged energies were already pushing their way. Since the war young people had come to feel their power and their indispensability; young plans for life and ways of life, less greedy than the old ones, pushed themselves forward, sure that they could not fail as deplorably as the old systems had done. Women were no longer tremulous about their possibilities; an under-supply of men had forced them out of their dependencies and they faced life more sturdily. Men, shocked into the realization that death comes devastatingly to whole generations of the young, faced life more sturdily too, though temporarily with less responsibility, with more desire for immediate pleasures, for immediate achievements, and with an undertone of mental insecurity. The whole world seemed to feel unstable and ready for experiments, any experiments. That was the world which Horatia had found and it mated badly with Maud’s. Maud’s world, Maud’s friends, lived by the rules laid down by old-fashioned success and decency. They held to the old order but not to the spirit of the old order. The spirit of the old order had been far-reaching, far-seeking, anxious to perpetuate its own ideas and to raise generation after generation like itself. But Maud and Harvey had no thought of grandchildren or of the future of their own ideas. Their ideas reached not much farther than the brick mansion and the house in California.

Through their circles and through her own Horatia came and went and everywhere she touched life and tingled with the contact, unconscious that it was she herself who was electric. Langley watched her as she dashed in and out of his office and tried not to do so and on his failure cursed himself under his breath for a doddering fool and worked harder than ever.

He sent Horatia home at five o’clock on the afternoon of the election, for they had put out a special edition the day before and he noticed the unnatural flush of her cheeks.

“Come back tonight if you like,” he said. “You can answer the telephones after the returns begin to come in. But there’ll be nothing before ten.”

Horatia went obediently. At the apartment she found an urgent message from Maud. Someone had failed her and would Horatia come to dinner? Horatia called her to beg off and yielded. Maud was very serious about her dinner parties and this one, it appeared, was especially important.

“You can go at ten, if you have to. But don’t leave me with an unbalanced table. There’d be two men sitting next each other. Please.”

Horatia promised and hung up the receiver, smiling a little at the enormity of two men sitting next each other. But after all it gave her something to do and she was not sorry.

Harvey greeted her admiringly in the living-room.

“How are politics?”

“I’d give a lot to know.”

“Well,” he admitted, “your candidate really does stand a show. It’s amazing the way he has come on, without more backing. The chances are that he’ll run second or third.”

“I think he’ll be first,” said Horatia, and was going on when Maud came in, resplendent in black satin and with her blond hair drawn back from her forehead in perfect waves. She looked Horatia over critically. Horatia’s dress was the color of burnt orange and obviously she had done her hair herself and quickly. But even Maud could not cavil.

“I’ve given you young Wentworth,” she said, with the air of one who confers great benefits, “and don’t talk his arm off about politics. He’s rather sporty--was an aviator--is awfully rich, they’re the grain exporters, you know. And do be nice to him, won’t you?”

“It’s easier to be nice to the poor than the sporty rich. But I’ll try.”

She found it surprisingly easy to be nice after all. Anthony Wentworth had the charm of a young man and the finesse of an older one. He talked on all sorts of subjects--about soldiers and soldiering, not from the point of view Horatia heard most often in _The Journal_ office, the economic standpoint, but from the romantic one. And Horatia, who had given up the hope that there was anything romantic in war, listened to him as he talked of chances and perils and adventures, never for a minute in self-exploitation but for sheer joy in having found a listener who knew what he was trying to say.

“But you got out of it,” she protested. “Why didn’t you keep on flying?”

He smiled a little apologetically.

“I don’t enjoy flying for mere sport--or commercially. There’s no pleasure in it as there can be in driving a car or riding a horse. But to run the risks and take the chances and know there’s a reason why you should is different.”

He relapsed into an attack on his salad and Horatia broke up a cracker and thought of the difference between his ideas of war and the war as it was seen by ex-soldiers who drifted into _The Journal_ office with gossip and complaints. But she did not pursue the idea, for when the salad was finished Anthony Wentworth had more to say to her, so much that she forgot about the election and thought of how wonderful it would be to travel through all the queer countries of the world with a man who could ride and shoot and drive an airplane and whose hair grew back from his forehead naturally. Maud, from the head of the table, looked at them and even found time to dream a very hasty dream in which she figured largely as the sister-in-law of Mr. Anthony Wentworth.

But in the living-room Horatia remembered and to her horror it was half-past ten. Signalling to Maud, she started to leave the room and was annoyed to find Wentworth following her.

“It’s very early, Miss Grant.”

“I know, but I am just going to work. I work in _The Journal_ office and it’s election night and I meant to get back by ten o’clock. Now it will be eleven.”

He did not show the slightest perturbation at the announcement of her work, but pulled out his watch.

“Not if you let me take you down in my car. Can’t I, please?”

“I’d love it.”

They seemed to fly along the streets and she loved the sureness of his driving. Huddled beside him in her cloak, with the wind in her face, that too was an adventure. The city streets were more crowded than usual and knots of men stood together on the corner, arguing and discussing. At _The Journal_ office, Horatia noted with satisfaction that there was a crowd around the hall, a large enough crowd to prove the importance of _The Journal_ politically, she thought. She and Anthony Wentworth pushed through it up to the door of the office and Wentworth followed her in. The tobacco smoke was thick in the room. It was crowded and unfamiliar, with a man sitting at her desk with his feet on her table and Langley laughing rather uproariously at something. As she came in the conversation halted abruptly. Some of the men knew her but to most of them the slim beautiful girl in evening clothes and the tall, immaculate man beside her seemed a curious apparition. There was an awkward moment. Horatia seemed chiefly conscious of Jim Langley’s eyes suddenly eager, suddenly hostile, suddenly cynical again. It was her companion who broke the silence as he greeted Langley cordially.

“Why, I didn’t know what I was getting into, Langley,” he said. “Is it your paper Miss Grant works on? I brought her down because she was in such a hurry to get here----”

To Horatia her hurry now seemed absurd. What had she hurried for? They didn’t need her. She was simply out of place.

“You told me I could answer the telephones.”

She tried to make a joke of it but Langley did not help her.

“Miss Grant is over-conscientious,” he said, half to Wentworth, and then wholly to her, “I am sorry you hurried away from your party.”

“It wasn’t a party,” said Horatia. “I was at my sister’s house for dinner. And please put me to work at something. I know I look silly but I’ll keep my coat on.”

Her self-consciousness had gone and the situation was easy and real again. But the two men who were talking to her looked at each other for the space of a second measuringly. Then with a few casual inquiries as to the progress of the election Wentworth went out.

“You can take the ’phone in my room,” said Langley. “Tell people who call that returns are only beginning to come in but that Johnson runs second on a count of nine precincts. Emphasize Johnson. I’ll get the news on the other wire and pass it on to you.”

She nodded understandingly and holding her cloak over her shoulders passed through the crowded room with her perfectly friendly disarming smile. It was significant that no one said anything about her or even exchanged a glance or smile after she had passed. Langley, looking on the alert to check any such demonstration, seemed satisfied.

The smoke thickened and the telephone was incessant. Horatia answered innumerable inquiries--of men who gave their names as if it gave them a first right to information--of women who seemed to try to make their anxious voices anonymous. It was amazing how many people cared. And didn’t care! She remembered the nonchalance of the people at Maud’s dinner party--the perfect courtesy of the young ex-aviator towards the triviality of the local election. What did he know or care about the future of _The Journal_ or Jim Langley? What did she know--why did she care? She mechanically kept on, answering questions--listening to the voices of the men in the other room, now excited, now indifferent, now voicing an analysis of this or that chance. The smoke was even thicker. It hung like a cloud over the desks and tables--it created an atmosphere of masculinity. Women can not smoke in such a way. It seemed as if the smoke were a cloud of hopes and chances and ideals in which these men were floating.

Things went well--then badly. Horatia’s philosophy melted away. Nothing mattered except success, Johnson’s success. She felt a strange exhilaration at the fact that they didn’t know--couldn’t know yet--and that there might be whole precincts which would go exclusively for Johnson. The men at the tables labelling the 39th as Catholic--“nothing there”--“maybe 40 in the 27th,” irritated her. Why did they frighten themselves with all these calculations?

She looked up at Langley, who had come in with a report.

“He’s got to win--he’s gone so far. Things couldn’t be so contrary as to let him lose now.”

Suddenly he smiled at her.

“Incurable romanticist,” he said, and went out again.

At twelve o’clock things were in utter confusion--at one o’clock it was clear as daylight. If Johnson had not won he had so nearly done so that only a trick of luck would defeat him. His chances were good.

At half past one he looked secure and the office was slowly emptying. The telephone calls had nearly ceased. The last of the politicians departed, hoping to get a bit of stray news at the city hall and promising to telephone it as soon as possible. Horatia still sat at Langley’s desk--her head on her hand--her cloak thrown back--dreaming of what this might mean and mixing her dreams with a hundred irrelevancies.

“Well,” said Langley, “we’ve won, I think.” His voice was very quiet and yet there was a new sureness in it.

Horatia got up a little wearily, dragging her cloak.

“I have never been so glad of anything,” she answered.

He came behind her to lift the wrap and put it about her shoulders.

“I must take you home.”

It was very quiet. All the excitement seemed to have given way to stupor. In the hazy office they spoke slowly and Horatia felt vaguely unreal.

“Aren’t you glad?” she pressed for an answer.

“Very.” He spoke tenderly, as if to reassure a child, folding the wrap lingeringly over her shoulders.

“And you’ll be happier now?”

“Happier--romanticist--what’s happiness?”

“It’s everything,” said Horatia.

She looked up at him and the dark circles under her eyes and the pallor of her cheeks made her suddenly pathetic. A tremendous tenderness woke in Langley’s face. Tenderness and pain. The cynicism which had guarded his emotions seemed to slip away.

“I’m happy just to be near you--near you.”

He drew her gently back against him and bent towards her lips. They met his--so sweetly, so softly, with the innocence of their touch matching the wonder in her eyes. Wonder that love had dawned on her life.

He did not speak--only held her. It was she who broke the silence.

“All the wonderful things in the world are coming true.”

But at that he released her, lifting her face in his hands.

“You’ve brought me back to life. You’ve made me come back when I was afraid to come--and when I hated to come. You’ve made me want to try all over. And there’s not a thing in the world I can do for you--nothing to offer you--nothing.”

She felt suddenly grown-up and maternal.

“Isn’t it enough to--love me?” she asked, hesitating a little.

“My love!” He scorned it.

“It’s a strong, beautiful love.”

He turned away drearily.

“You romance--you can’t help romancing. No, it’s not beautiful; it’s strong, God knows, but not beautiful. Don’t you see, Horatia--don’t you see I’m a spent sort of person. I can’t take your youth and loveliness. I haven’t a right. You belong to someone young and fine like yourself.”

“I belong where I love.” Horatia was impatient of argument. She was a woman in love and a hundred instincts pulled at her heart.

Langley paled at the words. Then again he held her close to him--despairingly close.

“Anything in the world I have,” he breathed. “And now I must take you home.”

They went out into the quiet street and went along swiftly, Horatia too happy for silence or leisurely walking.

“There are more stars and the wind is a wind of joy,” she exulted.

Langley said nothing but at her door he kissed her again--gently and sweetly.

“Good-night, my love, good-night. You must sleep well. And I’ll never, never hurt you or let you hurt yourself.”

“Can’t you stop worrying?” begged Horatia. “Can’t you just love? I don’t even think.”

“I’ll try.”

When she looked at her face in her mirror the exaltation of it startled her.

“Love makes you beautiful,” she thought and slipped into her bed to lie ecstatically still, thinking of nothing except the touch of lean brown hands and the smell and touch of his rough coat. And her mind sang hymns to the wonder of love.

* * * * *

She was for telling everyone at once but Langley demurred. Going to the office next morning she lingered to enjoy her own anticipations. It was different now. All restraints were over between them, she thought.

He was not there. That was the first disappointment. Later, when he came in, there were other men with him and his greeting was as formal as it had been the day before. She bent over her work, went out on assignments with her mind repeating and repeating every quiver of incident of the night before. At five o’clock she was alone again and he came in. But instead of going to the inner office he came to her desk and as she looked up she saw that his face was suffering, greatly stirred.

“Horatia,” he asked, “did you mean it--do you mean it now--in daylight?”

She lifted her arms towards him and was swept off her feet.

“My God,” she heard him say, “I was so sure you couldn’t have meant it. I can’t fight any longer.”

“Do you know that every footstep of yours about this office has sounded in my heart?”

“My arms are so weary with waiting.”

“I never hoped--but once in a while I dreamed, although I had no right--no right at all.”

He was a wonderful lover, so wonderful that he silenced her own enthusiasms.

But again he grew fearful.

“You don’t see me as I am, Horatia. Now close your eyes. I can’t have you looking at me, I might exaggerate. Listen. I am thirty-five. I have no great enthusiasms--except you. I have no money to speak of, no home--my faith in my feeble talents is shaken--my faith in the world isn’t settled. I’m not even strong physically. There’s nothing, Horatia.”

“There’s you.”

“There’s me, transfused and illuminated by your feeling for me, by your wonderful romance, by the brightness of your own spirit. But if you withdraw it----”

“Silly--it isn’t true, and if it were I shan’t withdraw it ever. Because it’s love and can’t be withdrawn.”

“Love is perishable.”

“Not my love.” The splendid perennial dogmatism spoke again.

He was serious. Then, “I want a promise from you, Horatia. If the time comes when you don’t see it with all this enthusiasm you’ll tell me--won’t you--freely, knowing that already you’ve given me more than I deserve--and that I won’t be hurt or angry--will you?”

At his insistence she promised.

“When can we be married?”

“Not too soon, Horatia--not till you know me, not as an editor but as a man, a man who makes mistakes and is stupid.”

“I don’t care about that silly scandal.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean the scandal. I meant until you know more of the little things about me--that I have a nasty, early-morning temper--that I can be trivial over the kind of dinner I get.”

She put her hand over his mouth.

“Such things matter,” answered Langley sagely. “Well--you’ve promised anyway.”