Chapter 3

I sat down to a humiliating half-hour's thought. It isn't a bad idea at times to "loaf and invite your soul," and then cast up account with it. My account looked pretty discouraging.

Dicky and I had been married a little over two weeks. Two weeks of idiotically happy honeymooning, and then the last three days of quarrels, reconciliations, jealousies, petty bickerings and the shadow of real issues between us.

Was this marriage--heights of happiness, depths of despair, with the humdrum of petty differences between?

VI

A MAID AND MODEL

The chiming of the clock an hour after Dicky had gone to the studio after our little noon dinner next day warned me that I was not dressed and that the cooks whose advertisements I had answered might call at any minute. I dressed and arranged my hair. Just as I put in the last hairpin the bell rang.

Two women, covertly eyeing each other with suspicion, stood in the hallway when I opened the door. To my invitation to come in each responded "Thank you," and the entrance of both was quiet. When they sat down in the chairs I drew forward for them I mentally appraised them for a moment.

One was a middle-aged woman of the strongly marked German type. Clean, trig, grim, she spelled efficiency in every line of her body. The other, a tall Polish girl, of perhaps 22, was also extremely neat, but her pretty brown hair was blown around her face and her blue eyes were fairly dancing with eagerness, in contrast to the stolid expression of the other woman. As I faced them, the older woman compressed her lips in a thin line, while the girl smiled at me in friendly fashion.

"You came in answer to the advertisements?" I queried.

The older woman silently held forth my letter and two or three other papers pinned together. I saw that they were references written in varying feminine chirography. Her silence was almost uncanny.

"Oh, yes, Misses," the Polish girl exclaimed. "I put my--what do you call it? My--"

"Advertisement," I suggested, smiling. Her good-nature was infectious.

"Oh, yes, ad-ver-tise-ment, in the paper, Sunday. Today your letter came, the first letter. I guess hard times now. Nobody wants maids. I come right queeck. I can do good work, very good. I have good references. You got maid yet?"

"Not yet," I answered, and turned to the other woman.

According to all my theories and my training I should have chosen the older woman. Efficiency always has been an idol of mine. It was my slogan in my profession. It is my humiliation that I seem to have none of it in my housework. The German woman evidently was capable of administering my household much better than I could do it. Perhaps it was because of this very reason that I found myself repelled by her, and subtly drawn by the younger woman's smiling enthusiasm.

"Have you much company, and does your husband bring home friends without notice?" The older woman's harsh tones broke in.

The questions turned the scale. From the standpoint of strict justice, the standard from which I always had tried to reason, she was perfectly justified in asking the questions before she took the place. But intuition told me that our home life would be a dreary thing with this martinet in the kitchen.

"That will not trouble you," I said, "for I do not believe I wish your services. Here is your car fare, and thank you for coming."

The woman took the car fare with the same stolidity she had shown through the whole interview. "I do not think I would like you for a madam, either," she said quietly as she went out.

The Polish girl bounced from her seat as soon as the door was closed.

"She no good to talk to you like that," she exclaimed. "She old crank, anyway. You not like her. See me--I young, strong; I cook, wash, iron, clean. I do everything. You do notting. I cook good, too; not so much fancy, but awful good. My last madam, I with her one year. She sick, go South yesterday. She cry, say 'I so sorry, Katie; you been so good to me.' I cry, too. Read what she say about me."

I could read between the lines of the rather odd letter of recommendation the girl handed me. I had dealt with many girls of Katie's type in my teaching days. I knew the childish temper, the irritating curiosity, the petty jealousy, the familiarity which one not understanding would deem impertinence, with which I would have to contend if I engaged her. But the other applicant for my work, the grim vision who had just left, decided me. I would try this eager girl if her terms were reasonable--and they were.

As I preceded her into the kitchen I had a sudden qualm. I knew Dicky's fastidious taste, and that underneath all his good-natured unconventionality he had rigid ideas of his own upon some topics. I happened to remember that nothing made him so nervous and irritable as bad service in a restaurant. His idea of a good waiter was a well-trained automaton with no eyes or ears. How would he like this enthusiastic, irrepressible girl? It was too late now, however. I was committed to a week of her service.

I had a luxurious afternoon. Katie in the kitchen sang softly over her work some minor-cadenced Polish folk-song, and I nestled deep in an armchair by the sunniest window, dipped deep into the pages of magazines and newspapers which I had not read. I realized with a start that I was out of touch with the doings of the outside world, something which had not happened to me before for years, save in the few awful days of my mother's last illness. I really must catch up again.

I was so deep in a vivid description of the desolation in Belgium that I did not hear Dicky enter. I started as he kissed me.

"Headache better, sweetheart?" he added, lover-like remembering and making much of the slight headache I had had when he left that morning. "It must be, or you wouldn't be able to read that horror." He closed the magazine playfully and drew me to my feet.

"I am perfectly well," I replied, "and I have good news for you. We have a maid, a trifle rough in her manner, but one who I think will be very good."

"That's fine," Dicky said heartily. "I'd much rather come home to find you comfortably reading than scorching your face and reddening your hands in a kitchen."

"Say, Missis Graham!"

Katie came swiftly into the room, and I heard an exclamation of surprise from Dicky.

"Why, Katie, wherever did you come from?"

But Katie, with a scream of fear, her face white with terror, backed into the kitchen. I heard her opening the door where she had put her hat and cloak, then the slamming of the kitchen door.

I looked at Dicky in amazement. What did it all mean?

He caught up his hat and dashed to the front door.

"Quick, Madge!" he called. "Follow her out the kitchen door as fast as you can. I'll meet you at the servant's entrance! I wouldn't let her get away for a hundred dollars!"

I obeyed Dicky's instructions, but with a feeling of disgust creeping over me. I have always hated a scene, and this performance savored too much of moving picture melodrama to suit me.

I hurried down the two flights of stairs and on toward the servant's entrance. I was almost there when Katie came flying back, almost into my arms.

"Oh, Missis Graham," she moaned.

"You kind lady. I pay it all back. I always have it with me. Don't let him put me in prison. I work, work my fingers to the bone for you. If you only not let him put me in prison."

Dicky came up behind us. As she saw him she shrank closer to me in a pitiful, frightened way, and put out both her hands as if to push him away.

"Don't be frightened, Katie," he said. Come to the house and tell me about it."

"Bring her into the living room and get her quieted before I talk to her," suggested Dicky, as he disappeared into his room after I had got her upstairs.

Bewildered and displeased at this bizarre situation which had been thrust upon me, I ushered Katie into the living room and removed her hat and coat. She trembled violently.

I went to the dining room and from a decanter in the sideboard poured a glass of wine and, bringing it back, pressed it to her lips. She drank it, and the color gradually came back to her face and the twitching of her muscles lessened.

When she was calmer I took her hands in mine and, looking her full in the face in the manner which I had sometimes used to quiet an hysterical pupil, I said slowly:

"Listen to me, Katie. You are not going to be put in prison. Mr. Graham will not harm you in the least. But he wishes to talk to you, and you must listen to what he has to say."

Her answer was to seize my hand and cover it with tearful kisses. I detest any exhibition of emotion, and this girl's utter abandonment to whatever grief or terror was hers irritated me. But I tried not to show my feelings. I merely patted her head and said:

"Come, Katie, you must stop this and listen to Mr. Graham."

Katie obediently wiped her eyes and sat up very straight.

"I am all right now," she said quaveringly. "He can come. I tell him everything."

Still very nervous but calmer than she had been, Katie remained quiet when I raised my voice to reach Dicky waiting in the adjoining room.

"Oh, Dicky," I called, "you may come now."

Dicky drew a low chair in front of the couch where we sat.

"Tell me first, Katie," he said kindly, "why do you think I want to put you in prison? Because of the money? Never mind that. I want to talk to you of something else."

But Katie was hysterically tugging at the neck of her gown. From inside her bodice she took a tiny chamois skin bag, and ripping it open took out a carefully folded bill and handed it to Dicky.

"I never spend that money," she said. "I never mean to steal it. But I had to go away queeck from your flat and I never, never dare come back, give you the money. After two month, send my cousin to the flat, but he say you move, no know where. There I always keep the money here. I think maybe some time I find out where you live and write a letter to you, send the money."

Dicky took the bill and unfolded it curiously. A brown stain ran irregularly across one-half of it.

"Well, I'll be eternally blessed," he ejaculated, "if it isn't the identical bill I gave her. Ten-dollar bills were not so plentiful three years ago, and I remember this one so distinctly because of the stain. The boys used to say I must have murdered somebody to get it, and that it was stained with blood."

He turned to Katie again.

"The money is nothing, Katie. Why did you run away that day? I never have been able to finish that picture since."

Katie's eyes dropped. Her cheeks flushed.

"I 'shamed to tell," she murmured.

Dicky muttered an oath beneath his breath. "I thought so," he said slowly, then he spoke sternly:

"Never mind being ashamed to tell, Katie. I want the truth. I worked at your portrait that morning, and then I had to go to the studio. When I came back you had gone, bag and baggage, and with, the money I gave you to pay the tailor. I never could finish that picture, and it would have brought me a nice little sum."

My brain was whirling by this time. Dicky in a flat with this ignorant Polish girl paying his tailor bills, and posing for portraits. What did it all mean?

"Where did you go?" Dicky persisted.

Katie lifted her head and looked at him proudly.

"You know when you left that morning, Mr. Lestaire, he was painting, too? Well, Mr. Graham, I always good girl in old country and here. I go to confession. I always keep good. Mr. Lestaire, he kiss me, say bad tings to me. He scare me. I afraid if I stay I no be good girl. So I run queeck away. I never dare come bade. That Mr. Lestaire he one bad man, one devil."

Dicky whistled softly.

"So that was it?" he said. "Well that was just about what that pup would do. That was one reason I got out of our housekeeping arrangements. He set too swift a pace for me, and that was going some in those days."

He turned to Katie, smiling.

"You see you don't have to be afraid any more. I'm a respectable married man now, and it's perfectly safe for you to work here. Mrs. Graham will take care of you. Run along about your work now, that's a good girl."

Katie giggled appreciatively. Her mercurial temperament had already sent her from the depths to the heights.

"The dinner all spoiled while I cry like a fool," she said. "You ready pretty soon. I serve."

She hastened to the kitchen, and I turned to Dicky inquiringly.

"I suppose you think you have gotten into a lunatic asylum, Madge. Of all the queer things that Katie should apply for a job here and that you should take her."

"I didn't know you ever kept house in a flat before, Dicky."

"It was a very short experience," he returned, "only three months. Four of us, Lester, Atwood, Bates and myself pooled our rather scanty funds and rented a small apartment. We advertised for a general housekeeper, and Katie answered the advertisement. She had been over from Poland only a year at a cousin's somewhere on the East side, and she used to annoy us awfully getting to the flat so early in the morning and cleaning our living room while we were trying to sleep. But she was a crack-a-jack worker, so we put up with her superfluous energy in cleaning. Then one day I discovered her standing with a letter in her hand looking off into space with her eyes full of misery. She had heard of some relative."

"Of course you wanted to paint her," I suggested.

"You bet," Dicky returned. "The idea came to me in a flash. You can see what a heroic figure she was. I had her get into her Polish dress--she had brought one with her from the old country--and I painted her as Poland--miserable, unhappy Poland. Gee! but I'm glad you happened to run across her. We'll put up with anything from her until I get that picture done."

Try as I might I could not share Dicky's enthusiasm. I knew it was petty, but the idea of my maid acting as Dicky's model jarred my ideas of the fitness of things.

But I had sense enough to hold my peace.

VII

A FRIENDLY WARNING

I know of nothing more exasperating to a hostess than to have her guests come to her home too early. It is bad enough to wait a meal for a belated guest, but to have some critical woman casually stroll in before one is dressed, or has put the final touches--so dear to every housewifely heart--on all the preparations, is simply maddening.

I am no exception to the rule. As I heard the voices of Lillian Gale and her husband and I realized that they had arrived at 3:30 in the afternoon, when they had been invited for an evening chafing dish supper, I was both disheartened and angry.

But, of course, there was but one thing to do, much as I hated to do it. I must go into the living room and cordially welcome these people. As I slipped off my kitchen apron I thought of the hypocrisy which marks most social intercourse. What I really wanted to say to my guests was this:

"Please go home and come again at the proper time. I am not ready to receive you now."

I had a sudden whimsical vision of the faces of Dicky and the Underwoods if I should thus speak my real thoughts. The thought in some curious fashion made it easier for me to cross the room to Lillian Gale's side, extend my hand and say cordially:

"How good of you to come this afternoon!"

"I know it is unpardonable," Lillian's high pitched voice answered. "You invited us for the evening, not for the afternoon, but I told Harry that I was going to crucify the conventions and come over early, so I would have a chance to say more than two words to you before the rest get here."

Harry Underwood elbowed his wife away from my side with a playful push, and held out his hand. His brilliant, black eyes looked down into mine with the same lazy approving expression that I had resented when Dicky introduced me to him at the theatre.

I cudgelled my brain in vain for some airy nothing with which to answer his nonsense. I never have had the gift of repartee. I can talk well enough about subjects that interest me when I am conversing with some one whom I know well, but the frothy persiflage, the light banter that forms the conversation's stock in trade of so many women, is an alien tongue to me.

"You are just as welcome as Mrs. Underwood is," I said heartily at last. Fortunately he did not read the precisely honest meaning hidden in my words.

"Come on, Harry, into my room," urged Dicky, taking him by the arm. "I've got a special brand cached in there, and had to hide it so mein frau wouldn't drink it up."

I suppose my face reflected the dismay I felt at this intimation that the women would begin drinking so early. I feared for the repetition of the experience of Friday evening. But the laws of conventions and hospitality bound me. I felt that I could not protest. Mrs. Underwood apparently had no such scruples. She clutched Dicky by the arm and swung him around facing her.

"Now, see here, my Dicky-bird," she began, "you begin this special bottle kind of business and I walk out of here. I should think you and Harry would have had enough of this the other evening. We came over here today for a little visit, and tonight we'll sit on either the water wagon or the beer wagon, just as Mrs. Graham says. But you boys won't start any of these special drinks, or I'll know the reason why."

"Oh, cut it out, Lil," her husband said, not crossly, but mechanically, as if it were a phrase he often used. But Dicky laughed down at her, although I knew by the look in his eyes that he was much annoyed.

"All right, Lil," he said easily. "I suppose Madge will fall in gratitude on your neck for this when she gets you into the seclusion of her room. You haven't any objection to our having a teenty-weenty little smoke, have you, mamma dear?"

"Go as far as you like," she returned, ignoring the sneers.

As I turned and led the way to my room, I was conscious of curiously mingled emotions. Relief at the elimination of the special bottle with its inevitable consequences and resentment that Dicky should so weakly obey the dictum of another woman, battled with each other. But stronger than either was a dawning wonder. From the conversation I had overheard in the theatre dressing-room and trifling things in Mrs. Underwood's own conduct, I had been led to believe that she was sentimentally interested in Dicky, and that some time in the future I might have to battle with her for his affections. But her speech to him which I had just heard savored more of the mother laying down the law to a refractory child than it did of anything approaching sentiment. Could it be, I told myself, that I had been mistaken?

Our husbands looked exceedingly comfortable when we rejoined them, for they were smoking vigorously and discussing the merits of two boxers Mr. Underwood had recently seen. As we entered the room both men, of course, sprang to their feet, and I had a moment's opportunity to contrast their appearance.

Dicky is slender, lithe, with merry brown eyes and thick, brown hair, with a touch of auburn in it, and just enough suspicion of a curl to give him several minutes' hard brushing each day trying to keep it down. Harry Underwood, taller even than Dicky, who is above the medium height, is massive in frame, well built, muscular, with black hair tinged with gray, and the blackest, most piercing eyes I have ever seen. I was proud of Dicky as I stood looking at them, while Lillian exchanged some merry nonsense with Dicky, but I also had to acknowledge that Harry Underwood was a splendid specimen of manhood.

As if he had read my thoughts, his eyes caught mine and held them. To all appearances he was listening to the banter of Dicky and his wife, but there was an inscrutable look in his eyes, an enigmatical smile upon his lips, as he looked at me that vaguely troubled me. His glance, his smile, seemed significant somehow, as if we were old friends who held some humorous experience in common remembrance. And I had never seen him but once before in my life.

I shrugged my shoulders, ever so slightly. It is a habit of mine when I am displeased, or wish to throw off some unpleasant sensation of memory. I was almost unconscious of having used the gesture. But Harry Underwood crossed the room as if it had been a signal, and stood looking down quizzically at me.

"Little lady," he began, "you shouldn't hold a grudge so well. It doesn't harmonize with your eyes and your mouth. They were meant for kindness, not severity. If there is any way that I can show you I am humbled to the dust for coming here I'll do any penance you say."

"You must be mistaken, Mr. Underwood." I strove to control my voice. "I have no grudge whatever against you, so you see you are absolved in advance from my penance."

"Will you shake hands on it?" He put out his large, white, beautifully formed hand and grasped mine before I had half extended it.

I felt myself flushing hotly. Of all the absolutely idiotic things in the world, this standing hand in hand with Harry Underwood, in a formal pact of friendship or forgiveness or whatever he imagined the hand-clasp signified, was the most ridiculous. He was quick enough to fathom my distaste, but he clasped my hand tighter and, bending slightly so that he could look straight into my eyes he said, lazily smiling:

"You are the most charming prevaricator I know. You come pretty near to hating me, little lady. But you won't dislike me long. I'll make a bet with myself on that."

"Hold that pose just a minute. Don't move. It's simply perfect."

Lillian Underwood's merry voice interrupted her husband's declaration. With clever mimicry she struck the attitude of a nervous photographer just ready to close the shutter of his camera. Dicky stood just behind her too, also smiling, but while Lillian's merriment evidently was genuine, I detected a distaste for the proceedings behind Dicky's smile, which I knew was forced.

Lillian slipped in an imaginary plate, then springing to one side stood pretending to clasp the bulb of the shutter in her hand, while she counted: "One, two, three, four, five--thank you!"

"Now if you will just change your expressions," she rattled on. "Harry, why don't you take both her hands? Then if Mrs. Graham will smile a little we will have a sentimental gem, or if she makes her expression even a trifle more disapproving than it is I can label it, 'Unhand me, villain.'"

"I never take a dare," returned her husband, and snatched my other hand. But I was really angry by this time, and I wrenched my hands away with an effort and threw my head a trifle haughtily, although fortunately I was able to control my words:

"Do you know, people, that there will be no food for you tonight unless I busy myself with its preparations immediately? Mrs. Underwood, won't you entertain those boys and excuse me for a little while?"

I went into the dining room and put on the kitchen apron I had taken off when I heard the voices of my early guests. Almost immediately Lillian appeared arrayed in the apron I had given her. She came up to the table and surveyed it with appraising eyes.

"I am glad of this chance to speak with you alone, for I want to explain to you about him."

She stopped with an embarrassed flush. I gazed at her in amazement. Lillian Underwood flustered! I could not believe my eyes.

"You are not used to us or our ways, or I shouldn't bother to tell you this. But I can see that you are much annoyed at Harry, and I don't blame you. But you mustn't mind him. He is really harmless. He falls in love with every new face he sees, has a violent attack, then gets over it just as quickly. You are an entirely new type to him, so I suppose his attack this time will be a little more prolonged. He'll make violent love to you behind my back or before my face, but you mustn't mind him. I understand, and I'll straighten him out when he gets too annoying."

The embarrassed flush had disappeared by this time. She was talking in as cool and matter-of-fact manner as if she had been discussing the defection of a cook.