CHAPTER XIV

PINK

"You are an advocate of gum-chewing?" asked Miss Annette Twombly, with a faint, not too pleasant smile.

"No," answered Cecilia, "but I do think we ought to give them a good time, not reform them. Why, they get discipline all day at their work. I wanted to make them forget that, and all their imperfections." She turned with the words to glance about the group of young women who sat in the office of the Girls' Club.

There was a vague murmur. "But--gum--!" Cecilia heard in a voice which held horror.

"My idea," said Annette, in her cool, slow voice, "was to give them higher ideals, and to teach them not to wear those horrid, pink silk blouses, you know. Teach them that it isn't nice to chew gum, and,--ah,--well, give them a _larger_ life."

"How are you going to give it?" asked Cecilia. "I see what you are going to destroy, but what are you going to put in their places? I think a certain amount of pink is necessary. It has to be _very_ bright, for there is so little of it. It has to reach a long way."

Annette didn't think this worth answering. She simply raised her shoulders and eyebrows in a gesture denoting suffering tolerance and pity. Then she turned to a neighbour and spoke in an undertone. They laughed, and Cecilia flushed.

"Are you an upholder of the green velvet 'throw' on the parlour organ, Miss Madden?" asked a young woman, noted for her bizarre dress.

"I am when the green velvet is the only possible beauty for them,--the only reachable one. I think it's so narrow," she went on heatedly, "to make them enjoy themselves just in our way,--to inflict our likes and dislikes because it's possible to do so. I want to give these girls what _they_ consider a good time, and what they want. Patterns for good times differ. I want dances instead of classes in art. They need them."

"But, my dear,--gum, and those fearful frocks! Annette meant to tell them not to wear cheap laces, but to dress plainly, and suitably to their station," explained a drab young lady whose own dress looked as if it had been designed for a futurist ball.

Cecilia sighed. She saw a band of heavy-eyed and tired-out girls denied their little cravings for beauty. She saw them laying aside pink blouses which brought a faint pink into their small, starved souls. She saw them trying to be ladies, and losing the little solace of "spear-mint gum," and roses of cabbage size and architecture on their cheap hats.

"I think they need the pink," said Cecilia. "If their dress is criticised I think the Club is failing in its mission. Every one will criticise them, few will love them. Let's leave their manners and their dresses to their own management. Let us just try to make them forget the factories, and the flat crowded full of children. I wanted to give them a place where they could bring their beaux."

"We agreed about the dances," said Miss Twombly; "I shall _adore_ coming to them! Won't they be _killing_?" A hum of voices followed this, in which was heard: "But their horrible frocks!"--"In the end they would thank us!"--"Give them a vision of a larger, more helpful life!"

"I shall not subscribe to a reformatory," said Cecilia loudly. She hated to say it, but an echo of some one who had wanted a "bunnit with pink roses on" flew before her. She meant to do all she could to help other people get, and keep, their particular brands of pink roses.

Cecilia's contribution for the club's maintenance was large. It was agreed that for the present at least no helpful hints as to the bad taste of its members' clothes should be given. Cecilia looked at a small watch, and got up. She said good-bye pleasantly. When the door closed after her there was a surge of noise.

"Well," said Annette in a carrying tone, "of course she _would_ sympathise. I suppose her own tastes are really theirs. _Have_ you ever seen her father?"

"She plays 'The Shepherd Boy,' and 'The Storm in the Alps' for him every evening," said the bizarre.

"My _dear_," said another, "_have_ you seen the boy? He is _really_ quite possible and they say that the horrible old man is fabulously wealthy too."

"Criminal!" breathed Annette. Her eyes were angry and full of resentment.

"Annette," said a girl from across the room, "how are you getting on? I think it's too original of you!"

"You aren't still doing that?" asked another. Annette nodded.

"What?" asked a bewildered onlooker.

"Working, really work," she was informed.

"My _dear_, how sweet!" said the informed. "Isn't it ennobling, and broadening, and all that kind of thing?"

Annette nodded, and then spoke flippantly of it as a "lark." Her bravado was a bit too thick. Several young people who knew something of Mrs. Twombly's investments looked at each other across Annette's head.

After she left there was another free discussion. "Social secretary," said the drab one, "to a horrid person from Ohio, or the state of Washington, or somewhere terribly west. Trying to break in, lots of money, but oh,--like the Maddens."

"Hasn't Stuyvesant a huge fortune?" asked the bizarre. "Why doesn't he help then? Though his not doing so is quite what I'd expect. I tried to be so pleasant to him on one occasion, and he was absolutely _rude_! Really rude! He said----"

Cecilia had stopped at Mrs. Smithers' on her way home. She sat by the stove holding the latest Smithers on her lap.

"We got it with tradin' stamps," said Mrs. Smithers. She held up a purple vase which had evidently been created by some one suffering with a toothache. Mrs. Smithers was trying not to smile. She felt that she should be easily careless with her new grandeur, but it was hard to be so. "Look at that there seascape," she said, turning the seascape side toward Cecilia, "an' that there sailor with his girl. Ain't she purty? My old man, he sez if he seen one like her, he wouldn't come home no more!" Cecilia joined Mrs. Smithers' loud laughter over the "old man's" subtle humour.

"Two books," Mrs. Smithers explained after the laughter had ceased, "an' next time we're going to get a plush photograph album. It has a mirror-like on top, with daisies and I dunno what all painted around. _Hand_ painted on that there velvet, mind yuh. It's _swell_!"

"I imagine it is," agreed Cecilia. "You like to have pretty things, don't you?" she questioned.

Mrs. Smithers' wide and fat face clouded. "Dearie," she said, "yuh gotta have gilt an' fancy vases to make yuh ferget how homely most life is. I wish you could have saw me yesterday. My Gawd, I get tired a-doin' the wash, an' Jim so tony, him usin' _two_ shirts a week! Well, I didn't mind the sweatin' all day, the way I do over the wash, f er all I seen was that there vase a-settin' there. Now ain't it purty?"

Cecilia agreed that it was. Mrs. Smithers smiled again. "Why," she exclaimed, "I nearly forgot Lena's dress--the one she's going to wear to the club dance. She set up 'til one last night a-fixing it. She was tickled to fits about it. Looka here." Mrs. Smithers reached below the dining table and took out the third box from the bottom. She opened it reverently. It disclosed a dress of cheap and flimsy lawn, made in the most extreme of styles. There was black velvet on it, several bales of lace, and some roses. Its colour was pink.

"How lovely!" said Cecilia, and she meant it; for Cecilia saw what the colour meant,--what it brought,--and the dress to her was truly lovely.

"Yessir," said Mrs. Smithers; "Lena, she sez, 'Maw, I feel like a queen in this here!' (she's partial to pink) an' yuh oughta see her in it. Mebbe she ain't purty. Her gentleman friend, who works at Helfrich's delicatessen store, cold meat counter, yuh know,--he sez, 'My Irish rose,' when he seen it. That's a song, 'My Irish Rose.' The Kellys got it on the graphaphone. It's swell. Ever hear it?"

Cecilia had not.

"I wish she had a pink hat," said Mrs. Smithers, "an' then she could wear this to church. First Luthern, we go to,--that one with the fancy brick, corner of Seventh, and----"

"I have a hat," said Cecilia, "that I'm going to send to Lena. It's pink, and it has lots of roses on it!"

Tears came to the little eyes of Mrs. Smithers. She beamed widely. "I didn't mean fer to hint," she said; "honest to Gawd, I didn't."

"I know," answered Cecilia, "and you know I love to send Lena things. Is she still coughing, and is she drinking the milk I send?"

"Yes," answered Mrs. Smithers, "but she don't just like it. She likes evaporated better, bein' used to it." Mrs. Smithers looked doleful. The mention of Lena's cough always made her so. Her expression was like that of a meditative pig, for her small eyes and fat face together provided everything but the grunt. However, to Cecilia she was beautiful, for Cecilia saw the love in Mrs. Smithers' soul, which she spread around her seven children and the "old man."

"I won't forget the hat," called Cecilia from the doorway, "and it shall be _very_ pink!"

"Miss Madden, meet my gentleman friend." The gentleman friend shuffled his feet and emitted a raucous "Pleased tuh meet yuh."

It was the night of the first dance at the Girls' Club. Little knots of its members stood around the edges of the floor, laughing often, and loudly. The gentlemen friends seemed to spend their time deciding which foot to stand on, and then shifting to the other.

The committee of "uplift workers" rushed around wildly, doing nothing. It was notable that Cecilia was the one to whom the "gentleman friends" were introduced.

Lena Smithers came up to Cecilia. "That hat," she said, "I dunno how to thank yuh! Paw, he's talkin' alla time about them roses. They're grand!"

"I'm glad you liked it, dear," said Cecilia.

"Yes," went on Lena more shyly, "an' my gentleman friend, him who clerks at the delicatessen, he likes it too. Honest, that boy's grand to me! They ain't hardly an evening that he don't bring me a string of sausage or a hunk of ham!" Cecilia looked impressed and murmured, "Really?"

"Um hum! Gawd's truth!" said Lena.

"Mr. Ensminger," said a fat girl, towing a flaxen-haired boy with no chin. "Soda fountain clerk to the Crystal. Better kid him on, Miss Madden, mebbe he'll give yuh a soda!"

There was loud laughter at this persiflage. Suddenly Cecilia forgot it, her surroundings, the gentlemen friends, in fact everything but the cruelly fast pumping of her small heart, for across the room she saw John coming in, and by him Stuyvesant Twombly.

"How did Mr. Twombly happen to come?" Cecilia asked of John much later, when they were dancing.

"Why," answered John, "I told him of it, and he said, 'Let's go down. Would your sister mind?' Of course I said, 'No.'"

"Of course," answered Cecilia.

"Who's the girl who dances like a duck with the rheumatism?" asked John. "She walked halfway up my shins, got discouraged, gave it up, and then later started it all over again."

"Sweet persistency," murmured Cecilia. Her eyes were on the partner of the duck with the rheumatism, K. Stuyvesant. He looked warm.

The music stopped. Cecilia and John found themselves with the duck and her partner. K. Stuyvesant stepped toward Cecilia with determination. "Will you _please_ give me the next?" he said. His request was made in a desperate tone, a tone absolutely unsuitable for the asking of a dance.

"Why," said Cecilia, "there are so many girls here who sit about. I have to see that they have partners, and----"

"Oh, go on!" broke in John. "You dance; I'll do the proper for you." K. Stuyvesant put a hand on John's arm; the touch was full of gratitude. Then the music started in a slow, sentimental, sweet waltz song, popular that season. K. Stuyvesant invented several new steps. It was good that Cecilia was an unusual and adaptable dancer, for his tempo and intentions were mixed. "What is this?" he asked at last.

"A waltz," answered Cecilia, and at that he stopped his mixture of one-step and maxixe. "Excuse me," he said gruffly. Beads of wet stood out on his forehead. He was out of breath.

"Would you like to stop?" asked Cecilia. "It's warm and you seem tired."

"Oh, no!" he said passionately. She looked up at him, and when their eyes met his arm tightened with a spasmodic quickness about her; then he turned a deep mahogany colour and stared unseeingly across her head. He had not meant to do that. He wondered what she'd think of him.

As for Cecilia, she shut her eyes and tried to be indignant. It was an insult, an insult when he felt as Marjory said he did, an insult! But oh, how sweet, how sweet!

The music stopped. "Thank you," said K. Stuyvesant huskily. Then he left Cecilia with many maidens and singled out John. "If you don't mind, I'm going home now," he said. "I'm tired. Thank you for bringing me along."

He looked back toward Cecilia. He saw the top of her golden head, surrounded by others of more elaborate coiffure. They made a worshipping circle around her.

"Gosh!" said K. Stuyvesant. He recalled the little second when he'd drawn her nearer. "I'm not sorry!" he thought, then turned to hurry away from the lights and the music, for he wanted to be alone.