Chapter 18

"You can't put over domestic stuff on your trade, Schlim. You might as well admit it. You gotta sting your class of trade in order to have 'em appreciate you."

"Now, just to show you that I know what I'm talking about, Arnheim, I got the best lines of new models for this season I've had since I'm in business--every one of them domestics too. I'm puttin' some made-in-America models in the import-room to-day that will open your eyes."

Mr. Arnheim laughed and opened his portfolio. "I'll show you these till my trunks come up," he said.

"Just a minute, Arnheim. I want to show you some stuff--Miss Sternberger!" Mrs. Schlimberg raised her voice slightly, "Miss Sternberger!"

Almost immediately a svelte, black-gowned figure appeared in the doorway; she wore her hair oval about her face, like a Mona Lisa, and her hands were long and the dusky white of ivory.

"Mr. Arnheim, I want to introduce you to a designer we've got since you went away. Mr. Arnheim--Miss Sternberger."

The whir of sewing-machines from the workrooms cut the silence.

"How do you do?" said Miss Sternberger.

"How do you do?" said Mr. Arnheim.

"Miss Sternberger is like you, Mr. Arnheim--she's always out after novelties; and I will say for her she don't miss out! She put out a line of uncut velvets last winter that was the best sellers we had."

Mr. Arnheim bowed. Mrs. Schlimberg turned to Miss Sternberger.

"Miss Sternberger, will you bring in some of those new models that are going like hot cakes? Just on the forms will do."

"Certainly." She disappeared from the doorway.

Mrs. Schlimberg tapped her forefinger on the desk. "There's the finest little designer we've ever had! I got her off a Philadelphia house, and I 'ain't never regretted the money I'm payin' her. She's done more for the house in eight months than Miss Isaacs did in ten years!"

Miss Sternberger returned; a stock-boy wheeled in the new models on wooden figures while Mrs. Schlimberg and her new designer arranged them for display. Mrs. Schlimberg turned to Mr. Arnheim.

"How's the wife and boys, Arnheim? I 'ain't seen 'em since you brought 'em all in to see the Labor Day parade from the store windows last fall. Them's fine boys you got there, Arnheim!"

"Thanks," said Arnheim.

"Now, Arnheim, I'm here to ask you if you can beat these. Look at that there peach-bloom Piquette--look! Can you beat it? That there's the new butterfly skirt--just one year ahead of anything that's being shown this season." Mrs. Schlimberg turned to a second model. "Look at this here ratine cutaway. If the Phoebe Snow ain't the talk of New York before next week, then I don't know my own name. Ain't it so, Miss Sternberger?"

Miss Sternberger ran her smooth hand over the lace shoulder of the gown. "This is a great seller," she replied, smiling at Mr. Arnheim. "Lillian Russell is going to wear it in the second act of her new play when she opens to-morrow night."

"I guess we're slow in here," chuckled Mrs. Schlimberg, nudging Mr. Arnheim with the point of her elbow.

Miss Sternberger spread the square train of a flame-colored robe full length on the green carpet and drew back a corner of the hem to display the lacy avalanche beneath. Then she bowed slightly and turned toward the door.

Mrs. Schlimberg laid a detaining hand on her sleeve. "Just a minute, Miss Sternberger. Mr. Arnheim's brought in some models he wants us to look at."

SOB SISTER

Physics can answer whence goes the candle-flame when it vanishes into blackness and what becomes of sound when the great maw of silence digests it. But what science can know the destiny of the pins and pins and pins, and what is the oblivion which swallows that great army of street-walking women whose cheeks are too pink and who dwell outside the barbed-wire fence of respectability?

Let the pins go, unless one lies on the sidewalk point toward you, and let this be the story of Mae Munroe, herself one of the pink-cheeked grenadiers of that great army whose destiny is as vague as the destiny of pins, and who in more than one vain attempt to climb had snagged her imitation French embroidery petticoats on the outward side of that barbed-wire fence.

Then, too, in the years that lead up to this moment Mae Munroe had taken on weight--the fair, flabby flesh of lack of exercise and no lack of chocolate bonbons. And a miss is as good as a mile, or a barbed-wire fence, only so long as she keeps her figure down and her diet up. When Mae Munroe ran for a street-car she breathed through her mouth for the first six blocks after she caught it. The top button of her shoe was no longer equal to the span. But her eyes were still blue, rather like sky when you look straight up; her hair yellow to the roots; and who can gainsay that a dimple in the chin is not worth two in the cheeks?

In the florid disorder of a red velvet sitting-room cluttered with morning sunshine and unframed, unsigned photographs of stage favorites, empty bottles and dented-in cushions, Mae Munroe stirred on her high mound of red sateen sofa-pillows; placed her paper-bound book face down on the tabouret beside her; yawned; made a foray into an uncovered box of chocolate bonbons; sank her small teeth into a creamy oozing heart and dropped a particle of the sweet into the sniffling, upturned snout of a white wool dog cuddled in the curve of her arm; yawned again.

"No more tandy! Make ittsie Snookie Ookie sick! Make muvver's ittsie bittsie bow-wow sick! No! No!"

Each admonition she accompanied with a slight pat designed to intimidate further display of appetite. The small bunch in her arms raised his head and regarded her with pink, sick little eyes, his tongue darting this way and that in an aftermath of relish; then fell to licking her bare forearm with swift, dry strokes.

"Muvver's ittsie bittsie Snookie! Him love him poor muvver! Him poor, poor muvver!"

A cold tear oozed through one of Miss Munroe's closed eyes, zigzagged down her face, and she laid her cheek pat against the white wool.

"Muvver just wishes she was dead, Snookie. God! don't she just!"

An hour she lay so. The morning sunshine receded, leaving a certain grayness in the cluttered room. From the rear of the flat came the clatter of dishes and the harsh sing of water plunging from a faucet. The book slid from its incline on the pillow to the floor and lay with its leaves crumpled under. The dog fell to snoring. Another while ticked past--loudly. And as if the ticking were against her brain like drops of water, she rose to a half-sitting posture, reached for the small onyx clock on the mantelpiece and smothered it beneath one of the red sateen sofa-pillows. When she relaxed again two fresh tears waggled heavily down her cream-colored cheeks. Then for a while she slept, with her mouth ever so slightly open and revealing the white line of her teeth. The tears slid off her cheeks to the mussed frills of her negligée and dried there.

The little dog emerged from his sleep gaping and stretching backward his hind legs. Mae Munroe yawned, extending her arms at full length before her; regarded her fair ringed fingers and the four dimples across the back of each hand; reached for a cigarette and with the wry face of nausea tossed it back into its box; swung to a sitting posture on the side of the sofa, the dog springing from the curve of her arm to the floor, shaking himself.

Her blowsy hair, burned at the ends but the color of corn-silk, came unloosed of its morning plait and she braided it over one shoulder, her blue eyes fixed on space. Tears would come.

Then she rose and crossed to the golden-oak piano between the windows, her negligee open its full length and revealing her nightdress; crossed with a slight limp and the dog yapping at the soiled and lacy train; fell to manipulating the self-playing attachment, peddling out a metallic avalanche of popular music.

At its conclusion she swung around on the bench, her back drooping as if under pressure of indolence; yawned; crossed to the window and between the parted lace curtains stood regarding the street two stories beneath, and, beyond the patches of intervening roofs, a limited view of the Hudson River, a barge of coal passing leisurely up center stream, a tug suckling at its side.

From the hallway and in the act of mopping a margin of floor, a maid-of-all-work swung back from all-fours and sat upright on her heels, inserting a head of curl-papers through the open doorway.

"Play that over again, Miss Mae. That Mustard Glide' sure does tickle my soles."

Miss Munroe turned to the room with the palm of her hand placed pat against her brow. "God!" said she, "my head!"

"Aw, Miss Mae, can't you get yourself in a humor? What's the matter with you and me going to a movie this afternoon, eh?"

"Movie! The way every damn thing gets on my nerves, I'd be a hit at a movie, wouldn't I? I'd be a hit anywheres!"

"I tell you, Miss Mae, all this worry ain't going to get you nowheres. He'll come around again all right if you only give him time. And if he don't, you should worry! I tell you there ain't one of 'em breathes is worth more than his bank-book."

"God! my head!"

The figure on all-fours rose to full height, drying each forearm on her apron.

"Lay down, dearie, and just don't you worry. I've seen 'em get spells or get holy and stay away for two months on a stretch, and the checks not coming in regular as clockwork like yours, neither. Two months at a time I've seen 'em stick away. Why, when I worked on the lower West Side they used to stick away two and three months like that and then come loafing in one night just like nothing hadn't happened. You ain't got no kick coming, Miss Mae."

A layer of tears rose immediately to Miss Munroe's eyes, dimming them. She wiped them away with one of her sleeve frills.

"Max ain't like that and you know it. You've seen for yourself how he 'ain't missed his every other night in three years. You seen for yourself."

"They're all alike, I tell you, Miss Mae. The best way to handle 'em is to leave 'em alone."

"How he's been falling off. Loo, all--"

"'Sh-h-h, now, Miss Mae, don't begin getting excited--all last night while I was rubbing your head that's what you kept mumbling and mumbling even after you fell asleep. That--don't help none."

"All last month so irregular and now only once last week, and--and not at all this week. Good heavens! I just wonder, I--just wonder."

"Now, just whatta you bet he'll be up to supper to-night, Miss Mae? If I was you, dearie, I wouldn't be scared, I'd just go right to the telephone and--"

"He gets so sore, Loo. You remember that time I telephoned him about that case of wine he sent up and it came busted, and his mother--his old woman was in the office. He raises hell if I try to telephone him during business."

"Just the same, I got a hunch he'll be up to supper to-night, and when I get a hunch things happen."

"It's his old woman, I tell you. It's his old woman is sniffing things again. Say, if he'd ever let me clap eyes on that old hag, wouldn't I learn her how to keep her nose out of his business alrighty. Wouldn't I just learn her! God! my head!"

"Lay down on the sofa, dearie, and rest up your red eyes. Take my tip he'll be up to supper to-night. I'm going to order him a double sirloin and a can of them imported--"

"Ugh! For Pete's sake cut it, Loo! If anybody mentions bill of fare to me I'll yell. Take them empty bottles out of here, Loo, and choke that damn clock with another pillow. My head'll just bust if I don't get some sleep."

"There, there, dearie! Here, lemme pull down the shades. Just try to remember there ain't one of them is worth more than his bank-book. I ain't going down to the dance with Sharkey to-night; I'm going to stay right here and--"

"No, no, Loo. You go. You can have that blue silk waist I promised you and wear them red satin roses he--he brought me that time from Hot Springs. Wear 'em, but be careful of 'em."

"Aw, Miss Mae, with you here like a wet rag, and if he comes who'll fix--"

"He--he ain't coming, Loo, and if he does I'm the one he likes to fix his things, anyway. I wanna be alone, Loo. I--I just wanna be alone."

"That's just it, Miss Mae, you're too much alone; you--"

"For Pete's sake, Loo, cut it or I'll holler. Cut the conversation, dearie!"

"I'll fix the candied sweet-potatoes this morning, anyway, Miss Mae, so if he does come--"

"I tell you I'm going to yell, Loo, if you mention bill of fare to me. Cover up my feet, like a good girl, and take them bottles out and lemme sleep. My head'll bust if I don't get some sleep."

"I tell you, Miss Mae, there ain't one of 'em is worth more than his bank-book. You're always giving away everything you got, Miss Mae. Honest, you'd give your best blue silk coat off your back if--"

"If that's what you're hinting for, Loo, for pity's sake take it! I don't want it. It's too tight for me in the arms. Take it, Loo. I don't want it. I don't want anything but to be let alone."

"Aw, now, Miss Mae, I didn't mean--"

"Get out, I tell you! Get out!"

"Yes, Miss Mae." With a final pat to the rug across Mae Munroe's feet she scooped the litter of empty bottles under one arm and hurried out smiling and closing the door softly behind her and tiptoeing down the hallway to the kitchen.

On the couch Mae Munroe lay huddled with her face to the wall, her cheeks crumpled against the white wool of the dog in her arms, her lips dry, each breath puffing them outward. Easy tears would flow, enhancing her lacy disorder. Noon slipped into afternoon.

The dusk of the city which is so immediately peppered with lights came gradually to press against the drawn blinds. On the very crest of her unrest, as if her mental travail had stimulated a cocaine courage, Mae Munroe kicked aside the rug from her feet; rose and advanced to the wall telephone; unhooked the receiver; hooked it up again; unhooked it this time with a resolution that tightened and whitened her lips and sent the color high into her face; placed her mouth close to the transmitter.

"Broad three-six." And tapped with one foot as she stood.

"Zincas Importing Company? I want to speak to Mr. Max Zincas."

Wrinkles crawled about her uncertain lips.

"This is his--his mother. Yes, Mrs. Zincas."

She closed her eyes as she waited.

"Hello, Max? That you, Max?"

She grasped at the snout of the instrument, tiptoeing up to it.

"It's me, dear. But--I had to get you to the 'phone somehow. I--I--No, no, don't hang up, Max! Don't hang up, dear, I--I got to tell you something; I got to, dear."

She raised herself closer to the mouthpiece for a tighter clutch of it.

"I'm sick, dearie. I--I'm dog sick, dearie. 'Ain't been about in a week. The limp is bad and I'm sick all over. I am, dear. Come up to supper to-night, dearie. You 'ain't been near for--for a week. I got to see you about something. Just a quiet talk, dearie. I--I just got to see you, Max. I--I'm sick, dog sick."

Her voice slipped up and away for the moment, and she crammed her lacy fribble of a handkerchief tight against her lips, tiptoeing closer to the transmitter.

"No, no, Max, I swear to God I won't! Just quiet and no rough stuff. For my sake come home to supper to-night, dearie! I swear. It's my thigh, and I got a fever, dearie, that's eating me. What? Eight! No, that ain't too late. Any time you can come ain't too late. I'll wait. Sure? Good-by, dearie. At eight sharp. Good-by, dearie."

When she replaced the receiver on its hook, points of light had come out in her eyes like water-lilies opening on a lake. The ashen sheaf of anxiety folded back from her, color ran up into her face, and she flung open the door, calling down the length of hallway.

"Loo! Oh, Loo!"

"Huh?"

"Put a couple of bottles of everything on ice before you go, dearie; order a double porterhouse; open a can of them imported sausages he sent up last month, and peel some sweet-potatoes. Hurry, Loo, I wanna candy 'em myself. Hurry, dearie!"

She snatched up her furry trifle of a dog, burying her warming face in his fleece.

"M-m-muvver loves her bow-bow. Muvver loves whole world. Muvver just loves whole world. M-m-m-m, chocolate? Just one ittsie bittsie piece and muvver eat half--m-m-m! La-la! Bow-wow! La! La!"

Along that end of Riverside Drive which is so far up that rents begin to come down, night takes on the aspect of an American Venetian carnival. Steamboats outlined in electric lights pass like phosphorescent phantoms up and down the Hudson River, which reflects with the blurry infidelity of moving waters light for light, deck for deck. Running strings of incandescent bulbs draped up into festoons every so often by equidistant arc-lights follow the course of the well-oiled driveway, which in turn follows the course of the river as truly as a path made by a canal horse. A ledge of park, narrow as a terrace, slants to the water's edge, and of summer nights lovers drag their benches into the shadow of trees and turn their backs to the lampposts and to the world.

From the far side of the river, against the night sky and like an ablutionary message let slip from heaven, a soap-factory spells out its product in terms of electric bulbs, and atop that same industrial palisade rises the dim outline of stack and kiln. Street-cars, reduced by distance to miniature, bob through the blackness. At nine o'clock of October evenings the Knickerbocker River Queen, spangled with light and full of pride, moves up-stream with her bow toward Albany. And from her window and over the waves of intervening roofs Mae Munroe cupped her hands blinker fashion about her eyes and followed its gay excursional passage, even caught a drift of music from its decks.

Motionless she stood there, bare-necked and bare-armed, against the cold window-pane, inclosed from behind with lace curtains and watching with large-pupiled eyes the steamer slip along into the night; the black-topped trees swaying in the ledge of park which slanted to the water's edge; the well-oiled driveway and its darting traffic of two low-sliding lines of motor-cars with acetylene eyes.

At five minutes past eight Max Zincas fitted his key into the door and entered immediately into the front room. On that first click of the lock Mae Munroe stepped out from between the lace curtains, her face carefully powdered and bleached of all its morning inaccuracies, her lips thrust upward and forward.

"Max!"

"Whew!"

He tossed his black derby hat to the red velvet couch and dropped down beside it, his knees far apart and straining his well-pressed trousers to capacity; placed a hand on each well-spread knee, then ran five fingers through his thinning hair; thrust his head well forward, foreshortening his face, and regarded her.

"Well, girl," he said, "here I am."

"I--I--"

"Lied to me, eh? Pretty spry for a sick one, eh? Pretty slick! I knew you was lying, girl."

"I been sick as a dog, Max. Loo can tell you."

"What's got you? Thigh?"

"God! I dun'no'! I dun'no'!"

She paused in the center of the room, her lips trembling and the light from the chandelier raining full upon her. High-hipped and full-busted as Titian loved to paint them, she stood there in a black lace gown draped loosely over a tight foundation of white silk, and trying to compose her lips and her throat, which arched and flexed, revealing the heart-beats of her and the shortness of her breath.

"Is this the way to say hello to--to your Maizie, Max? Is--is this the way?" Then she crossed and leaned to him, printing a kiss on his brow between the eyes. "I been sick as a dog, Max. Ain't you going to--to kiss me?"

"Come, come, now, just cut that, Mae. Let's have supper and get down to brass tacks. What's eating you?"

"Max!"

"Come, come, now, I'm tired, girl, and got to stop off at Lenox Avenue to-night after I leave here. Where's your clock around here, anyways, so a fellow knows where he's at?"

"There it is under the pillow next to you, Max. I smothered it because it gets on my nerves all day. Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, right into my head like it was saying all the time: 'Oh-Mae! Oh-Mae! Oh-Mae!' till I nearly go crazy, Max. Tick-tock--God! it--it just gets me!"

He reached for the small onyx clock, placing it upright on the mantel, and shrugged his shoulders loosely.

"Gad!" he said, "you wimmin! Crazy as loons, all of you and your kind. Come, come, get down to brass tacks, girl. I'm tired and gotta get home."

"Home, Max?"

"Yes, home!"

"Max, ain't--ain't this home no more, ain't it?"

He leaned forward, an elbow on each knee and striking his left hand solidly into his right palm. "Now if that's the line of talk you got me up here for, girl, you can cut it and cut it quick!"

"No, no, Max, it ain't my line of talk. Here, sit down, dearie, in your own chair and I'll go and dish up."

"Where's Loo?"

"Her night off, poor girl. Four nights straight she's rubbed my head and--"

"Where's my--"

"Right here, dearie, is your box of pills, underneath your napkin. There, dearie! See? Just like always."

She was full of small movements that were quick as grace notes: pinning the black lace train up and about her hips; drawing out his chair; darting with the scarcely perceptible limp down the narrow hall, back with dishes that exuded aromatic steam; placing them with deft, sure fingers. Once she paused in her haste, edged up to where he stood with one arm resting on the mantelpiece, placed an arm on each of his shoulders and let her hands dangle loose-wristed down his back.

"Tired boy, to-night! Huh? Maizie's poor tired boy!"

"Now, now!"

He removed her hands, but gently, and strolled over to where the table lay spread beside the cold, gilded radiator, a potted geranium in its center, a liberal display of showy imitation pearl-handled cutlery carefully laid out, and at each place a long-stemmed wineglass, gold-edged and the color of amber.

"Come," he said, "let's eat and get it over."

She made no sign, but with the corners of her lips propped bravely upward in her too red smile made a last hurried foray into the kitchen, returning with a covered vegetable-dish held outright from her.

"Guess!" she cried.

"Can't," he said, and seated himself.

"Gowan, guess like you used to, dearie."

He fell immediately to sampling with short, quick stabs of his fork the dish of carmine-red pickled beets beside his plate.

"Aw, gowan, Max, give a guess. What did you used to pay for with six big kisses every time I candied them for you? Guess, Max."

"Sit down," he said, and with his foot shoved a small stool before her chair.

"Lordy!" she said, drawing up en tête-à-tête, unpinning and spreading her lacy train in glory about her, "but you're some little sunbeam to have around the house."

"What these beets need is a little sugar."

She passed him the bowl; elevated her left foot in its slightly soiled white slipper to the footstool; fastened her napkin to her florid bosom with one of her numerous display of breastpins; poured some opaque wine into his glass, coming back to flood her own to the brim; smiled at him across the red head of the potted geranium, as if when the heart bleeds the heart grows light.

"Here's _to_ you, Max!"

He raised his glass and drank in through his rather heavy mustache, then flecked it this way and that with his napkin "Ahh-h-h-h, that's the stuff!"

"S'more?"

"Yah-h-h-h-h-h!"

"Such a cotton mouth my bad boy brought home."

"Aha! Fee, fie, fum! Aha!"

"I broiled it under the single burner, Max, slow like you like. Here, you carve it, dearie. Just like always, eh?"

His fleshy, blue-shaved face took on the tenseness of concentrated effort, and he cut deep into the oozing beef, the red juice running out in quick streams.

"Ah-h-h-h-h!"

"No, no, you keep that, Max; it's your rare piece."

"Gravy?"

"Yes, dearie."

The small dog shook himself and rose from sleep and the depths of a pillow, nosing at her bare elbow.

"Was muvver's ittsie Snookie Ookie such a hungry bow-wow?"