Chapter 5

He advanced with an incertitude that muddled his movements, made to cross to her side where she lay with her arms outstretched in the fuddle of dishes, made to touch her black silk sleeve where it emerged from the blue-checked apron, hesitated, sucking his lips in between his teeth, swung on his heel, then around once more, and placed his hand lightly on her shoulder.

"Madam?"

"You--you just go on, Phonzie. I--I guess I'm an old fool, anyways. It's like trying to squeeze blood out of a turnip for me to try and squeeze anything but work out of my life. I--I guess I'm just nothing but an old fool."

"But, madam, how can a fellow like me squeeze anything out of life for you? Look at me! Why, I ain't worth your house room. I'm nothing but a fellow who draws his salary off a woman, and has all his life. Why, you--you earn as much in a week as I do in a month."

"What's that got to do with it?"

"Look, you with a home you made for yourself and a business you built up out of your own brains, and what am I? A hall-room guy that can put a bluff across with a lot of idiot women. Look at me, forty and doing a chorus-man's work. You got me wrong, madam. I don't measure nowheres near up to you. If I did, do you think I wouldn't be settled down long ago like a regular--Aw, well, what's the use talking." He plucked at his short mustache, pulling the hairs sharply.

She raised her face and let him gaze at the ravages of her tears. "Why--why don't you come right out and say it, that I 'ain't got the looks and--the pep?"

"Madam, can't you see I'm only--"

"You--you can't run yourself down to me. You, and nobody else, has made the establishment what it is. I never had a head for the _little_ things that count. That's why I spent my best years down in Twenty-third Street. What did I know about the _big_ little things!--the carriage-call stunt and the sachet-bags in the lining and the blue and gold labels, all _little_ things that get _big_ results. I never had a head for the things that hold the rich trade, like the walking models, or the French accent."

"You got the head for the big things, and that's what counts."

"That's why, when you say you can't line up alongside of me, it's no excuse."

"I--I mean it."

"Just because I got a head for designing doesn't make me a nine days' wonder. Why don't you--you come right out and say what you mean, Phonzie?"

"Why, I--I don't even know how to talk to a woman like you, madam. La-La girls have always been my pace."

"I know, Phonzie, and I--I ain't blaming you. A slick-looking fellow like you can skylark around as he pleases and don't need to have time for--the overworked, tired-out ones like me."

"Madam, I never dreamed--"

"Dreamed! Phonzie, I--I've got no shame if I tell you, but, God! how many nights I--I've lain right here on this couch dreaming of--of--"

"Well?"

"Of you and me, Phonzie, hitting it off together."

"Madam!"

Her head burrowed deeper in her arms, her voice muffed in their depth.

"Madam!"

"How many times I've dreamed, Phonzie. You and me, real partners in the business and--and in everything. Us in a little home together, one of the five-room flats down on the next floor, with a life-size kitchen and a life-size dining-room and--and a life-size--Aw, Phonzie, you--you'll think I'm crazy."

"Madam, why, madam, I just don't know."

"Them's the dreams a silly old thing like me, that never had nothing but work and--and nothing else in her life, can lay right here on this couch, night after night, and--Gawd! I--I bet you think I--I'm just crazy, Phonzie."

For answer he leaned over and took her small figure in his arms, wiping away with his sheer untried handkerchief the tears; but fresh ones sashayed down her face and flowed over her words.

"Phonzie, tell me, do you--do you--think--"

He held her closer. "Sure, madam, I do."

* * * * *

On the wings of a twelvemonth, spring had come around again and the taste of summer was like poppy-leaves between the teeth, and the perennial open shirtwaists and open street-cars bloomed, even as the distant larkspur in the distant field. At six o'clock with darkness came a spattering of rain, heavy single drops that fell each with its splotch, exuding from the asphalt the warming smell of thaw. Then came wind, right high-tempered, too, slanting the rain and scudding it and blowing pedestrians' skirts forward and their umbrellas inside outward. Mr. Alphonse Michelson fitted his hand like a vizor over his eyes and peered out into the wet dusk. Lights gleamed and were reflected in the dark pool of rain-swept asphalt. Passers-by hurried for shelter and bent into the wind.

In Madam Moores's establishment, enlarged during the twelvemonth to twice its floor space, the business day waned and died; in the workrooms the whir of machines sank into the quiet maw of darkness; in the showrooms the shower lights, all but a single cluster, blinked out. Alphonse Michelson slid into a tan, rain-proof coat, turning up the collar and buttoning across the flap, then fell to pacing the thick-nap carpet.

From a mauve-colored telephone-booth emerged Miss Gertie Dobriner, flushed from bad service and from bad air.

"Whew!"

"Get her?"

"Sure I got her. Is it such a stunt to get an address from a customer?"

"Good!"

"I says to her, I says, 'I seen it standing on the sidewalk next to your French maid and I wanted to buy one like it for my little niece.'"

"Can we get it to-night?"

"Yes, proud papa! But listen; I wrote it down, 'Hinshaw, 2227 Casset Street, Brooklyn.'"

"Brooklyn!"

"Yes, two blocks from the Bridge, and for a henpecked husband you got a large fat job on your hands if you want to make another getaway to-night. This man Hinshaw shows 'em right in his house."

"Brooklyn, of all places!"

"Right-oh!"

He snapped his fingers in a series of rapid clicks. "Ain't that the limit? If I'd only mentioned it to you this afternoon earlier, we could have been over and back by now."

"Wait until Monday then, Phonzie."

"Yes, but you ought to have heard her this morning, Gert; it's not often she gets her heart so set. To-morrow being Sunday, all of a sudden she gets a-wishing for one of the glass-top ones like she's seen around in the parks, to take him out in for the first time."

"Oh, I'm game! I'll go, but can you beat it! A trip to Brooklyn when I got a friend from Carson City waiting at his hotel to buy out Rector's for me to-night."

"You go on with him, Gert. What's the use you dragging over there, too, now that you got the address for me. I would never have mentioned it to you at all if I'd have known you couldn't just go buy the kind she wants in any department store. I'll go over there alone, Gert."

"Yes, and get stung on the shape and the hood and all. I bought just an ordinary one for my little niece once, and you got to get them shallow. Anyways, I'm going to chip in half on this. I want to get the little devil something, anyways."

"Aw no, Gert, this is my surprise."

"I guess I can chip in on a present for the kid's month-old birthday."

"Well, then, say I meet you in the Eighty-sixth Street Subway at seven, so we can catch a Brooklyn express and make it over in thirty minutes."

"Yes."

"But it's raining, Gert. Look out. Honest, I don't like to ask you to break your date to hike over there in the rain with me."

"Raining! Aw, then let's cut it, Phonzie. I got a new marcel and a cold on my chest that weighs a ton. She can't roll it on a wet Sunday, nohow."

"Paper says clear and warm to-morrow, Gert; but, honest, you don't need to go."

"You're a nice boy, Phonzie, and a proud father, but you can't spend my money for me. What you bet I get ten per cent. off for cash? Subway at seven. I'll be there."

"I may be a bit late, Gert. She ain't so strong yet, and after last night I don't want to get her nervous."

"I told you she'd be sore at me for taking you to the Ritz ball last night, and God knows it wasn't no pleasure in my life to go model-hunting with you, when I might have been joy-riding with my friend from Carson City."

"It's just because she ain't herself yet. I'm off, Gert. Till seven in the Subway!"

"Yes, till seven!"

* * * * *

When Mr. Alphonse Michelson unlocked the door of his second-floor five-room apartment, a lamp softly burning through a yellow silk lamp-shade met him with the soft radiance of home. Beside the door he divested himself of his rain-spotted mackintosh, inserted his dripping umbrella in a tall china stand, shook a little rivulet from his hat and hung it on a pair of wall antlers.

"That you, Phonzie?"

"Yes, hon, it's me."

'"Sh-h-h-h!"

He tiptoed down the aisle of hallway and into the soft-lighted front room. From a mound of pillows and sleepy from their luxury Millie Moores rose to his approach, her forefinger placed across her lips and a pale mist of chiffon falling backward from her arms.

What a masseuse is Love! The lines had faded from Millie's face and in their place the grace of tenderness and a roundness where the chin had softened. Years had folded back like petals, revealing the heart and the unwithered bosom of her.

He kissed her, pressing the finger of warning closer against her lips, and she patted a place for him on the Mexican afghan beside her.

"Phonzie!"

"How you feelin', hon?"

"Strong! If it ain't raining to-morrow, I'm going to take him out if I have to carry him in my arms. Say, wouldn't I like to feel myself rolling him in one of them white-enamel, glass-top things like Van Ness has for her last one. Ida May tried three places to get one for us."

"They're made special."

"All my life I've wanted to feel myself wheeling him, Phonzie. I used to dream myself doing it in the old place down on Twenty-third Street, when I used to sit at the sewing-table from eight until eight. Gee! I--honest, I just can't wait to see if the sun is shining to-morrow."

He kissed her again on the back of each finger, and she let her hand, pale and rather inert, rest on his hair.

"Is my boy hungry for his din-din?"

"Gee! yes! The noon appointments came so thick I had to send Eddie out to bring me a bite."

"What kind of a day?"

"Everything smooth but the designing-room. Gert done her best, but they don't take hold without you, hon. They can't even get in their heads that gold charmeuse idea Gert and I swiped at the Ritz last night."

"Did you tell them I'll be back on the job next week, Phonzie?"

"Nothing doing. You're going to stay right here, snug in your rug, another two weeks."

"Rave on, hon, but I got the nurse engaged for Monday. How's the Van Norder wedding-dress coming?"

"Great! That box train you drew up will float down the aisle after her like a white cobweb. It's a knock-out."

"Say, won't I be glad to get back in harness!"

"You got to take it slow, Mil."

"And ain't you glad it's all over, Phonzie?"

"Am I!"

"Four weeks old to-morrow, and Ida May was over to-day and says she never seen a kid so big for his age."

"He takes after my grandfather--he was six feet two without shoes."

"You ought to seen him to-day laying next to me, Phonzie. He looked up and squinted, dear, for all the world like you."

A bell tinkled. In the frame of a double doorway a seventeen-year-old maid drew back the portières on brass rings that grated. In the room adjoining and beneath a lighted dome of colored glass a table lay spread, uncovered dishes exuding fragrant spirals of steam.

"Supper! Say, ain't it great to have you back at the table again, Mil?"

"Oh, I don't know, the way--the way you went hiking off last night to--to a ball."

"Aw, now, hon, 'ain't you got that out of your system yet? For a girlie with all your good sense, if you ain't the greatest little one to get a silly gix and work it to death."

"I just made a civil remark."

"What was the use wasting that ten-dollar pair of tickets the guy from Carson City gave her, when we could use them and get some tips on some of the imports the women wore?"

"I never said to waste them."

"You know it don't hurt to get around and see what's being worn, hon. That's our business."

Tears of weakness welled to her eyes and she stooped over her plate to conceal them.

"I'm not saying anything, am I? Only--only it's right lucky she can fill my place so--so well while I--I got to be away awhile."

Her barbed comment only pricked him to happy thought. He made a quick foray into his side pocket. "I brought up one of these pink velvet roses for you to look at, Mil. It's Gert's idea to festoon these underneath the net tunic on McGrath's blue taffeta. See, like that. It's a neat little idea, hon, and Gert had these roses made up in shaded effects like this one. How you like it?"

The tiny bud lay on the table between them, nor did she take it up.

"All right."

He leaned to pat her cheek. "These are swell potatoes, hon."

Her lips warmed and opened. "I--I told her how to make 'em."

"Give me some more."

She in turn leaned to press his hand. "Such a hungry boy."

"Can I take a peek at the kid before--"

"Aw, Phonzie, and wake him up like you did last night. He'll sleep straight through now till half past twelve; that's why I didn't even tiptoe back in the bedroom myself. The doctor says the first half of the night is his best sleep; let him sleep till half past twelve, dear."

"Aw, just one peek before I go."

"Before you what?"

"I got to go out for a little while to-night, hon. On business."

"Where?"

"Slews. I got to meet him in the Subway at seven and go to Brooklyn shops with him to look over those ventilators I'm having put in the fitting-rooms."

She laid down her fork. "I thought you said he was in St. Louis?"

"He got back."

"Oh!"

"You lay down in the front room and read till I get back, hon, and maybe--maybe I'll bring you a surprise."

The meal continued in silence, but after a few seconds her throat seemed to close and she discarded the pretense of eating.

"Now don't you get sore, Mil; you never used to be like this. It's just because you're not right strong yet."

"I ain't--ain't sore."

"You are. You got a foolish idea in your head, Mil."

"Why should I have an idea? I guess I'm getting all that's coming to me for--for forcing things."

"Now, Mil, I bet anything you're still feeling sore about last night. Aren't you?"

"Sore? It ain't my business, Phonzie, if you can stay out till one o'clock one night and the next want to begin the same thing over again."

"We had to stick around last night, Mil. Gert was drawing off the models under her handkerchief and on the dance program. That's how we got the yellow charmeuse, just by keeping after it and drawing it line for line."

"I know, I know."

"Then give me a kiss and when I come back maybe--maybe I'll bring you a surprise up my sleeve, hon."

She sat beside her cold meal, tears scratching her eyes like blown grit. "It's like I told you this morning, Phonzie; when you get tired, all you got to do is remember I got the new trunk standing right behind the cretonne curtains, and I can pack my duds any day in the week and find a welcome over at--at Ida May's."

"Mil, ain't you ashamed!"

"Why, I could pack up and--and find a welcome there right to-night, if the kid wasn't too little for the night air."

"Mil, honest, I--I just don't know what to make of you. I--I've just lost my nerve about going now."

"I'm not going to be the one to say stay."

With his coat unhooked from the antlers and flung across his arm, he stood contemplating, a furrow of perplexity between his eyes.

"If I--I hadn't promised--"

"You go. I guess it won't be the last evening I spend alone."

"Yes it will, hon."

"I know, I know."

He buttoned his coat and stooped over her, the smell of damp exuding from his clothes.

"Just you lay down in the front room till I get back, Mil. Here, look at some of these new fashion books I brought home. I'll be back early, hon, and maybe wake you and the kid up with--with a surprise."

"Quit!"

"Just a French kiss, hon."

She raised a cold face. He tilted her head backward and pressed his lips to hers, then went out, closing the door lightly behind him.

For a breathing space she remained where he had left her, with her lips held in between her teeth and the sobbing breath fluttering in her throat. The pink rose lay on the table, its beautiful silk-velvet leaves concealing its cotton heart. She regarded it through a hot blur of tears that stung her eyeballs. Her throat grew tighter. Suddenly she sprang to her feet and to the hallway. A full-length coat hung from the antlers and a filmy scarf, carelessly flung. She slid into the coat, cramming the sleeves of her negligée in at the shoulders, wrapping the scarf about her head and knotting it at the throat in a hysteria of sudden decision. Then down the flight of stairs, her knees trembling as she ran. When she reached the bubbly sidewalk, cool rain slanted in her face. She gathered her strength and plunged against it.

At the corner, in the white flare of an arc-light, chin sunk on his chest against the onslaught of rain, and head leading, Alphonse Michelson stepped across the shining sea of asphalt. She broke into a run, the uneven careen of the weak, keeping to the shadow of the buildings; doubling her pace.

When he reached the hooded descent to the Subway, she was almost in his shadow; then cautiously after him down the iron stairs, and when he paused to buy his ticket, he might have touched her as she held herself taut against the wall and out of his vision. A passer-by glanced back at her twice. From the last landing of the stairway and leaning across the balustrade, she could follow him now with her eyes, through the iron gateway and on to the station platform.

From behind a pillar, a hen pheasant's tail in her hat raising her above the crowd, her shoulders rain-spotted and a dripping umbrella held well away from her, emerged Gertie Dobriner, a reproach in her expression, but meeting him with a pantomime of laughs and sallies. A tangle of passengers closed them in. A train wild with speed tore into the station, grinding to a stop on shrieking wheels. A second later it tore out again, leaving the platform empty.

Then Madam Moores turned her face to the rainswept street and retraced her steps, except that a vertigo fuddled her progress and twice she swayed. When she climbed the staircase to her apartment she was obliged to rest midway, sitting huddled against the banister, her soaked scarf fallen backward across her shoulders. She unlatched her door carefully, to save the squeak and to avoid the small maid who sang over and above the clatter of her dishes. The yellow lamp diffused its quiet light the length of the hallway, and she tottered down and into the bedroom at the far end.

A night lamp burned beside a basinette that might have been lined with the breast feathers of a dove, so downy was it. An imitation-ivory clock ticked among a litter of imitation-ivory dresser fittings. On the edge of the bed, and with no thought for its lacy coverlet, she sat down heavily, her wet coat dragging it awry. An hour ticked past. The maid completed her tasks, announced her departure, and tiptoed out to meet an appointment with a gas-fitter's assistant in the lower rear hall.

After a while Madam Moores fell to crying, but in long wheezes that came from her throat dry. The child in the crib uncurled a small, pink fist and opened his eyes, but with the gloss of sleep still across them and not forfeiting his dream. Still another hour and she rose, groping her way behind a chintz curtain at the far end of the room; fell to scattering and reassembling the contents of a trunk, stacking together her own garments and the tiny garments of a tiny white layette.

Toward midnight she fell to crying again beside the crib, and in audible jerks and moans that racked her. The child stirred. Cramming her handkerchief against her lips, she faltered down the hallway. In the front room and on the pillowed couch she collapsed weakly, eyes closed and her grief-crumpled face turned toward the door.

On the ground floor of a dim house in a dim street, which by the contrivance of its occupants had been converted from its original role of dark and sinister dining-room to wareroom for a dozen or more perambulators on high, rubber-tired wheels, Alphonse Michelson and Gertie Dobriner stood in conference with a dark-wrappered figure, her blue-checked apron wound muff fashion about her hands.

Miss Dobriner tapped a finger against her too red lips. "Seventy dollars net for a baby-carriage!"

"Yes'm, and a bargain at that. If he was home he'd show you the books hisself and the prices we get."

"Seventy dollars for a baby-carriage! For that, Phonzie, you can buy the kid a taxi."

In a sotto voice and with a flow of red suffusing his face, Alphonse Michelson turned to Gertie Dobriner, his hand curved blinker fashion to inclose his words.

"For Gawd's sake, cut the haggling, Gert. If this here white enamel is the carriage we want, let's take it and hike. I got to get home."

Miss Dobriner drew up her back to a feline arch. "The gentleman says we'll take it for sixty-five, spot cash."

"My husband's great for one price, madam. We don't cater to none but private trade and--"

"Sure you don't. If we could have got one of these glass-top carriages in a department store, we wouldn't be swimming over here to Brooklyn just to try out our stroke."

"Mrs. Nan Ness, who sent you here, knows the kind of goods we turn out. She says she's going to give us an order for a twin buggy yet, some of these days. If the Four Hundred believed in babies like the Four Million, we'd have a plant all over Brooklyn. Only my husband won't spread, he--he--"

Mr. Michelson waved aside the impending recitation with a sweep of his hand. "Is this the one you like, Gert?"

"Yes, with the folding top. Say, don't I want to see madam's face when she sees it. And say, won't the kid be a scream, Phonzie, all nestled up in there like a honey bunch?"

He slid his hand into his pocket, withdrawing a leather folder. "Here, we'll take this one with the folding top, but get us a fresh one out of stock."

"We'll make you this carriage up, sir, just as you see it now."

"Make it up! We've got to have it now. To-night!"

"But, sir, we only got these samples made up to show."

"Then we got to buy the sample."

"No, no. My husband ain't home and I--I can't sell the sample. We--"

"But I tell you we got to have it to-night. To-morrow's Sunday and the lady who--"

"No, no. With my husband not here, I can't let go no sample. As a special favor, sir, we'll make you one up in a week."

Miss Dobriner stooped forward, her eyes narrow as slits. "Seventy-five, spot down."

Indecision vanished as rags before Abracadabra.

"We make it a rule not to sell our samples, but--"

"That carriage has got to be delivered at my house to-night before ten."

"Sir, that can't go out to-night. It's got to be packed special and sent over on a flat-top dray. These carriages got to be packed like they was babies themselves."

"Can you beat that for luck?" He inserted two fingers in his tall collar as if it choked him. "Can you beat that?"

"The first thing Monday morning, sir, as a special favor, but that carriage can't go out to-night. We got one man does nothing but pack them for delivery."

He plunged his hands into his pockets and paced the narrow aisle down the center of the room. "We got to get that carriage over there to-night if--if we have to wheel it over!"

Miss Dobriner clapped her hands in an ecstasy of inspiration. "Good! We'll wheel it home. We can make it by midnight. What you bet?"

He turned upon her, but with a ray in his eyes. "Say, Gert, that ain't such a worse idea, but--"

"No buts. The night is young, and I know a fellow used to walk from the Bronx to Brooklyn with his girl every Sunday."