CHAPTER IV

THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS

A pompous-looking butler escorted Rachel through a vestibule, and pointed her to a seat in the dining room. It was evident from his manner that she should have applied at the basement entrance.

A group of workmen were busy setting up an immense table. They kept pushing the sections together and drawing them apart. The polished surfaces of the wood filled the room with reflected light. A maid who stood by looked appealingly at the butler.

"It isn't the table that was ordered," she moaned. She glanced at a clock which seemed, with its fluted columns and Gothic spires, a sardonic spirit in that rich and disordered room. Its monotonous tick-tock, tick-lock, scattered confusion, bewilderment, madness.

"Eleven!" she cried in tones of deepest tragedy, "and not a flower!"

Other servants entered bearing silver and glass. A footman came in with a great palm, and bending, with shoulders on the strain, placed it directly in the path of a hurrying maid. Some one dropped a goblet; that showered into a million minute particles like shining tears. Every movable object was shifted countless times and remained, according to its nature, glittering, wavering, quivering for some instants thereafter. A bronze Narcissus exhibited his grace at an unusual angle. In such a time of rearrangement who has not observed how art objects gain in beauty?

"Miss Burgdorf will see you now. Please step this way."

Rachel followed the servant up the staircase. The woman lifted long strings of motley-hued beads strung in such a manner as to form a semi-transparent curtain, passed through a sitting room and tapped on a door. Julia Burgdorf was seated before her dressing-table in a robe of flowing silk. She was having her face manipulated by a slim masseuse in a long apron. The faces of the two women, as they rolled their eyes inquiringly toward the door, were exceedingly feminine. Woman is ever most natural when engaged in making herself artificial.

Julia Burgdorf extended her hand with an imperious gesture. "Let me see the shades," she cried.

She was a powerful, dark-skinned, handsome woman, with her mind in her eyes. Forty years of life had polished and embellished her until now she resembled a jewel of many facets. Her throat suggested a singing bird's, her shoulders were beautifully curved, her hands and arms perfect. She scarcely glanced at Rachel but examined the shades intently. Then once more she yielded her face to the masseuse.

"Thank goodness, child!" she sighed, "they're lovely! and I'd just given you up. All these lights will be very hot, but they'll look like a forest of tropical blossoms; that's what I wanted. Here, give me that purse."

She counted out thirty dollars in bills, and handed them to Rachel and then rang for the butler.

"Has the sherbet come?--Bring this young lady some. Here, sit down," she added, "you look tired."

Rachel seated herself on a brocaded divan, still holding in her fingers a shade which had been slightly crushed and which she had repaired. She held the shade like a flower, and her face above it was severe and pale.

"Heavens, child! someone ought to catch your pose just as you sit now. She doesn't need any of your cream, does she, Henley?"

The masseuse looked at Rachel and her face quaked into an hundred little wrinkles. These played round her eyes like forked lightning, then instantly and miraculously disappeared, leaving the skin like an infant's.

"It wouldn't do her any harm, Miss Burgdorf," she said, bridling. "Our cream is such a preservative. Sister and I think ladies can't begin too early."

Her voice and manner suggested lotions; and this persistent artificial youthfulness, superadded to the tiny creature's evident acumen, was not without charm. In her long apron, tied behind with strings like a pinafore, she would have passed very well for a child had it not been for the lightning.

Julia Burgdorf rose and stretched her arms above her head, then let them drop heavily while she stood for an instant in a listening attitude. Though no word was brought to her of the perturbed state of affairs below stairs, there was knowledge of it in the very air.

"The butler has broken the last cup," she declared with conviction, "and the cook has gone off in a rage. I can see everything. Oh, what a fool I was to leave the cool country and bother with that club of cackling women at this season of the year! But charity before comfort. Leave your address, please. My cousin, Mr. Hart," she went on, with a droll screwing of the lips "wrote me about you. I may be able to get you more orders." And with these words she passed on to her bath.

Now that the work which had engaged her for three days and a night was finished, Rachel felt disinclined to move. She lingered over the sherbet the butler had brought her and watched the masseuse putting away the little delicate instruments of coquetry. All at once it seemed to her that through the cool silence she heard the malicious ticking of the great clock in the dining-room, and she recognized the timepiece as a remorseless tyrant dominating not only the servants, but the beautiful mistress of the house. Though instinctively conscious of Julia Burgdorf's fear of age, Rachel was too young to experience any real sympathy for her. Instead, what she did feel was a keen sense of her own triumphant youth. A miniature of a young man stood on a dressing-table. "He looks like Emil," she thought; and, to quiet her agitation she fixed her attention on the masseuse, who, with a little silver pencil, was marking the date on an illuminated calendar. Rachel stared at this calendar, and the blood slowly left her cheek.

Nothing so conclusively proves the existence of an intelligent, if somewhat perverse Fate, acting in the affairs of human beings, as these potent stirrings of the memory, which she causes by the simplest means. Does a woman require a bit of information? Incidentally Fate enlightens her at the most opportune moment. Rachel attempted to avert her eyes from the bit of cardboard, but the two names which were almost lost in the design of the border and which certainly would have escaped the casual glance of another, in a moment had evoked all the sweet and irritating scenes of her past:

"_Benjamin Just & Richard Lawless, Art Lithographers, Lafayette Street._"

Symbolizing all the events of her meagre romance, these names, with all the accompanying address of which she had hitherto been ignorant, had the effect of maturing in Rachel all that is most imperious in human love. How little is required to move a woman's heart. The longing to see Emil took possession of Rachel like a fever.

The one o'clock whistle sounded a last melancholy note, and she inspected eagerly every figure that entered the factory. Why had she assumed that Emil was still employed there? As the stream of men grew less and presently ceased, the curve of her mouth became scornful. "How idiotic!" she whispered. She was turning away when a young girl emerged from a side door over which appeared the word "_Office_." She came out impetuously. The fact that she was weeping arrested Rachel's attention. Her slight frame shook with sobs. She took a few steps, then paused to extract a handkerchief from a bag she wore at her belt. She pulled out the handkerchief and a letter fell from the reticule, but in the excess of her grief she went on without perceiving her loss.

Rachel crossed the street and as she picked up the letter, she involuntarily noticed its superscription. Written carelessly on the blue envelope was the name "Mrs. E. A. St. Ives." She faltered--staring at it. She stood still and something seemed to strike her in the breast. Yet she was conscious that surprise had no part in her feeling. After a few seconds, she forced herself to walk on. At the next corner she overtook the girl.

"Is this yours?" she asked. And her voice sounded strange in her ears.

The girl wheeled, showing a face disfigured with tears. "Oh, yes," she said, "it's mine! Did I drop it?"

Rachel continued to look at her without stirring. She passed her hand once or twice across her forehead. "You are Mrs. Emil St. Ives?"

"Why yes, I'm Mrs. St. Ives." The other was now gazing at her with curiosity.

So this was the girl who had helped Emil in the past, who helped him now,--the girl he preferred to her. Disdainful, she swept round. As she moved, she lifted her shoulders as if she would rid herself of something, but the action spoke forlornness.

"Why do you ask?" questioned the other, pursuing.

Rachel paused. "Nothing made me ask," she said, "only the name was familiar."

She was walking on when the girl caught her arm.

"Perhaps you know my husband?" she persisted. "Do you?"

Once more Rachel stood still. "Yes I know him--slightly."

"I knew you did," and a note of incipient jealousy sounded in the other's voice. "When did you know him?" she asked, and she fixed sharp eyes on Rachel's face.

"It was last summer in Maine," Rachel answered. "I took him out a few times in a boat to make some experiments. When I saw the name I recognized it." Her indifference, the sudden cold and remote expression of her eye, which was like a thrust of the arm, deceived her questioner.

"Oh, I see," she said, meekly. "Was it the _depth indicator_! Oh I know it was," and at the mention of this instrument, she returned to her original grievance. "It's that _depth indicator_ that's been at the bottom of all our troubles," she explained; "if it hadn't been for that, Alexander would have finished the lithographing press and then everything would have come out different. But now Father--Oh, I can talk to you, can't I?" she interpolated. "I must talk to someone. I've been treated so--you don't know!" and she began to sob again in a helpless, childish fashion, with the unrestrained grief of a nature, hysterical, feverish.

But one thought burned in Rachel: Emil's marriage. Her pain, however, was not new; she felt that she had lived through it before, for it is a characteristic of suffering that it never comes as a novel experience and herein it differs from joy. The disconnected explanations of her companion, mingled with the repeated request to be allowed to confide in her, gradually roused Rachel. Her eyes travelled over Annie. She noticed the once tasteful dress, which was now badly worn, the little pear-shaped face with its peaked nose and babyish eyes.

She was about to reply haughtily, then, moved by Annie's beseeching look, altered her intention.

"Yes, you can tell me if you want to," she answered softly and dully.

Involuntarily the two girls turned their steps in the direction of a square, a triangular breathing place in this densely populated section. They seated themselves on one of the benches and Annie poured out her story. But her words scarcely penetrated Rachel's brain. She stared at some clothing drying on a fire-escape, and it struck her that the antics of the clothing fastened to a line were no more grotesque and absurd than the antics of human creatures fastened to life. Inwardly she rocked on the wide sea of misery.

The dramatic features of her situation were not lost on Emil's wife. As she described her life in her parent's home, contrasting it with her present mode of existence, it was clear that Annie viewed herself in a romantic light. Never the less her misery was real, and more than once she had recourse to her small damp handkerchief.

"When once we were married I felt sure Father would forgive us," she concluded, "but he says I shall never, never come home until I leave Alexander. Father's terrible when he's angry. All the same, this isn't the first time I've been to him," she explained. "At first he wouldn't see me, and when he did, he wouldn't listen to a word. He said Alexander was utterly irresponsible and the lithographing press and the rest of it had been as good as made over on an entirely different principle. But finally when I teased and teased he said if Alexander wanted to accept the position of expert examiner with the firm, they'd take him back at a salary. Not a very big salary, but still something regular. And I was so pleased," she added, "I felt there was a chance for him if he worked hard and didn't make trouble; I thought he'd soon rise to something better. But what do you think? Alexander refused! He roared like a madman when I told him. He said he wanted to do independent work, and never again would he sell his brain, his soul, his very life-blood to my father. And I went to the factory this afternoon to tell Father, and though I toned down Alexander's words and explained just how he felt as tactfully as I could, Father not only refused to make him another offer, but he threw open the door and pointed for me to go." And at the memory of the indignity, she covered her face with her hands. "Oh, whatever is going to become of us?" she wailed.

Rachel said nothing, and this continued silence quieted the other. Presently with an air of finality she lifted her head.

Opening her bag she returned the handkerchief to its depths.

"But I promised to stand by Alexander and I'm going to," she said in a low voice. "Somehow, he makes you feel that you want to stand by him."

Still Rachel said nothing.

"I must go now," Annie cried, tipping her face back, "see, it's going to storm, and I'm so afraid of lightning."

And indeed black, threatening clouds were coming up rapidly.

"I'd ask you to come and see us," she added as they fled from the square, "only the place is so horrid. You see, Alexander not only works there, but we live there, too," she continued, while they stood waiting for a car with the wind whipping their dresses about them. "Alexander has a workshop, that's all he cares for, and I have a room about three feet square; and then he has a horrid deaf and dumb creature who helps him. Oh, if I'd known he was going to have _him_ live with us!" and her voice broke. "You've been so good to let me go on in this way," she cried, as the car stopped. "I'll tell my husband I met you. What name shall I say?"

But Rachel did not answer. She merely nodded as the other, in a tremour of fright, stepped on the car.

"You'll get caught in the rain!" Annie called after her.

Rachel smiled grimly.

The rain descended at first thin and fine as if poured through a sieve; then it increased in volume till the gutters ran yellow torrents, till the sordid brick buildings looked like drenched, warty frogs of a giant growth, till the slender trees in the squares fairly bent to the ground. But Rachel was caught in the vortex of a storm even wilder.

It was two hours later when she slowly climbed the steps of the tenement house. Emily Short's voice reached her from an upper landing:

"There, don't you go looking him up again, will you, Betty? There ain't a man in the world worth running after."

Rachel halted and a fierce denunciatory light flamed in her eyes. Then she pulled herself together.

When she opened the door of the outer room Simon Hart rose to greet her. He felt that he had taken her by surprise and, in embarrassment, smoothed his hair.

"It's going to clear," he said and glanced toward the window which let into the tiny room the slowly increasing light.

Rachel swept a look in the same direction. "Yes," she repeated, "it's--clearing."

In the sky, visible beyond the clutter of wet roofs, appeared a strange arrangement of gold bars, and above the bars huddled the thunder clouds like a herd of newly-tamed animals.