Chapter 6

Loeb finished his luncheon in silence. But he and Beck separated on the friendliest terms. Loeb was too practical a philosopher to hate another man for doing that which he would have done himself if he had had the chance. At his office he told a clerk to send Feuerstein a note, asking him to call the next morning. When Feuerstein came into the anteroom the gimlet-eyed office boy disappeared through one of the doors in the partition and reappeared after a longer absence than usual. He looked at Feuerstein with a cynical, contemptuous smile in his eyes.

"Mr. Loeb asks me to tell you," he said, "with his compliments, that you are a bigamist and a swindler, and that if you ever show your face here again he'll have you locked up."

Feuerstein staggered and paled--there was no staginess in his manner. Then without a word he slunk away. He had not gone far up Center Street before a hand was laid upon his shoulder from behind. He stopped as if he had been shot; he shivered; he slowly, and with a look of fascinated horror, turned to see whose hand had arrested him.

He was looking into the laughing face of a man who was obviously a detective.

"You don't seem glad to see me, old boy," said the detective with contemptuous familiarity.

"I don't know you, sir." Feuerstein made a miserable attempt at haughtiness.

"Of course you don't. But I know YOU--all about you. Come in here and let's sit down a minute."

They went into a saloon and the detective ordered two glasses of beer. "Now listen to me, young fellow," he said.

"You're played out in this town. You've got to get a move on you, see? We've been looking you up, and you're wanted for bigamy. But if you clear out, you won't be followed. You've got to leave today, understand? If you're here to-morrow morning, up the road you go." The detective winked and waggled his thumb meaningly in a northerly direction.

Feuerstein was utterly crushed. He gulped down the beer and sat wiping the sweat from his face. "I have done nothing," he protested in tragic tones. "Why am I persecuted--I, poor, friendless, helpless?"

"Pity about you," said the detective.

"You'd better go west and start again. Why not try honest work? It's not so bad, they say, once you get broke in." He rose and shook hands with Feuerstein. "So long," he said. "Good luck! Don't forget!" And again he winked and waggled his thumb in the direction of the penitentiary.

Feuerstein went to his lodgings, put on all the clothes he could wear without danger of attracting his landlady's attention, filled his pockets and the crown of his hat with small articles, and fled to Hoboken.

IX

AN IDYL OF PLAIN PEOPLE

Hilda had not spent her nineteen years in the glare of the Spartan publicity in which the masses live without establishing a character. Just as she knew all the good points and bad in all the people of that community, so they knew all hers, and therefore knew what it was possible for her to do and what impossible. And if a baseless lie is swift of foot where everybody minutely scrutinizes everybody else, it is also scant of breath. Sophie's scandal soon dwindled to a whisper and expired, and the kindlier and probable explanation of Hilda's wan face and downcast eyes was generally accepted.

Her code of morals and her method of dealing with moral questions were those of all the people about her--strict, severe, primitive. Feuerstein was a cheat, a traitor. She cast him out of her heart--cast him out at once and utterly and for ever. She could think of him only with shame. And it seemed to her that she was herself no longer pure--she had touched pitch; how could she be undefiled?

She accepted these conclusions and went about her work, too busy to indulge in hysteria of remorse, repining, self-examination.

She avoided Otto, taking care not to be left alone with him when he called on Sundays, and putting Sophie between him and her when he came up to them in the Square. But Otto was awaiting his chance, and when it came, plunged boldly into his heart-subject and floundered bravely about. "I don't like to see you so sad, Hilda. Isn't there any chance for me? Can't things be as they used to be?"

Hilda shook her head sadly. "I'm never going to marry," she said. "You must find some one else."

"It's you or nobody. I said that when we were in school together and--I'll stick to it." His eyes confirmed his words.

"You mustn't, Otto. You make me feel as if I were spoiling your life. And if you knew, you wouldn't want to marry me."

"I don't care. I always have, and I always will."

"I suppose I ought to tell you," she said, half to herself. She turned to him suddenly, and, with flushed cheeks and eyes that shifted, burst out: "Otto, he was a married man!"

"But you didn't know."

"It doesn't change the way I feel. You might--any man might--throw it up to me. And sooner or later, everybody'll know. No man would want a girl that had had a scandal like that on her."

"I would," he said, "and I do. And it isn't a scandal."

Some one joined them and he had no chance to continue until the following Sunday, when Heiligs and Brauners went together to the Bronx for a half-holiday. They could not set out until their shops closed, at half-past twelve, and they had to be back at five to reopen for the Sunday supper customers. They lunched under the trees in the yard of a German inn, and a merry party they were.

Hilda forgot to keep up her pretense that her healing wounds were not healing and never would heal. She teased Otto and even flirted with him. This elevated her father and his mother to hilarity. They were two very sensible young-old people, with a keen sense of humor--the experience of age added to the simplicity and gaiety of youth.

You would have paused to admire and envy had you passed that way and looked in under the trees, as they clinked glasses and called one to another and went off into gales of mirth over nothing at all. What laughter is so gay as laughter at nothing at all? Any one must laugh when there is something to laugh at; but to laugh just because one must have an outlet for bubbling spirits there's the test of happiness!

After luncheon they wandered into the woods and soon Otto and Hilda found themselves alone, seated by a little waterfall, which in a quiet, sentimental voice suggested that low tones were the proper tones to use in that place.

"We've known each other always, Hilda," said Otto. "And we know all about each other. Why not--dear?"

She did not speak for several minutes.

"You know I haven't any heart to give you," she answered at last.

Otto did not know anything of the kind, but he knew she thought so, and he was too intelligent to dispute, when time would settle the question--and, he felt sure, would settle it right. So he reached out and took her hand and said: "I'll risk that."

And they sat watching the waterfall and listening to it, and they were happy in a serious, tranquil way. It filled him with awe to think that he had at last won her. As for her, she was looking forward, without illusions, without regrets, to a life of work and content beside this strong, loyal, manly man who protested little, but never failed her or any one else.

On the way home in the train she told her mother, and her mother told her father. He, then and there, to the great delight and pleasure of the others in the car, rose up and embraced and kissed first his daughter, then Otto and then Otto's mother. And every once in a while he beamed down the line of his party and said: "This is a happy day!"

And he made them all come into the sitting-room back of the shop. "Wait here," he commanded. "No one must move!"

He went down to the cellar, presently to reappear with a dusty bottle of Johannisberger Cabinet. He pointed proudly to the seal. "Bronze!" he exclaimed. "It is wine like gold. It must be drunk slowly." He drew the cork and poured the wine with great ceremony, and they all drank with much touching of glasses and bowing and exchanging of good wishes, now in German, now in English, again in both. And the last toast, the one drunk with the greatest enthusiasm, was Brauner's favorite famous "Arbeit und Liebe und Heim!"

From that time forth Hilda began to look at Otto from a different point of view. And everything depends on point of view.

Then--the house in which Schwartz and Heilig had their shop was burned. And when their safe was drawn from the ruins, they found that their insurance had expired four days before the fire. It was Schwartz's business to look after the insurance, but Otto had never before failed to oversee. His mind had been in such confusion that he had forgotten.

He stared at the papers, stunned by the disaster. Schwartz wrung his hands and burst into tears. "I saw that you were in trouble," he wailed, "and that upset me. It's my fault. I've ruined us both."

There was nothing left of their business or capital, nothing but seven hundred dollars in debts to the importers of whom they bought.

Heilig shook off his stupor after a few minutes. "No matter," he said. "What's past is past."

He went straightway over to Second Avenue to the shop of Geishener, the largest delicatessen dealer in New York.

"I've been burned out," he explained. "I must get something to do."

Geishener offered him a place at eleven dollars a week. "I'll begin in the morning," said Otto. Then he went to Paul Brauner.

"When will you open up again?" asked Brauner.

"Not for a long time, several years. Everything's gone and I've taken a place with Geishener. I came to say that--that I can't marry your daughter."

Brauner did not know what answer to make. He liked Otto and had confidence in him. But the masses of the people build their little fortunes as coral insects build their islands. And Hilda was getting along--why, she would be twenty in four months. "I don't know. I don't know." Brauner rubbed his head in embarrassment and perplexity. "It's bad--very bad. And everything was running so smoothly."

Hilda came in. Both men looked at her guiltily. "What is it?" she asked. And if they had not been mere men they would have noticed a change in her face, a great change, very wonderful and beautiful to see.

"I came to release you," said Otto.

"I've got nothing left--and a lot of debts. I--"

"Yes--I know," interrupted Hilda. She went up to him and put her arm round his neck. "We'll have to begin at the bottom," she said with a gentle, cheerful smile.

Brauner pretended that he heard some one calling him from the shop. "Yes right away!" he shouted. And when he was alone in the shop he wiped his eyes, not before a large tear had blistered the top sheet of a pile of wrapping paper.

"I know you don't care for me as--as"--Otto was standing uneasily, his eyes down and his face red. "It was hard enough for you before. Now--I couldn't let you do it--dear."

"You can't get rid of me so easily," she said. "I know I'm getting along and I won't be an old maid."

He paid no attention to her raillery. "I haven't got anything to ask you to share," he went on. "I've been working ever since I was eleven--and that's fourteen years--to get what I had. And it's all gone. It'll take several years to pay off my debts, and mother must be supported. No--I've got to give it up."

"Won't you marry me, Otto?" She put her arms round his neck.

His lips trembled and his voice broke. "I can't--let you do it, Hilda."

"Very well." She pretended to sigh.

"But you must come back this evening. I want to ask you again."

"Yes, I'll come. But you can't change me."

He went, and she sat at the table, with her elbows on it and her face between her hands, until her father came in. Then she said: "We're going to be married next week. And I want two thousand dollars. We'll give you our note."

Brauner rubbed his face violently.

"We're going to start a delicatessen," she continued, "in the empty store where Bischoff was. It'll take two thousand dollars to start right."

"That's a good deal of money," objected her father.

"You only get three and a half per cent. in the savings bank," replied Hilda. "We'll give you six. You know it'll be safe--Otto and I together can't fail to do well."

Brauner reflected. "You can have the money," he said.

She went up the Avenue humming softly one of Heine's love songs, still with that wonderful, beautiful look in her eyes. She stopped at the tenement with the vacant store. The owner, old man Schulte, was sweeping the sidewalk. He had an income of fifteen thousand a year; but he held that he needed exercise, that sweeping was good exercise, and that it was stupid for a man, simply because he was rich, to stop taking exercise or to take it only in some form which had no useful side.

"Good morning," said Hilda. "What rent do you ask for this store?"

"Sixty dollars a month," answered the old man, continuing his sweeping. "Taxes are up, but rents are down."

"Not with you, I guess. Otto Heilig and I are going to get married and open a delicatessen. But sixty dollars a month is too much. Good morning." And she went on.

Schulte leaned on his broom. "What's your hurry?" he called. "You can't get as good a location as this."

Hilda turned, but seemed to be listening from politeness rather than from interest.

"We can't pay more than forty," she answered, starting on her way again.

"I might let you have it for fifty," Schulte called after her, "if you didn't want any fixing up."

"It'd have to be fixed up," said Hilda, halting again. "But I don't care much for the neighborhood. There are too many delicatessens here now."

She went on more rapidly and the old man resumed his sweeping, muttering crossly into his long, white beard. As she came down the other side of the street half an hour later, she was watching Schulte from the corner of her eye. He was leaning on his broom, watching her. Seeing that she was going to pass without stopping he called to her and went slowly across the street. "You would make good tenants," he said. "I had to sue Bischoff. You can have it for forty--if you'll pay for the changes you want--you really won't want any."

"I was looking at it early this morning," replied Hilda. "There'll have to be at least two hundred dollars spent. But then I've my eye on another place."

"Forty's no rent at all," grumbled the old man, pulling at his whiskers.

"I can get a store round in Seventh Street for thirty-five and that includes three rooms at the back. You've got only one room at the back."

"There's a kitchen, too," said Schulte.

"A kitchen? Oh, you mean that closet."

"I'll let you have it for forty, with fifty the second year."

"No, forty for two years. We can't pay more. We're just starting, and expenses must be kept down."

"Well, forty then. You are nice people--hard workers. I want to see you get on." The philanthropic old man returned to his sweeping. "Always the way, dealing with a woman," he growled into his beard. "They don't know the value of anything. Well, I'll get my money anyway, and that's a point."

She spent the day shopping and by half-past five had her arrangements almost completed. And she told every one about the coming marriage and the new shop and asked them to spread the news.

"We'll be open for business next Saturday a week," she said. "Give us a trial."

By nightfall Otto was receiving congratulations. He protested, denied, but people only smiled and winked. "You're not so sly as you think," they said. "No doubt she promised to keep it quiet, but you know how it is with a woman."

When he called at Brauner's at seven he was timid about going in. "They've heard the story," he said to himself, "and they must think I went crazy and told it."

She had been bold enough all day, but she was shy, now that the time had come to face him and confess--she had been a little shy with him underneath ever since she had suddenly awakened to the fact that he was a real hero--in spite of his keeping a shop just like everybody else and making no pretenses. He listened without a word.

"You can't back out now," she ended.

Still he was silent. "Are you angry at me?" she asked timidly.

He could not speak. He put his arms round her and pressed his face into her waving black hair. "MY Hilda," he said in a low voice. And she felt his blood beating very fast, and she understood.

"Arbeit und Liebe und Heim," she quoted slowly and softly.

X

MR. FEUERSTEIN IS CONSISTENT

The next day Mr. Feuerstein returned from exile. It is always disillusioning to inspect the unheroic details of the life of that favorite figure with romancers--the soldier of fortune. Of Mr. Feuerstein's six weeks in Hoboken it is enough to say that they were weeks of storm and stress--wretched lodgments in low boarding-houses, odd jobs at giving recitations in beer halls, undignified ejectments for drunkenness and failure to pay, borrowings which were removed from frank street-begging only in his imagination. He sank very low indeed, but it must be recorded to the credit of his consistency that he never even contemplated the idea of working for a living. And now here he was, back in New York, with Hoboken an exhausted field, with no resources, no hopes, no future that his brandy-soaked brain could discern.

His mane was still golden and bushy; but it was ragged and too long in front of the ears and also on his neck. His face still expressed insolence and vanity; but it had a certain tragic bitterness, as if it were trying to portray the emotions of a lofty spirit flinging defiance at destiny from a slough of despair. It was plain that he had been drinking heavily--the whites of his eyes were yellow and bloodshot, the muscles of his eyelids and mouth twitched disagreeably. His romantic hat and collar and graceful suit could endure with good countenance only the most casual glance of the eye.

Mr. Feuerstein had come to New York to perform a carefully-planned last act in his life-drama, one that would send the curtain down amid tears and plaudits for Mr. Feuerstein, the central figure, enwrapped in a somber and baleful blaze of glory. He had arranged everything except such details as must be left to the inspiration of the moment. He was impatient for the curtain to rise--besides, he had empty pockets and might be prevented from his climax by a vulgar arrest for vagrancy.

At one o'clock Hilda was in her father's shop alone. The rest of the family were at the midday dinner. As she bent over the counter, near the door, she was filling a sheet of wrapping paper with figures--calculations in connection with the new business. A shadow fell across her paper and she looked up. She shrank and clasped her hands tightly against her bosom. "Mr. Feuerstein!" she exclaimed in a low, agitated voice.

He stood silent, his face ghastly as if he were very ill. His eyes, sunk deep in blue-black sockets, burned into hers with an intensity that terrified her. She began slowly to retreat.

"Do not fly from me," he said in a hollow voice, leaning against the counter weakly. "I have come only for a moment. Then--you will see me never again!"

She paused and watched him. His expression, his tone, his words filled her with pity for him.

"You hate me," he went on. "You abhor me. It is just--just! Yet"--he looked at her with passionate sadness--"it was because I loved you that I deceived you. Because--I--loved you!"

"You must go away," said Hilda, pleading rather than commanding. "You've done me enough harm."

"I shall harm you no more." He drew himself up in gloomy majesty. "I have finished my life. I am bowing my farewell. Another instant, and I shall vanish into the everlasting night."

"That would be cowardly!" exclaimed Hilda. She was profoundly moved. "You have plenty to live for."

"Do you forgive me, Hilda?" He gave her one of his looks of tragic eloquence.

"Yes--I forgive you."

He misunderstood the gentleness of her voice. "She loves me still!" he said to himself. "We shall die together and our names will echo down the ages." He looked burningly at her and said: "I was mad--mad with love for you. And when I realized that I had lost you, I went down, down, down. God! What have I not suffered for your sake, Hilda!" As he talked he convinced himself, pictured himself to himself as having been drawn on by a passion such as had ruined many others of the great of earth.

"That's all past now." She spoke impatiently, irritated against herself because she was not hating him. "I don't care to hear any more of that kind of talk."

A customer came in, and while Hilda was busy Mr. Feuerstein went to the rear counter. On a chopping block lay a knife with a long, thin blade, ground to a fine edge and a sharp point. He began to play with it, and presently, with a sly, almost insane glance to assure himself that she was not seeing, slipped it into the right outside pocket of his coat. The customer left and he returned to the front of the shop and stood with just the breadth of the end of the narrow counter between him and her.

"It's all over for me," he began. "Your love has failed me. There is nothing left. I shall fling myself through the gates of death. I shall be forgotten. And you will live on and laugh and not remember that you ever had such love as mine."

Another customer entered. Mr. Feuerstein again went to the rear of the space outside the counters. "She loves me. She will gladly die with me," he muttered. "First into HER heart, then into mine, and we shall be at peace, dead, as lovers and heroes die!"

When they were again alone, he advanced and began to edge round the end of the counter. She was no longer looking at him, did not note his excitement, was thinking only of how to induce him to go. "Hilda," he said, "I have one last request--a dying man's request--"

The counter was no longer between them. He was within three feet of her. His right hand was in his coat pocket, grasping the knife. His eyes began to blaze and he nerved himself to seize her--

Both heard her father's voice in the hall leading to the sitting-room. "You must go," she cried, hastily retreating.

"Hilda," he pleaded rapidly, "there is something I must say to you. I can not say it here. Come over to Meinert's as soon as you can. I shall be in the sitting-room. Just for a moment, Hilda. It might save my life. If not that, it certainly would make my death happier."

Brauner was advancing into the shop and his lowering face warned Mr. Feuerstein not to linger. With a last, appealing look at Hilda he departed.

"What was HE doing here?" growled Brauner.

"He'd just come in," answered Hilda absently. "He won't bother us any more."

"If he comes again, don't speak to him," said Brauner in the commanding voice that sounded so fierce and meant so little. "Just call me or August."

Hilda could not thrust him out of her mind. His looks, his tones, his dramatic melancholy saddened her; and his last words rang in her ears. She no longer loved him; but she HAD loved him. She could not think of him as a stranger and an enemy--there might be truth in his plea that he had in some mysterious way fallen through love for her. She might be able to save him.

Almost mechanically she left the shop, went to Sixth Street and to the "family entrance" of Meinert's beer-garden. She went into the little anteroom and, with her hand on the swinging door leading to the sitting-room, paused like one waking from a dream.

"I must be crazy," she said half aloud. "He's a scoundrel and no good can come of my seeing him. What would Otto think of me? What am I doing here?" And she hastened away, hoping that no one had seen her.