Part 6

"It _is_ hard on you, poor dear--"

"He has to, of course. But I _have_ wished we had Tommy back, these weeks since we've been here! He was the sweetest, most generous thing, till he married...."

But soon Cousin Mary gave the conversation a characteristic twist, with the very suggestion that Mr. Garrott had once promised to make to Angela, and then permanently backed down.

"Angela," she said, suddenly thoughtful, "did you ever think at all of going to work--regularly, for yourself?"

The girl looked up, in surprise. "Going to work? You mean in an office?"

"Yes--something of that sort. You--"

"Why, no, Cousin Mary! I've never _had_ to think of that. Of course, father can still support me. I didn't mean you to think--"

"Oh, of _course_! I understand that perfectly! I meant only on your own account, my dear, so that you could have your own money, all you want of it. It makes a difference, as I can testify! And then, too, I know a good many girls with plenty of money already, who go to work--well, just for the fun of it!--Helen Carson, for instance."

Angela looked as if she hardly knew how to explain herself to one holding her cousin's known ideas of fun. However, she endeavored, sweetly.

"Yes, I know. But in the first place, you see, I couldn't very well be spared from the house. I do every bit of the work, except cooking and washing, and mother doesn't expect ever to touch the housekeeping any more. It takes so much time, and worry, and our cook is _awful_, because we can't afford to pay but twelve dollars a month, and, of course, a good servant won't work for that! And besides, father wouldn't dream of allowing such a thing, Cousin Mary. He'd think it was--was just charging him with being a failure, and not able to take care of his family!"

It was a sufficiently conclusive statement, as Cousin Mary seemed to feel; she did not argue back, but replied understandingly, and mentioned that Harold Warder felt the same way about women's working. So Angela felt the moment to be favorable for explaining her deeper points of view.

"And, Cousin Mary, even if I made mother take back the housework, and father'd let me do it," she said, with a girlish hesitancy that became her well, "I wouldn't _want_ to go into an office--or have a business career. I--just feel differently about all those things. I have no ambitions that way--at _all_!"

Cousin Mary, who chanced to be standing near, surprised her by stooping suddenly and pinching her cheek.

"Tell me what your ambitions are, Angela, dear."

"Well--you probably--I don't believe you'd understand exactly what I--"

"On the contrary, for two cents I'll tell you what they are myself."

"Well, what?" said Angela, gazing up with unfeigned interest. "Tell me what you think?"

"They really can be stated as one, my guess is," said Mary, smiling in the nicest way: "To be a good wife to the man you will love some day."

Color flowed suddenly into the girl's upturned face. By a strange coincidence, Cousin Mary had stated the ambition in the very words Angela herself would have used. But, though maidenly embarrassed, she would not lower her gaze as if she were ashamed of her ambition, or overborne by her cousin's hard masculinity.

"I know," she said, pink and sweet, "you think that's just a--weak womanly ambition! I know you aren't much interested in my kind of things, Cousin Mary."

"Indeed, you wrong me," said Mary, her smile dying. "I don't feel that way at all."

And through her shot the irrelevant thought: "Why does she call me Cousin Mary, all the time? I'm only four years older than she."

But, as the two girls thus gazed at each other, the interval in their ages seemed, indeed, indefinite and immense. Angela's eyes could afford that subtle expression of known womanly advantage. The light of afternoon, flowing freely over the park and into the long windows, fell full upon Mary Wing's delicate face. It was a face, to be just, not devoid of a feminine attractiveness at times. But now the bright day showed it colorless and tired; the marks of many "fights" lingered indefinably about the mouth; tiny crow's-feet netted the corners of the fine blue eyes. Yes, this school-teacher's first youth was gone. Full of strange isms, she had lost sight of the real things of life, and now her Woman's Opportunity had slipped away from her forever.

It may be that Mary Wing would have given something of her honors to be prettier than Angela just for that moment.

"I think it would be hard to name a finer ambition. To be a good wife to ..." And, breaking off, she added, with another smile, sudden and merry: "To Dan Jenney, didn't you tell me?"

Her young cousin lost her dreamy look rather abruptly.

"Why, _no_, Cousin Mary! Please don't say that! I only told you that--"

But Cousin Mary, having turned her eyes toward the window, interrupted the womanly talk with a smashing announcement.

"Here's Flora Trevenna coming in--good!" she said in her most matter-of-fact way. "Excuse me a minute, Angela,--I'm bell-hop, you know!"

Angela, who at least knew the ill-omened name, gave one startled gaze, and sprang up. The prospect of casually meeting Mr. Manford was forgotten in her sudden panic alarm.

"I must _go_!" she said, looking about her a little wildly. "I--should have gone some time ago--really! I just stopped in to--"

Mary's colorless face seemed to stiffen a little. So, perhaps, Mr. Mysinger was wont to see it.

"Well, wait just a minute," she ordered, rather than requested. "I'd especially like you to meet Flora."

Nice reward this for being cousinly and inviting Cousin Mary to the bridge-party: _to meet that woman_!

"I--really, I _can't_, Cousin Mary! I'll just run back and see your mother a minute--and then--"

"You can't well be so rude as that, can you?" said Mary. And then she added, as if something within her threw out the words beyond her will: "Why do you call me Cousin Mary all the time? I'm only four years older than you."

The question, of course, expected no notice. Mary was gone into the hall. Yet Angela, left unpoliced, did not immediately fly toward the bedroom region, or run and hide with the leaflets behind the sofa. It may be she feared her hard cousin a little; but besides that, in the strangest and most contradictory sort of way, it appeared that she did not altogether want to fly. She was conscious of an excitement, of a sort of unworthy curiosity.

The front door opened; there were voices. And then Mary Wing returned, her arm slipped brazenly through that of her astounding friend.

And Angela, despite all of the injunctions of propriety, looked; looked, with a sort of fearful fascination. Never in her life before, to her knowledge, had her girlish eyes rested upon a Badwoman. Though virtue went out of her, she _must_ look this once....

"Flora, this is my cousin, Angela Flower, whom you know of, I believe. My friend, Miss Trevenna, Angela."

A look of greeting came upon the Badwoman's not displeasing face, a little smile upon the pretty, sinful lips.

"Oh, how do you do, Miss Flower?"

But Angela, with her upbringing, found it impossible to reciprocate these friendly overtures. Take one shameful peep, she might. But that itself brought a reaction, perhaps; and as well as Donald Manford, as well as Judge Blenso himself, Angela knew, if only by intuition, that good people must stand up for morals. Donald certainly would have applauded her, as she inclined her graceful head about an inch and spoke two cold words:--

"Miss Trevenna."

And then, her alarm mysteriously gone, she turned to her cousin and said, formally: "Good-bye, then, Cousin Mary. Do come to see us when you find time."

Indeed, the two cousins viewed everything too differently to make much intimacy between them probable. When the door had shut on Angela, Cousin Mary put her arm about the shoulder of the Badwoman and said the strangest, the most advanced thing possible:--

"Dear Flora! You must let me say--I'm sorry."

Miss Trevenna, with her deceptively cloistral countenance, seemed to flinch a little. Her gaze looked rather bright; it fell away from Mary's. But she produced a fair effect of uncomprehension and surprise.

"Sorry? Why, what for?"

"Well--I can't feel my little cousin showed to very good advantage."

"Oh, didn't she? But it makes no difference. I--hardly ever notice what people do--really! Are you too busy, or shall we walk?"

"Let me get my hat," said Mary.

Having put on hat and coat in her own bedroom, the fighting educator looked into the room beyond, where the babies and their grandmother were considerably spread over creation.

"Angela gone?" asked Mrs. Wing presently, in the midst of cooing.

"Yes," said Mary; and let it stand at that.

"Look how he cuddles in his granny's arm. I had to change his little socks again. She was very strange with them, Mary, didn't you think so?"

"Strange?--how do you mean?"

"Why, she just didn't seem to care anything about them! Didn't you notice, she hardly looked at Paulie once! How could she help loving such little darlings? And she seems such a nice, womanly girl, too."

"Well, _all_ women aren't maternal, mother, don't you know that?"

"In my day," said Mrs. Wing imperturbably, "all good women loved babies."

But when Mary said where she was off to now, a shadow fell on her mother's calm face, and Mary saw it. However, Mrs. Wing said nothing, this time.

Though Donald had never carried out that hare-brained threat of his, as to "dropping a hint" to Mary, his voice could scarcely have been missed amid the general feminine chorus. Indeed, everybody who possessed so much as a hint to her name, in those days, seemed to be dropping it to Mary. How far she minded her public unpopularity Mary did not say, but her mother's unwavering disapprobation she unquestionably took to heart. "Good women don't make mistakes of that sort," said Mrs. Wing, and was shaken by no argument. And now, as Mary bent to kiss this wrinkled and well-loved cheek, she was thinking that never in the world before had there opened such a gulf between two generations; and she wondered why life must be so hard.

Later, Mrs. Wing sat for some time quite still, by her window, and her brooding look was not grandmotherly now, but motherly, which is different. For, of course, there was one person on earth to whom Mary could never seem truly the mature, advanced and dangerous young woman of Fights, Reforms and Careers. Through all her newnesses and strength, the mother's eyes yet held her as the tiny, helpless, clinging little scrap which she, a young girl then, had gone down to the gates of the world to bring in.

VII

The "line" of the new novel refused to come straight on the first attempt, or the second, and Charles had been compelled to leave his preliminary scenarios to ripen gradually in his head. In the intervals of intense plotting, he was tossing off short fictions; four such he had now tossed since the completion of "Bondwomen" had set him free. "Bondwomen" itself was in the hands of that discriminating house, Messrs. Blank and Finney, Judge Blenso having risen up early on the morning after the rejection to take it to the express office. Experience was now coming with a leap; but yesterday the first of Charles's new stories had been sent back by "Willcox's Monthly," with a mere printed form of refusal. This was the fiction about Dionysius, who, it may be remembered, had freed his eyes from the magic of sex and consequently cracked walnuts with a sort of splendid sadness.

Such episodes staggered belief; but, in a strange way, they seemed to fan the fires of genius unrecognized. Hence it was without joy that Charles confronted after supper this evening a memorandum he had lately left for himself in the place where he left memoranda. It was brief, containing but a single word,--_Bridge_; and, coming on it unexpectedly, the author spoke but a single word, though a different one. No more than Mary Wing, of course, did he have evenings to fling this way and that, in mere idle frivolity. Why did people have this mania for playing cards, going to places, calling, all the time? Why the mad rage for doing things?

As to this engagement, it seemed just to have developed along; the first he knew of it, you might say, the thing was settled and arranged. Still, it was admitted that from the young Home-Maker's point of view, it was all quite simple and natural and human. Charles, even in the first flush of author's revolt, really felt no bitterness.

Shutting his table drawer with a bang, he withdrew to the bedroom and began to assume one of those garments which first brought renown to Tuxedo Park.

Charles's acquaintance with Miss Angela had developed smoothly, without any unusual effort on his part. That they had a walk or something every day was not mathematically accurate; but he had seen the girl several times since the day of the call, when he got the book. The very next day, as it fell out, he had met the pretty cousin again on the promenade, at about the same time and place, and as she was out only for exercise, and had done her stint, she said, she very charmingly turned around with him. In no sense was it repellent to the authority thus to see, by pleasing signs, that the old-fashioned girl liked him, in the good old-fashioned way. At the same time, of course, he was, by deliberate choice, a fiction-writer, not a dancing-man; and his position about the bridge-party, as he saw it, was that he was doing a kindly deed, to give pleasure to a rather lonely young girl. Moreover, it should not occur again.

And when he set out on the brisk walk to the Flowers', he was not thinking of Angela at all, but of Angela's cousin, Mary. He understood that Mary was to be at the bridge-party--indeed, he understood that the party was being given principally in Mary's honor--and he was genuinely concerned as to what his manner toward that young woman now should be.

His perplexity dated from an episode two days earlier. On Tuesday afternoon he had met Mary Wing over by the High School, not entirely by chance, and had turned and walked with her. She was alone, for a wonder; but she had begun at once to talk of the unhappy Miss Trevenna, fairly bursting out as to the way she was being persecuted, and so forth. Miss Trevenna had "lost" two places already, it seemed. And Charles, seeing how much to heart Mary took the luckless girl's troubles, suddenly felt sorry for her--yes, he ventured to feel sorry for Mary Wing!--and did what he had positively resolved not to do. He, also, dropped a hint to Mary.

The memory of that unwisdom was with him yet, as an exasperation and a hurt.

It had profited him nothing that he approached the task, circumspectly, in his light, humorous vein. "Did you ever hear what Susan B. Anthony said when she had tried using bloomers for a year?" he had inquired, positively jovial. "Said she was convinced that one reform at a time was all that one person could manage!" But Mary Wing had said instantly, "You apply this to me," and right there had the trouble begun. "Aren't you crippling yourself needlessly?" he had amiably suggested. "Is it wise to feed the popular delusion that any sort of reformer is all sorts of an anarchist?" To which she replied, quite indignantly, "This isn't a question of _reform_ at all with me!--if you must have it explained to you." And when he asked her what she expected to accomplish exactly, she declared that in point of fact a great deal had been accomplished already; Miss Trevenna's father had seen her, for one thing, and it seemed but a matter of time before she would be forgiven and taken back. "But if nothing was accomplished in a thousand years," said Mary, "I'd still do exactly what I am doing!"

The worst of it was that one large disunited side of Charles stuck it out that Mary was doing exactly right: he knew, indeed, whatever she might say for argument, that all this was chiefly a matter of her sympathies, and she no more believed in this sort of Freedom than he did. Hence his counter-argument had not been up to his best standard, a mere urging of timid prudences, it seemed. And very soon she had swooped on his weakness, silencing him at a stroke:--

"I'll not drop an old friend just because it's _safer_! I'll not. Mr. Garrott, you disappoint me."

Now, no man on earth enjoys being told that he has disappointed a friend, least of all a woman friend, in a matter involving courage. Mr. Garrott held that word ungracious from Mary. And now, as he strode silently toward his evening of pleasure, he seemed to feel that there was, indeed, a kind of hardness in her, and, as to him, a certain air of assured superiority such as could not be further tolerated.

How, then, should he deport himself toward Mary now, seeing her again at the bridge-party? Through long blocks, Charles pondered the question. While leaning from the first toward a manner of brilliant tolerance, slightly aloof, indeed, yet splendidly witty, he really had not settled the point finally in his mind, when Miss Angela opened her front door for him, and said, almost in the first breath:--

"Oh, Mr. Garrott, what do you think? Cousin Mary and Mr. Manford both backed out! _I hope you don't mind playing three-hand!_"

Taken completely by surprise, the young man hardly repressed a bitter mirth.

But that, after all, was for his wasted evening only. And in a moment he was himself again, doing his deed of kindness, distributing pleasure among the young and lonesome.

He was not, indeed, he considered, one to think the less of a girl for being poor but hospitable, for desiring to "entertain," when, the too obvious fact was, she had nobody to entertain. The three-hand's party rather touched than repelled Charles; he criticized not Angela, but Mary Wing, who had stayed away. Moreover, the other guest turned out to be Fanny Warder, which suited him unexpectedly well. Grieved though he was by Fanny's broken beauty, she had become a Case to him now, one more exhibit in the growing gallery of Woman's Unrest.

And certainly, when it was all over, it never once occurred to Charles to think of this evening as a waste, exactly.

Into the mysteries of three-hand, as pursued in the Flower parlor that evening, it will do well not to follow. The play really was not the thing, as Angela had implied to her Cousin Mary, when speaking of Donald. Fanny Warder played a poor game; everybody said that. Of course, she had only come to help out, but still, one could not avoid observing how treacherous were her bids, or crying out upon her when she was discovered slumbering with the three highest hearts. A great deal of jumping up and changing seats there was, a great deal of discussion each time as to which one had better jump and change, constant demands of, "Whose bid is it?" and, "Who dealt these cards?" But there was much girlish laughter, too; merry prattle flowed unceasingly; "a good time was had."

And Angela's bridge-party had, as Charles viewed it, one sterling merit: it ended early. It is a point which, as is well known, rests entirely in the hands of the hostess, according to when she elects to bring on her refreshments; and when Angela rose soon after ten o'clock and tripped away alone to get "the party," as she called it, the author's whole opinion of her went up at a bound. He had known women, thus having you at their mercy, to keep you sitting around till midnight before ever mentioning "the party," and then sometimes those horrible jolly girls made you romp back to the pantry and help.

And when, after a considerable interval, Miss Angela returned, bearing her refreshments on a large tin tray, the young authority again took the large view, sympathetically seeing the general behind the particular. The refreshments consisted of lettuce and tomato salad, together with crackers, a little cheese, ice-water, and a small box of candy. Charles could not conceal from himself that the salad was poor, the dressing had "run," the crackers were without crackle, the candy cheap, the ice-water warm; but, in a subtle sort of way, all this made him feel not less, but more, friendly toward his simple young hostess. Not knowing that she could not make mayonnaise, or suspecting that her little brother had reluctantly stood treat to the candy, his fancy pictured the girl as preparing the modest spread for her (two) friends with her own hands and thought, her heart full of pleasant anticipations the while. And this seemed normal and human to Charles, and sweet enough, and just a little pathetic besides. Angela, gayly setting out her three plates, was again a type and a symbol. She was all the poor Nice Girls in the world, ten million poor Nice Girls scattered over the earth that night who, the day's justifying labors done, were trying to create a little joy for themselves and others, sweetly pursuing their great business of Supplying Beauty and Supplying Charm....

But while Angela was still in the rearward regions, making ready her tray, Charles engaged in a scientific talk with his old friend Fanny. It both interested and depressed him.

Mary's young sister had taken Harold Warder out of a field unusually large for these lean days. Harold had been in love with her from his knickerbocker days, and was considered to be "doing very well"; the match had been a most promising one. But ill-luck had pursued the young couple from the first, assuming the worst of all forms, unceasing doctor's bills. Fanny, beyond any counting, had had long illnesses following the births of both her children; and the expenses of the first one had swamped Warder, wiping out at once the rainy-day margin he had married on. That Mary Wing secretly sent money to Fanny, Charles was morally certain. But Fanny was well again now, and poverty and debt were wont to be the butts of young love. Why, then, was her pretty face drawn to a birdlike thinness; why this beaten look in eyes that were once so gay?

Tête-à-tête over the three-hand table, Mrs. Warder surprised Charles by saying that she wanted to go back to work; her husband, however, would not hear of such a thing. Charles, though a modern, said naturally not.

"I can earn a hundred a month," said Fanny, "and get a perfect nurse for twenty-five."

He explained the error in her utilitarianism. Intently shuffling the cards on the table, he pointed out the injustice of orphaning Paulie and Neddy-Weddy of their mother-love. Fanny's own mind seemed greatly unsettled. But she could be as straightforward as Mary with those she was fond of.

"Harold supposed," she said, presently, "that he was marrying a lively young person, one that he, at least, would find indefinitely entertaining. He discovers instead that he's got an ailing woman on his hands, one with no spirits or looks at all worth mentioning. Could you blame him if he woke up some day and said, 'I've been cheated?'"

And the Young Wife slowly added: "It'll be years before he gets his head above water again. And that's my doing, Charles,--I, who'd have cut off my right arm to help him the least bit."

Charles scolded her roundly for her morbidness. "Great heavens!--you must know _he_ could never think that way! Look how you have helped him! If your health went, you gave it to him--let him hold that to his heart! There's Paulie and the baby, that you brought him, more than compensating--"

But Mary's sister broke this argument with her old laugh.

"Don't tempt me, Charles! I'm all kinds of a hypocrite but that kind! Of course, I wanted children a great deal more than Harold, and they're my compensation--for everything--not his at all. You know all that perfectly well. No, no," said Fanny, lowering her voice as Angela's returning steps were heard. "If Harold ever tires of me, I'll go, you may be sure. He won't find me clamping on his shoulders, claiming to be taken care of for life because of my two little darlings...."